The alarm has been raised after a Mexican man was found to have died from a completely new strain of bird flu . The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that the patient had been hospitalised in Mexico City with the H5N2 strain of the disease, before dying due to complications from the condition. A WHO spokesperson said: “This is the first laboratory-confirmed human case of infection with an influenza A(H5N2) virus reported globally, and the first A(H5) virus infection in a person reported in Mexico .
The case had multiple underlying conditions, and the investigation by the health authorities in Mexico is ongoing to determine the likely source of exposure to the virus.” Brits have been reminded to keep an eye out for symptoms of the disease. Avian flu is an infectious form of the virus which spreads among birds, and in rare cases can also affect humans.
A number of strains of bird flu have caused concern in recent years, but the H5N2 strain, which the patient in Mexico died from, had never been previously seen in humans. Professor Sir Peter Horby, Director of the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford, said: “Any human infection with a novel animal influenza virus requires careful investigation and assessment, but we must remember that more than 900 human cases of infection with influenza A/H5N1 have been reported since 1997. “Although this new case is rather unusual in that it is the first known human infection with H5N.
