New Delhi — As a string of recent bird flu cases in U.S. cattle and poultry in several states draws warnings about the risks of possible widespread transmission to humans , India has had its second-ever human avian influenza infection confirmed by the World Health Organization.
The U.N. health agency confirmed that a suspected case, a 4-year-old child in the eastern state of West Bengal, was infected with the H9N2 avian flu virus.
India's first human avian flu case was confirmed in 2019. The cases in India involve a different bird flu virus than the one infecting animals and several people in the U.S.
, where it is the H5N1 strain spreading through herds. The 4-year-old Indian child was first diagnosed with hyperreactive airway disease, but he developed a fever and abdominal pain in the last week of January this year. A few days later, he developed seizures and his respiratory distress continued.
The fever got worse along with the abdominal cramps, and the child was admitted to a pediatric intensive care unit. The hospital diagnosed him with post-infectious bronchiolitis caused by viral pneumonia, and he later tested positive for influenza B and adenovirus, for which he underwent treatment for about a month before being discharged on February 28, the WHO said. His condition did not improve at home, however, and he was admitted to a different hospital on March 3.
Nasal swabs confirmed an influenza infection, which the WHO has now confirmed as influenza-A sub-type H9N2, the av.
