A man from Mexico has died from a rare bird flu variant, said to have never been diagnosed in humans, called H5N2 virus. The UN body, WHO confirmed the information on Wednesday, June 5.
The source of his infection has not yet been identified, although N5H2 has been reported in poultry in Mexico. The 59 year old resident of Mexico, hospitalized at National Institute of respiratory Diseases in Mexico City was found to have no history of exposure to poultry animals. The patient had been suffering from underlying medical conditions and had been bed-ridden for three weeks before developing acute symptoms.
Results from Real Time Polymerase Chain reaction his respiratory sample indicated a non-subtypeable Influenza A virus. After sequencing at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Emerging Diseases Center for Research in Infectious Diseases, the sample tested positive for Influenza A H5N2.
H5N2 outbreaks in Mexico’s poultry
In March 2024, a high pathogenicity avian influenza A(H5N2) outbreak was detected in a backyard poultry farm in the state of Michoacán, which borders the State of Mexico where the case was residing
Additionally, in March 2024, an outbreak of low pathogenicity avian influenza (LPAI) A(H5N2) was identified in poultry in Texcoco, State of Mexico, and a second outbreak of LPAI A(H5N2) in April in the municipality of Temascalapa in the same state.
A study describing the continuous circulation of low pathogenicity avian influenza H5N2 viruses in Mexico and spread to several other countries was published in 2022.
Also Read: San Francisco’s Corral Wildfire under control
Risk assessment
Sporadic human cases linked to influenza A virus are not unexpected, sometimes infections can be transmissioned via the consumption of an already infected poultry animal acting as a virus carrier. Other H5 subtype cases such as A(H5N1), A(H5N6) and A(H5N8) viruses have been reported in humans previously. But available epidemiological and virological evidence suggests that these infections have not acquired the ability to sustain transmission between humans, thus the likelihood of it turning into a mass infection is low.
So far, no specific vaccinations have been developed to prevent Influenza A(H5) virus infections in humans. However, candidate vaccines to prevent A(H5) infection in humans have been developed for pandemic preparedness purposes.
