Russia reports first case of human infection with H5N8 bird flu

Health watchdog says the cases were discovered at a poultry farm in southern Russia in December.

Russia has registered the first case of a strain of bird flu virus named AH5N8 being passed to humans from birds and has reported the case to the World Health Organization (WHO), the head of a health consumer watchdog said. Outbreaks of the H5N8 strain have been reported in Russia, Europe, China, the Middle East and North Africa in recent months but only in poultry. Other strains – H5N1, H7N9 and H9N2 – have been known to spread to humans. Russia reported the case to the WHO “several days ago, just as we became absolutely certain of our results,” Anna Popova, the head of health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, told Rossiya 24 state TV on Saturday. There was no sign of transmission between humans so far, she added.