Seven workers at a poultry farm in southern Russia were the first to catch the H5N8 strain of bird flu in humans.
Russia has told the World Health Organization that the virus is not yet spreading among people, Anna Popova, the country’s head of public health, said on Saturday, Bloomberg reported. All farm workers had asymptomatic cases and recovered, she said.
The strain was first reported in November, found in 15 Russian regions, both among birds and wild birds. At first it was not considered dangerous to humans.
“It is not transmitted from person to person,” Popova said. “Only time will tell how soon future mutations will allow him to overcome this barrier.” The world has a chance to prepare for possible mutations and respond in a timely manner to develop tests and vaccines for the strain, she said.
The Siberian Vector Institute said on Saturday it would begin developing human tests and a vaccine against H5N8, the RIA news agency reported.
The WHO acknowledged that it had received the information from Russia. “We are in talks with national authorities to gather more information and assess the impact of this event on public health,” the organization said in an email to Reuters.
H5N8 was also found in France, where hundreds of thousands of birds were slaughtered last month to prevent the spread. It was also behind the worst outbreak of bird flu in Japan in late 2020 and has been found in China, the Middle East and North Africa in recent months, but so far only in birds.