Australia has reported its first human case of the H5N1 avian influenza in a child who recently returned from India.
The case marks the first time the highly pathogenic strain of bird flu, which has killed millions of birds and mammals since it began circulating in 2020, has been detected on the continent.
The child contracted the virus in India in March of this year – likely through contact with a sick bird – and experienced a “severe infection,” but has since made a full recovery, according to local health authorities.
Officials said contact tracing has not identified any further infections and that the risk of transmission to others was “very low”, as the virus has not yet shown evidence that it can spread between people.
The Department of Health in the Australian state of Victoria, where the human case was identified, are also responding to an outbreak of avian influenza at a poultry farm but has said that it is an unrelated incident.
Although H5N1 infections in people are rare, the highly pathogenic virus carries an alarmingly high mortality rate. Of the 800 cases reported since the late 1990s, roughly 50 per cent resulted in death.
