The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed Friday that Mexican authorities believe a man with a rare human case of bird flu died from other co-morbidities, not the virus itself.
On June 5, the WHO reported that a 59-year-old patient in Mexico had died while infected with the H5N2 strain of bird flu, marking the first laboratory-confirmed human case of this strain globally.
This H5N2 strain differs from the bird flu strain currently affecting livestock in the United States, where three dairy workers have been infected but have all recovered.
Initially, Mexican Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer Varela disputed the WHO's statement, asserting that the man died from an unrelated condition. The WHO clarified that while the patient tested positive for bird flu, they had not claimed the virus was the cause of death.
In its latest update, the WHO stated that Mexican health officials concluded the man’s death was due to his co-morbidities.
Genetic analysis performed by Mexican authorities found a 99% similarity between the strain in the patient and the strain found in birds in Texcoco, Mexico, this year. The patient had no known history of exposure to poultry or other animals. Mexico has been experiencing an outbreak of bird flu in poultry.
The patient developed symptoms such as fever, nausea, diarrhea, shortness of breath, and general malaise on April 17. He was hospitalized on April 24 at the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases in Mexico City and died the same day. According to the WHO, the patient's relatives reported he had been bedridden for three weeks prior to contracting bird flu.
Mexican authorities reported this human case to the WHO on May 23. No further cases have been documented, and all contacts of the patient at home and in the hospital tested negative for influenza viruses.
In the U.S., an outbreak of the H5N1 strain has affected millions of birds and older dairy cows. Three farmworkers—one in Texas and two in Michigan—have been infected, all with mild symptoms, and have since recovered. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports no evidence of human-to-human transmission, and the risk to the general public remains low.
