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The first case of human-to-human transmission of avian influenza virus has been registered
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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British scientists have informed the world of the first known case of bird flu being transmitted not from an animal to a human, but from a human to a human. A British popular science magazine reported that a 32-year-old woman in China had contracted bird flu while interacting with her sick father.
At this point, doctors have established that the elderly Chinese man was a carrier of a known strain of bird flu (H7N9), but until now there have been no cases of human-to-human transmission of the virus. Over the course of several decades, doctors have recorded about three hundred cases of human infection after direct contact with animals, and most of them have proven fatal.
Bird flu, also known as classic bird plague, is an acute infectious disease that simultaneously affects the digestive and respiratory systems. Medicine knows a large number of strains (varieties) of bird flu, many of which are dangerous to any living organism.
Bird flu was first described at the end of the nineteenth century, when a famous Italian veterinarian reported to the medical press a new disease that had affected a large number of poultry in the vicinity of Turin (northwest Italy). The first human infection was recorded in China (Hong Kong) at the end of the twentieth century, when an epidemic of bird flu was observed throughout China. Doctors found that the disease could be transmitted from birds to humans, plus, bird flu pandemics, which arose as a result of mutations of various viruses, were practically untreatable, since humans had no immunity to viruses that were new to them. Data from the World Health Organization indicate that out of 360 cases of human infection with bird flu, 275 were fatal.
This year, the British press reported the first case of bird flu infection from person to person. Chinese doctors recorded the fact of an adult woman being infected by her sick father, who visited a bird market a week before being hospitalized. The woman was caring for her father and was also hospitalized a few days later. The disease developed rapidly and doctors were unable to save both residents of China: a few days later, the woman and her father died in the intensive care unit from dysfunction of internal organs. Tests confirmed the fact that the woman was infected by her sick father, and not by other sources of flu. On the other hand, none of the other people who had contact with the sick people over the course of two weeks were infected.
At this point, researchers are calling the case a "possible case of human-to-human transmission of avian influenza." All the evidence suggests that human infection did occur, but since similar cases have not been previously recorded, doctors cannot say for sure that the infection actually occurred under known conditions.
British scientists are confident that the case registered in China should prompt doctors to more thoroughly study strains of bird flu and its possible impact on the human body.