The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed the child who contracted Australia’s first human case of a “severe” subtype of bird flu was likely exposed during a trip to India last month.
The WHO said on Friday, local time, that genetic sequencing showed the avian influenza virus was H5N1 — a strain that circulates in South-East Asia and has been detected in previous human infections and in poultry.
“Although the source of exposure to the virus in this case is currently unknown, the exposure likely occurred in India, where the case had travelled, and where this clade of A(H5N1) viruses has been detected in birds in the past,” it said in a statement.