Russia on Saturday announced the first case of transmission of the H5N8 bird flu strain to humans and had alerted the World Health Organization.
The highly contagious strain is lethal for birds but has never before been reported to have spread to humans.
Scientists at Russia’s Vektor laboratory isolated the genetic material of the strain from seven workers of a poultry farm, where an outbreak was recorded among the birds in December.
The workers did not suffer any serious health consequences.
