H3N8 bird flu claims its first human with the death of a woman in China

A 56-year-old woman in China has died after contracting H3N8 bird flu, the first known fatality in a human from this strain of avian influenza. 

While H3N8 is “one of the most frequently found” subtypes of flu found in birds, the woman is only the third person known to have caught the virus and the first to have died.

Two young boys were infected with the same virus in unrelated cases in China last year, but both survived.