Russia Reports World’s First Case of Human Infection With H5N8 Bird Flu

A veterinarian inoculates a hen against the bird flu virus in a private hen-coop in a village of Konstantinovo, some 25 miles outside Moscow, on Feb. 21, 2007. Dina Korotayev/AFP via Getty Images

MOSCOW—Russia has registered the first case of a strain of bird flu virus named A(H5N8) being passed to humans from birds and has reported the matter to the World Health Organization (WHO), Anna Popova, head of consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said on Saturday.

Outbreaks of the H5N8 strain have been reported in Russia, Europe, China, the Middle East, and North Africa in recent months but so far only in poultry. Other strains - H5N1, H7N9, and H9N2 - have been known to spread to humans.