H10N8 中國發現新型禽流感病毒

A lethal new strain of bird flu has emerged in China. The H10N8 virus killed a 73-year-old woman in Nanchang City, according to a case report in the Lancet on Wednesday.

一種致命的新型禽流感病毒已在中國出現。《柳葉刀》(Lancet)週三發表的一篇病例報告稱，H10N8禽流感病毒已導致南昌市一名73歲的婦女死亡。

Mingbin Liu from Nanchang City Centre for Disease Control and Prevention told the journal that the pandemic potential of this new strain should not be underestimated.

南昌市疾病預防控制中心的劉明斌告訴記者，不應低估這種新病毒引爆疫情的潛力。

“A second case of H10N8 was identified in Jiangxi Province on January 26,” he said. “This is of great concern because it reveals that the H10N8 virus has continued to circulate and may cause more human infections in future.”

“1月26日，江西省確診了H10N8的第二個病例，”他表示。“這令人高度關注，因爲它顯示H10N8病毒仍在繼續傳播，可能在未來感染更多人。”

The two H10N8 infections both followed contact with live poultry, suggesting that the virus moved into its human victims directly from birds, although this has not been confirmed.

兩個H10N8病例均發生在接觸活禽之後，似乎表明病毒是從禽類直接進入受害者體內，儘管這一點尚未得到證實。

Western specialists said that, while the emergence of another flu variant capable of killing people was a concern, they were more worried by the H7N9 strain that emerged in China last spring.

西方專家表示，儘管出現又一種能夠殺死人的禽流感病毒令人擔憂，但他們更擔心去年春天在中國出現的H7N9病毒。

The World Health Organisation is reporting five to 10 new cases daily of H7N9, although “so far there is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission,” it says. Sustained transmission between people could lead to a new flu pandemic.

世界衛生組織(WHO)目前每天報告5至10個H7N9新病例，儘管該組織表示，“迄今沒有持續人傳人的證據”。人與人之間持續傳播可能導致一場新的流感疫情。

“It is not clear how serious H10N8 would be in a young healthy person,” said Wendy Barclay, professor of influenza virology at Imperial College London. “The [genetic] sequence details given in the paper are quite reassuring: there is no obvious clue that the virus is specially adapted to humans.”

“尚不清楚H10N8如果進入健康的年輕人體內會有多嚴重，”倫敦帝國學院(Imperial College London)流感病毒學教授溫迪•巴克利(Wendy Barclay)表示。“文中給出的（遺傳）序列細節相當令人寬慰：沒有明顯的線索表明，病毒已出現專門針對人類的變化。”

Jeremy Farrar, flu expert and director of the Wellcome Trust, pointed out that the world has become much better recently at surveillance and at sharing information on emerging infections. “It is highly unlikely this event would even have been noticed or reported just a few years ago,” he said.

流感專家、維康信託(Wellcome Trust)基金會主任傑里米•法勒(Jeremy Farrar)指出，近年世界在監測和分享關於新型感染的信息方面已有大幅改進。“就在幾年前，這起事件也不太可能得到注意或報道，”他表示。

“But we do not understand what causes pathogens to cross into humans, cause disease and become transmissible,” Dr Farrar added. “As a result we cannot judge how worrying an individual event is and therefore have to worry about them all.”

“但我們不知道是什麼原因導致病原體跨越物種界限，進入人體，引發疾病並變得具有傳染性，”法勒醫生補充說。“因此我們無法判斷孤立事件有多麼值得憂慮，因此對所有此類事件都應保持擔心。”

Prof Barclay pointed out that the three avian influenza viruses that are currently a focus of attention – H5N1, H7N9 and H10N8 – “are not the only ones out there being picked up. An H6N1 virus infected a woman in Taiwan last year, and H9N2 viruses have occasionally also infected people in recent years,” she said.

巴克利教授指出，目前各方關注的三種禽流感病毒——H5N1、H7N9和H10N8——“不是僅有的感染人的禽流感病毒。去年臺灣有一名婦女感染H6N1病毒，近年H9N2病毒偶爾也會感染人，”她表示。