Mexico reports first human case of H5N1 bird flu

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has detected its first human case of H5N1 avian influenza, also known as bird flu, the health ministry said on Friday.

The infection was confirmed on Tuesday in a three-year-old girl living in the northern state of Durango, who remains hospitalized in serious condition.

"So far there is no evidence of sustained person-to-person transmission," the health ministry said in a statement, adding that the World Health Organization (WHO) considers the public health risks of the virus to the general population to be low.

A particularly severe variant of the H5N1 strain has been spreading around the world in animals since 2020, causing lethal outbreaks in commercial poultry and sporadic infections in other species from alpacas to house cats. Last year, it was detected in cows for the first time.

Durango's economy is heavily reliant on agriculture, primarily its cattle industry.

Last year, the WHO reported Mexico's first laboratory-confirmed human case of infection with the A(H5N2) bird flu in a person who had no known exposure to animals and later died of chronic illness.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Boyle; editing by Cassandra Garrison)