Russia has reported the world's first few cases of the H5N8 strain of bird flu being passed from birds to humans.

According to Reuters, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has since been informed about the incident, head of Russian consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said on Feb. 20.

WHO acknowledged incident

The virus was detected in seven workers on a poultry farm in southern Russia.

The outbreak first occurred among the birds there in December. The affected workers had mild cases of bird flu, and have since recovered, Bloomberg reported.

WHO said in a statement that they "are in discussion with national authorities to gather more information and assess the public health impact of this event," according to Reuters.

They stated that the virus was asymptomatic and that there was "no onward human-to-human transmission" reported.

WHO also said that if confirmed, this would be the first time the H5N8 strain had infected people.

Thus far, the H5N8 strain has only been reported in poultry in areas like Russia, China and Europe.

Popova said:

"It is not transmitted from person to person. But only time will tell how soon future mutations will allow it to overcome this barrier."

She added that the discovery of this strain gave the world time to prepare for possible mutations and develop vaccines in a "timely" manner.

H5N1 most common strain of bird flu

There are several strains of bird flu, the most well-known of these being the H5N1 strain.

According to WHO, H5N1 occasionally occurs in humans, and although it is difficult for the virus to transmit from person to person, its mortality rate is 60 per cent.

A person typically gets infected by H5N1 by being in close contact with infected live or dead birds.

As the virus is sensitive to heat, the virus will be killed if infected poultry and game birds are cooked properly.

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