Emergence of a young case infected with avian influenza A (H5N6) in Anhui Province, East China during the COVID‐19 pandemic

In the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, we investigated the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of a young patient infected by avian influenza A (H5N6) virus in Anhui Province, East China, and analyzed genomic features of the pathogen in 2020. Through the cross‐sectional investigation of external environment monitoring (December 29–31, 2020), 1909 samples were collected from Fuyang City. It was found that the positive rate of H5N6 was higher than other areas obviously in Tianma poultry market, where the case appeared. In addition, dual coinfections were detected with a 0.057% polymerase chain reaction positive rate the surveillance years. The virus was the clade 2.3.4.4, which was most likely formed by genetic reassortment between H5N6 and H9N2 viruses. This study found that the evolution rates of the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase genes of the virus were higher than those of common seasonal influenza viruses. The virus was still highly pathogenic to poultry and had a preference for avian receptor binding.
Highlights Various avian influenza virus (AIV) subtypes naturally have caused zoonotic infections, but the subtypes H5N1 and H7N9 have caused a prominent impact.At present, the outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia (coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID‐19]) has caused a worldwide pandemic.To our knowledge, this is the youngest child infected with H5N6 subtype avian influenza in Anhui Province.Herein, we analyzed the epidemiology of the case and the characteristics of the pathogen genome, to find out the possible evolution of the virus.