{"id":11777,"date":"2026-04-01T18:46:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11777"},"modified":"2026-04-01T18:46:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:46:39","slug":"first-european-case-of-h9n2-bird-flu-reported-in-italy-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/04\/01\/first-european-case-of-h9n2-bird-flu-reported-in-italy-what-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"First European case of H9N2 bird flu reported in Italy \u2013 what you need to\u00a0know"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/first-european-case-of-h9n2-bird-flu-reported-in-italy-what-you-need-to-know-279574\">The Conversation<\/a> The first human case of H9N2 influenza virus (bird flu) has been reported in Europe. A human infection was recorded by the Italian Ministry of Health on March 25, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/topics\/influenza-415\">influenza<\/a>&nbsp;virologist, I can explain what this means and why I am not particularly worried by it \u2013 yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What do we know about this case?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The patient was infected&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salute.gov.it\/new\/it\/comunicato-stampa\/virus-influenzale-h9n2-identificato-caso-lombardia-attivate-le-ordinarie\/\">outside of Europe<\/a>&nbsp;before travelling to the Lombardy region of northern Italy. Lombardy\u2019s welfare councillor Guido Bertolaso&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.ilsole24ore.com\/art\/avian-influenza-lombardy-first-human-case-europe-returned-africa-heres-what-to-know-AIWVth9B\">has reported<\/a>&nbsp;that the patient is a boy with underlying health conditions who was diagnosed after returning from a visit to Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fortunately, his infection hasn\u2019t made him seriously unwell, but he has been placed in hospital isolation in the San Gerardo hospital in Monza. Italian public health authorities diagnosed H9N2 influenza virus infection using laboratory tests that detect the virus\u2019s genetic material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/first-european-case-of-h9n2-bird-flu-reported-in-italy-what-you-need-to-know-279574\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\"V cvG Y R j\"><!-- V cvG Y R j --><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conversation The first human case of H9N2 influenza virus (bird flu) has been reported in Europe. A human infection was recorded by the Italian Ministry of Health on March 25, 2026. As an&nbsp;influenza&nbsp;virologist, I can explain what this means and why I am not particularly worried by it \u2013 yet. What do we know [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avian-influenza","category-featured-headlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11778,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11777\/revisions\/11778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}