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An elderly resident of Washington state has been hospitalised with bird flu, the Washington State Health Department said, adding that the patient is infected with a strain of the virus that has not previously been detected in humans.

US broadcaster CNN, which first reported the development, said this is the first human case of bird flu recorded in the United States in nine months. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has maintained that the overall risk to the general public remains low.

However, Dr Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds, cautioned that the virus still has “pandemic potential".

The patient from Grays Harbor County has been recei

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