Chile has registered its first human case of bird flu, the Ministry of Health said.

Bird flu has been registered in a 53-year-old man with severe flu symptoms, but he is in a stable condition, the ministry said in a statement.

The government is investigating the source of the infection and other people who were in contact with the patient. Chile has seen cases of bird flu, H5N1, in wild animals in the past year.

Recent cases of industrial farms have forced the government to stop the export of poultry. The same cases have been reported on poultry farms in Argentina, but in Brazil, the largest exporter of poultry, no such case has been registered so far.

Chilean health officials point out that the virus can be transmitted from birds or marine mammals to humans, but there is no known case of human-to-human transmission of the virus.

At the beginning of the year, Ecuador confirmed the first case of human transmission of bird flu in a nine-year-old girl.

Global health officials say human-to-human transmission of the virus is very low, but vaccine manufacturers are already preparing bird flu shots for humans "just in case."