2024-12-18 18:11:00
The United States has seen dozens of them now cases of human bird flu this yearall mild – so far.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on Wednesday that a patient in Louisiana has been hospitalized with a serious case of bird flu, caused by the H5N1 virus. This marks the first case of serious illness linked to the virus in the US.
The virus has decimated poultry flocks and wild birds across the country, infecting more than 800 dairy farms in 16 states. Infected animals spread the virus to people who come into contact with them. Since April, the US has a total of 61 reported cases of bird flu in humans in eight states. Of those, 37 were exposed to sick or infected dairy cows, while 21 were exposed to poultry farms and culling operations. In those cases, people developed conjunctivitis and mild respiratory symptoms and recovered completely.
A severe case is significant because bird flu has previously been linked to serious illness in other countries, including outbreaks that led to death in as many as 50 percent of cases. Of the 878 people who tested positive for the virus between 2003 and 2023, 458 deaths were reported.
An investigation by the Louisiana Department of Health and the CDC determined that the hospitalized patient, a resident of southwest Louisiana, had been exposed to sick and dead birds in backyard flocks. This is the first case of H5N1 bird flu in the U.S. linked to exposure in a backyard flock. rather than a commercial farm.
“While an investigation into the source of this infection in Louisiana is ongoing, it is believed that the patient reported by Louisiana was exposed to sick or dead birds on their property,” said Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization the CDC. and respiratory diseases, during a press conference on Wednesday. No other details were available about the source of exposure or the patient’s condition.
A person with bird flu in Missouri was hospitalized in late August, but CDC officials say it was due to underlying medical conditions. The patient had no respiratory symptoms and was not seriously ill from the infection. “In the case of Missouri, we don’t really have the same kind of data to support that it was related to their flu infection,” Daskalakis said.
There are genetic similarities between the virus from the Louisiana patient and the virus from a teenager in Canada who was hospitalized with H5N1. Scientists have categorized the virus in Louisiana as type D1.1, the same type found in the Canadian patient and another case from Washington state. This variant has also been found in wild birds and poultry in the US.
This differs from the B3.13 type, which has been found in dairy cows, in some poultry outbreaks and in sporadic human cases in multiple states. CDC scientists are conducting additional genomic sequencing of the Louisiana patient’s viral sample. Genomic sequencing could potentially identify changes in the virus that could indicate an increased ability to infect humans or be transmitted from person to person.
To date, no person-to-person spread of H5N1 bird flu has been observed. The CDC says the immediate risk to public health remains low, but people with work or recreational exposure to infected animals are at greater risk of becoming infected with the virus. “This means backyard flock owners, hunters and other bird enthusiasts should also take precautions,” the agency said in a statement.
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