By S @Adobe Stock
Lena H. Sun of The Washington Post reports that news of the infection comes the same day California officials declared a state of emergency to confront the outbreak spreading among dairy cows. Sun writes:
An individual in Louisiana has the first severe illness caused by bird flu in the United States, federal health officials said Wednesday.
The patient, who is hospitalized in critical condition, had been in contact with sick and dead birds in backyard flocks on their property, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. It’s the first case of H5N1 bird flu in the United States that has been linked to exposure to a backyard flock, and news of the infection comes the same day California officials declared a state of emergency to confront the outbreak spreading among dairy cows. […]
That version, or genotype, is different from the one that has been detected in dairy cows, some human cases and some poultry outbreaks in the United States, he said. The patient had no exposure to dairy cows, and state officials are monitoring contacts and offering antivirals if needed.
Public health officials are watching this case carefully because in all of the other 60 cases of bird flu illness in the United States, patients have experienced mild illness, such as pink eye, or mild respiratory symptoms. They have all fully recovered, Daskalakis said. A teen in Canada was hospitalized with an H5N1 infection, and in that case officials have not been able to identify the source of exposure. […]
For months, experts have warned that the longer the virus spreads among humans and animals, the greater the chance for mutations that make it more virulent and transmissible person to person. Scientists recently reported that it would take just a single mutation in the version of the bird flu that has swept through U.S. dairy herds to produce a virus adept at latching on to human cells, a much simpler step than previously imagined. […]
The Louisiana patient’s illness was detected as part of existing surveillance for influenza. The patient was tested, based on their symptoms. When test results showed influenza A, subsequent testing was performed and identified H5N1, which is a type of influenza A, Daskalakis said.
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