The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that a person in Louisiana was hospitalized with avian flu, the nation’s first serious human H5N1 illness.
According to Louisiana Department of Health spokeswoman Emma Herrock, the patient is in serious condition at the hospital and is suffering from a severe respiratory sickness linked to an H5N1 infection.
This would be the first time a backyard flock has been linked to a bird flu infection in a U.S. resident, according to the CDC, which also stated that the patient was most likely exposed to the virus from the flock.
During a briefing on Wednesday, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, stated that although an investigation is still underway to determine the origin of this infection in Louisiana, it is thought that the patient who was reported by Louisiana had contact with sick or dead birds on their property.
Louisiana reported the case as a probable positive on Friday, and CDC laboratory testing later verified the results.
The Louisiana Department of Health, according to Daskalakis, is investigating, keeping an eye on the patient’s contacts for exposure, and providing tests and antiviral medicine as required.
According to Herrock, the patient has underlying medical issues and is older than 65. She didn’t respond to inquiries concerning the backyard flock or the patient’s complaints.
There have been 61 human cases of avian influenza recorded in the US this year. On Wednesday, Wisconsin officials said that they had found another likely case in a person who had come into contact with sick animals at a commercial poultry facility. The CDC has not yet confirmed that case.
There is currently no evidence of avian flu spreading from person to person. The majority of human cases have been mild and have been identified in farmworkers who have come into contact with infected animals or poultry. In past cases, sneezing, coughing, and pinkeye were common symptoms.
The Louisiana instance underscores the dangers of exposure outside of farms, according to Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a medical professor who specializes in infectious illnesses at the University of California San Francisco.
He stated that while handling dead birds in your garden is a growing issue, we have been concentrating on dairy and poultry workers.
According to Daskalakis, the CDC is currently attempting to further characterize the virus’s DNA so that scientists can determine whether it has undergone any alarming alterations that could enable it to transmit from person to person.
According to preliminary evidence in the Louisiana case, the virus that is causing the sickness is comparable to the strain that has been circulating in wild poultry and birds in Washington state and British Columbia, Canada.
In November, a teenager in British Columbia was admitted to the hospital after catching the same strain of the bird flu virus. The source of the teen’s sickness was not identified by Canadian health officials.
“What this illustrates is people can get really sick from bird flu, and to me it s related to the case in British Columbia,” said Chin-Hong. “These patients are both united by the same variant.”
The CDC stated that the revelation has no bearing on its evaluation of the immediate public health danger posed by H5N1, which it maintains is “low.”
In 2022, H5N1 started to spread significantly among wild birds in the United States before moving on to backyard flocks and poultry farms. The CDC estimates that since 2022, the virus has killed or euthanized at least 123 million birds.
Since avian flu started to spread among dairy cows this spring, the virus has been found in animals in at least 16 states.
Studies conducted on dairy farms have demonstrated that the virus may effectively propagate among mammals. Because infected cows shed enormous amounts of the virus through their mammary glands, scientists have discovered that it most likely travels between farm animals through raw milk.
Scientists are worried that the virus might evolve and acquire the ability to move between people, even though there is no proof of this happening. This might trigger the next pandemic.
To date, there have been two instances in the United States when health officials were unable to identify the source of an individual’s bird flu exposure. One was a November report of an illness in a toddler from California. The other included a hospitalized patient in Missouri who recovered after testing positive for H5N1 in August.
Daskalakis stated that because the Missouri patient’s hospitalization was probably due to other circumstances, the CDC views the Louisiana case as the first severe H5N1 infection.
Health officials in Delaware also announced this week that a person who had no known contact with animals or poultry had contracted H5N1. However, Daskalakis stated that the CDC testing findings were unable to determine that the virus was H5N1, and the case is classified as “probable.”
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