According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a person in Louisiana was admitted to the hospital after contracting bird flu, the nation’s first serious human H5N1 illness.
According to Louisiana Health Department spokesperson Emma Herrock, “the patient is presently hospitalized in critical condition and is experiencing severe respiratory illness related to H5N1 infection.”
This would be the first time a backyard flock has been linked to a bird flu illness in a U.S. citizen, according to the CDC, which also stated that the patient was most likely exposed to the virus via the flock.
During a briefing Wednesday, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, stated, “It is thought that the patient that was reported by Louisiana had exposure to sick or dead birds on their property, even though an investigation into the source of this infection in Louisiana is ongoing.”
Louisiana reported the case as a suspected positive on Friday, and CDC laboratory testing subsequently confirmed it.
The Health Department is investigating, keeping an eye on the patient’s contacts for exposure, and providing tests and antiviral medicine when required, Daskalakis said.
According to Herrock, the patient had underlying medical issues and was over 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. Farmworkers exposed to the virus through contact with infected cattle or poultry have been reported to have the majority of mild cases in humans. In past occurrences, 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.
“Dairy and poultry workers have been our focus, but handling dead birds in your backyard is an emerging risk,” he stated.
Daskalakis stated that in order to better understand whether the virus has evolved any alarming changes that might enable it to move from person to person, the CDC is currently attempting to further define the virus’ genome.
According to preliminary evidence in the Louisiana instance, 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 youngster in British Columbia was admitted to the hospital after catching the same bird flu virus genotype. 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 animals. 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 may 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 far, 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 was in a Missouri hospitalized patient 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 illness.
Health authorities 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.”
