United States: A child in California has tested positive for bird flu, even though they didn’t have any kind of known contact with all the infected animals. The child had mild cold-like symptoms and is now recovering at home after being treated, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The CDPH said that although the patient reported no contact with an infected animal, the authorities are investigating a possible contact with wild birds.
Most importantly, “the positive test yielded lowest viral load and hence it as can be inferred that the child could not infect other individuals,” they emphasized. Bird flu testing that was repeated on the child four days later was negative, and other tests revealed that the child had respiratory viruses that could be causing the child’s cold and flu like symptoms.
As reported by the HealthDay, NorthShore is also awaiting more results as the test specimens are being taken to the CDC for confirmation.
Bird flu has affected poultry since 2022, and in dairy cows, the cases emerged in March. Last month a virus was identified in a pig for the first time.
Avian flu outbreaks in people — almost all of them in farm workers — are now verified from seven states and Oregon recently identified the first human case of bird flu this week.
California has recorded the highest number of human bird flu cases in the country; 27 other cases, say, excluding the one in Alameda County. According to the CDC, Washington has confirmed 11 cases while Colorado has 10 cases.
Last week alone, Canadian officials reported that a teenager in the British Columbia had to be admitted in a critical condition with what is presumed to be bird flu.
When the case was reported, the officials of the state said that the threat of the spread of the disease was significantly low.
“It is normal for people to worry while they need to know that based on facts and statistics available, CDPH does not believe that the child was contagious — and no human to human transmission of bird flu has been reported anywhere in the world for over 15 years,” responded the Director of CDPH, Dr. Tomás Aragón.