Hyun Chang/Media News Group/Denver Post/Getty Images/File
Colorado health officials have identified a human case of avian influenza in the state that is linked to an ongoing outbreak in dairy cows. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
CNN
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A fourth person in the United States has tested positive for H5 avian influenza, linked to an outbreak in dairy cows across the country.
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Announced State officials on Wednesday announced the state’s first confirmed human case of H5 avian influenza linked to a multistate outbreak of the virus in dairy cows. The case marks the fourth confirmed in the state linked to the ongoing outbreak. Two human cases have been reported in Michigan and one in Texas.
More than a quarter of Colorado’s dairy farms have reported cases of avian flu, according to data from the Colorado Department of Health. As of Wednesday, the federal government data Seven states have confirmed cases in the past 30 days, with 40% of those cases in Colorado, the highest rate of any other state.
The Colorado patient had mild symptoms, limited to conjunctivitis or pink eye, and worked on a dairy farm in northeastern Colorado where he had direct contact with dairy cows infected with avian flu, according to state health officials.
After testing positive, the man was quickly treated with the antiviral drug oseltamivir and has since recovered, according to the state health department.
“The risk to most humans remains low. Avian influenza viruses are currently circulating among animals but have not adapted for human-to-human transmission. The most important thing to remember at this time is that people who regularly come into contact with infected animals are at higher risk for infection and should take precautions when in contact with sick animals,” Dr. Rachel Herlihy, state epidemiologist for CDPHE, said in Wednesday’s announcement. Colorado H5N1 in 2022 People who have had contact with infected poultry.
In this outbreak linked to infected dairy cows, the first two confirmed human cases in the United States also reported eye-related symptoms and eye infection or conjunctivitis. The third human case in the United States: Increased respiratory symptomsSymptoms include coughing, stuffy nose, sore throat and watery eyes. The three people had no contact with each other, but all worked with cattle, suggesting this may be a case of cattle-to-human transmission of the virus.
At the national level, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it continues to closely monitor the situation, including using its influenza surveillance system to monitor H5N1 activity in humans. On Wednesday, the CDC said the human cases in Colorado “do not change CDC’s current health risk assessment of H5N1 avian influenza to the U.S. general public, which the agency considers the risk to be low.”
However, this incident Recommended precautions According to the CDC, the risk of infection is low for “people who have had contact with infected animals. People who have close or prolonged unprotected contact with infected birds or other animals (including livestock) or environments contaminated by infected birds or other animals are at higher risk.”
The CDC has repeatedly Recommended Dairy workers are required to wear personal protective equipment to reduce their risk, and the USDA is providing financial assistance to farms with infected animals to protect workers. Research is ongoing into how the disease spreads from cow to cow and from cows to people who work with them.
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CDC officials said Tuesday that the U.S. has enough H5 avian flu tests to deal with the current outbreak.
“The public health system has sufficient H5-specific tests for this outbreak. Currently, we have approximately 750,000 H5-specific tests available, with an additional 1.2 million tests expected to become available over the next two to three months,” CDC Principal Deputy Director Dr. Nirav Shah said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“This is in addition to having an ample supply of influenza A tests, which are common tests available in doctor’s offices across the country,” Shah said. “The way we have a system is that if an influenza A test comes back positive in a doctor’s office, the sample is sent to a public health laboratory for what’s called subtyping, which tells us whether the influenza A virus is a common seasonal virus or an uncommon virus like H5N1. This subtyping happens more often than you might think.”