California appears to be the new epicenter for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI or “bird flu”), as dairy workers at herds impacted by the pathogen are now becoming infected.
California is investigating five possible human cases of bird flu among dairy farm workers, in addition to the six cases previously confirmed in the state, the state health department said on Monday.Bird flu has spread to 100 dairies in California and 300 nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There have been 19 confirmed human cases this year among farm workers exposed to sick poultry or dairy, including the six confirmed cases in California this month.The risk to the general public from bird flu remains low and pasteurized dairy products are safe to consume, federal officials have said.Specimens from the five possible cases are being sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for confirmation and are expected to arrive early this week, said the California Department of Public Health.
Once again, those with confirmed infections suffered mainly from ‘pink eye.’
As in prior confirmed cases, all six people worked in the state’s agricultural Central Valley and were in contact with infected dairy cattle, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an update Friday. All people identified with the infection in California have had mild symptoms including eye redness or discharge. None has been hospitalized.California officials said the risk to the general public remains low, however, people who “interact with infected animals are at higher risk of getting bird flu.”There are no known links between the six confirmed cases, which suggests there is widespread transmission among dairy herds and the infected cattle pose risks to people working near them.One of the newly identified people who is infected worked on the same farm as a previously infected person, but the two people worked in different areas of the facility and were not in close contact, the CDC said.
All the confirmed cases of bird flu are among dairy workers on affected farms who had close contact with infected cattle. As with COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says that “close contact” means being within six feet.
“CDC has advised us they’re seeing with evidence from prior cases that transmission from animal to person can occur in airborne or respiratory droplets, being within that six feet of an infected animal.“It can occur with touching fecal matter or touching the animal itself, or touching equipment that there may be virus material on, and a person could touch that and then touch their face, and transmission can occur that way,” she said. “Another way that it can occur is through the milk. They see traces of the virus in milk, so if someone is milking a cow and some of that milk splashes or it touches their hands, and then they touch their face, transmission can occur.Although there can be virus material in the milk, pasteurization has been proven to inactivate that virus material, so the milk supply is safe to drink for consumers, Monteiro said.“We encourage everyone to drink pasteurized milk,” she added. Additionally, the milk of sick cows is not going into the consumer milk supply.
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