CA Health Dept. Reports a Child Tested Positive for Highly Pathogenic Bird Flu Strain
Meanwhile, The New York Times is scare-reporting on the US response.
In our most recent reports on the “bird flu,” California now appears to be the new epicenter for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), as several of the state’s dairy workers at herds impacted by the pathogen became infected.
The symptoms of infection in all these cases were mild and included the “pink eye” associated with this strain of influenza when infection occurs in humans.
Now the state’s public health officials report that a child has tested positive for this bird flu strain.
California’s public health department reported a possible case of bird flu in a child with mild respiratory symptoms on Tuesday, but said there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus and that the child’s family members tested negative.
California officials said they have sent test specimens from the child to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for confirmation.
A CDC spokesperson said the agency is aware of the presumptive positive case of H5 avian influenza, is collaborating with the state’s investigation, and will provide further updates promptly. The agency has said the risk to the general public remains low.
Although human infections in the United States have been rare, bird flu has infected 53 people since April, according to the CDC, most recently a person in Oregon last week tied to a bird flu outbreak in a commercial poultry operation in the state.
Investigators are attempting to determine if the child was exposed to wild birds. This particular case of the flu appears to have been very mild.
The child lives in Alameda County, part of the San Francisco Bay Area, and tested positive for the virus despite having no known contact with an infected animal.
Officials with the California Department of Public Health said in a news release that they are investigating whether the child could have been exposed to wild birds. It’s considered a “possible” case until the positive test is confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
..The child experienced mild upper respiratory symptoms and is recovering at home after receiving treatment, the health department said. No person-to-person spread of the virus has been detected, and the child’s family members all tested negative. A bird flu test on the child four days after the positive result came back negative.
To summarize the current status of the bird flu cases in this country, besides the one above:
- 21 cases were associated with exposure to avian influenza A(H5N1) virus-infected poultry.
- 30 cases were associated with exposure to infected dairy cows (26 of those were in California)
-
1 case reported in Missouri had an undetermined source of exposure
I have been reporting on this particular strain of the bird flu for quite some time (since early 2022). Despite its limited spread and mild symptoms in humans, The New York Times opted to run a piece from a South African doctor deriding this country for its response to the pathogen.
As a virus scientist in South Africa, I’ve been watching with dread as H5N1 bird flu spreads among animals in the United States. The pathogen poses a serious pandemic threat and has been detected in over 500 dairy herds in 15 states — which is probably an undercount. And yet the U.S. response appears inadequate and slow, with too few genomic sequences of H5N1 cases in farm animals made publicly available for scientific review.
Failure to control H5N1 among American livestock could have global consequences, and this demands urgent attention. The United States has done little to reassure the world that it has the outbreak contained.
We already experienced the adverse impacts of a ginned-up pandemic panic caused by other such experts, who I am sure long for funding, power and positive media. I suspect the new administration learned many valuable lessons during covid, and won’t be pushed into making the same mistakes by credentialed people with little common sense or appreciation of unintended consequences.
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Comments
hey the election is over ….
and we must seal CA off from the rest of. the world … full lock down CA only.
“Conjunctivitis” just doesn’t have the same ring as “Highly Pathogenic Bird Flu Strain”, does it?
>>The pathogen poses a serious pandemic threat and has been detected in over 500 dairy herds in 15 states . . . <<
A pandemic threat in dairy cows? And I should be worried why, exactly?
Swine flu, bat flu, bird flu and now monkeypox.
I suspect “patient zero” is a leftist construct.
Avian flu is a serious pandemic threat only in housed poultry, in which case, if infection is detected in a flock, all birds , infected or not, are slaughtered, resulting in a 100% mortality rate.
In dairy cattle it is a mild infection that may be enough to temporarily decrease milk production somewhat in high-production dairy cattle. It is not being talked about in beef herds because it is causing no detectable symptoms.
In humans, I question why (and how) people are even being tested, since any symptoms are negligible. Someone comes in with an irritated eye and the doctor exclaims “Ah ha! HPAI!! Let’s order some expensive tests!!”
Really?
The hope is to cause humanity to exhibit herd behavior, to be susceptible to being ‘stampeded’ by elite handlers into doing what’s needed to give the left permanent absolute power.
War socialism. It’s what they think happened in WW1and WW2.
It’s why all the programs designed to implement socialism are referred to as ‘wars on ….’
Re “as several of the state’s dairy workers at herds impacted by the pathogen”
A group of chickens is commonly referred to as a flock (or brood/peep).
Dairy workers work on cows.