The first person in the U.S. to develop severe illness from the H5N1 bird flu has been hospitalized in Louisiana, officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed Wednesday.
Officials believe the person had contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock, which would mark the first time anyone has contracted bird flu from a backyard flock in the U.S. — which CDC’s Demetre Daskalakis called “remarkable.”
The news comes as the US continues to expand efforts to track bird flu infections amid a growing outbreak. There are 61 confirmed and 7 probable cases fallen of H5N1 in people in the US.
States will now be required to test bulk milk to understand the extent of the spread among dairy cows and identify new outbreaks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said. announced on December 6.
Labcorp too announced Tuesday that the first commercial test for H5N1 is now available to the public with a doctor’s prescription.
Another probable case of bird flu in a person in Delaware was identified through routine flu surveillance during the first week of December, Tim Mastro, deputy director of communications for Delaware Health and Human Services, said in a statement.
This person has had no known exposure to animals, Daskalakis said.
But “confirmatory testing at CDC could not confirm H5 infection,” Daskalakis said, so the probable case is not included in the total of confirmed national cases.
H5N1 detected at the only wastewater site monitoring H5N1 in Delaware during the week of December 7, near Georgetown, Delaware, the center of the state’s poultry operations.
“There have been no detections in any poultry or livestock in Delaware,” said Stacey Hofman, director of community relations for the Delaware Agriculture Department.
“We know that H5N1 is in the Atlantic Flyway, and because there are a large number of migratory waterfowl in Delaware at this time, this is believed to be the cause of this detection” in wastewater, she said.
In humans, the confirmed case in Louisiana and the probable case in Delaware “do not change the CDC’s current risk assessment for the general population, which remains low,” Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on Wednesday.
But, he added, “people who work with or are recreationally exposed to infected animals are at greater risk of infection.”
Anyone who comes into contact with animals should take precautions, he said, including wearing a respirator and getting tested if symptoms develop.
The person in Louisiana fell ill with the same variant as the teenager in British Columbia, who remains in critical condition after six weeks of illness.
This variant, found in wild and domestic birds, is different from the variant circulating in dairy cows, officials said. Additional genomic sequencing of the virus is still being worked on at CDC.
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The person in Louisiana first tested positive for influenza A, and examination by the state laboratory discovered it was bird flu as part of regular monitoring of positive flu tests.
The CDC would not say what symptoms the patient experienced or what type of support he needed during his hospitalization, citing patient privacy concerns.
But “the patient was in fact hospitalized – was seriously ill due to his flu infection,” Daskalakis said.
Louisiana public health officials are conducting a case investigation, monitoring contacts who may have been exposed and offering testing and antivirals as needed, he said.
Previously, a patient in Missouri with underlying conditions tested positive for bird flu after no known exposure and spent three days in the hospital.
There has been no known human-to-human transmission of bird flu in the U.S. during this outbreak, Daskalakis said.
Although the US has stockpiled millions of H5N1 shots, these vaccines have not yet been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Officials announced no changes to the U.S. vaccination strategy on Wednesday.