United States: This month, two cases of bird flu in children were reported in North America, with no contact with infected birds, sparking concerns that the H5N1 virus may be nearing the ability to spread between humans.
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Since April, 55 people have contracted H5N1, with all but three cases linked to farmworkers in close contact with poultry or dairy cows, which the virus is heavily affecting.
However, the source of the three untraceable human cases remains unknown, raising concerns about possible low-level community transmission, according to salon.com.
Cases in humans
On November 9, officials in the province of British Columbia reported that a 17- yr- old woman had been diagnosed with H5N1 even though she had not come into contact with an infected bird.
Last week, there was a report of a child from the Bay Area who developed bird flu with no reported contact with infected birds.
Following these two cases, the third case was in Missouri in September when health officials failed again to investigate the source of the infection.
According to Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University, “The big takeaway is that there is more community spread than is being detected,” salon.com reported.
“When you can’t figure out where the infection came from, that raises a lot of red flags,” he added.
Had these children not been in contact with farm animals, one might have contracted the virus after touching a wild bird infected with the virus.
It is also likely that they may have come across a domesticated animal that had the virus.
Yet in the case of the Canadian teen, all the pets they touched were negative, said Dr. Bonnie Henry, the public health officer of the province of British Columbia, in Victoria, Canada, in a press briefing.
During another press conference, Henry said the teen’s case was an incident that was “rare” and that all the healthcare providers or contacts of the teen were negative after a ten-day quarantine.