Four more cases of avian influenza were found in farmworkers in Washington state this week. They are the latest in a long line of human infections that have been reported across the U.S. as the virus continues to spread among farm animals.
Washington is the sixth state to report cases of bird flu in humans. The virus has spread very quickly among wild birds, chickens, and animals. In the event that the CDC confirms the state’s positive tests, they will bring the total number of cases in the United States to at least 31.
Flu experts say there is a small chance that the virus will spread to more people if it stays uncontrolled in animals.
We are more worried that this will become the next global outbreak, said Dr. Amber Itle, a veterinarian from Washington state. “The longer this virus stays in the environment, the more animals it spreads to, and the more it changes in ways we don’t understand or can predict,”
But for now, health officials say the virus hasn’t changed any important genes that would let it spread from person to person.
“There is no evidence of long-term transmission by humans.” And that’s a big step forward for all of us. It sets off a key for all of us. “That’s when we start to think, ‘Oh, this virus is very different,'” Washington’s health minister, Dr. Umair Shah, said at a news conference on Sunday.
A spokeswoman for the CDC said Tuesday morning that a government team was being sent to Washington and that the public was still at a low risk.
But farmworkers on the front lines are becoming more and more worried about the virus. The four most recent cases were among workers who had killed birds at a commercial egg farm where chickens were showing signs of avian flu.
Shah said the workers were on a contract crew whose job it was to kill all the chickens on the farm in Franklin County, which is in the southeast of Washington. The farm had more than 800,000 birds. Itle said that the workers wore full safety gear, including Tyvek suits, helmets, and respirators.
“It’s hot and dusty.” “There are a lot of birds close together, and we’re getting a lot of attention from the media,” she said.
The four people who tested positive after that work had mild respiratory symptoms and conjunctivitis, or pink eye. These are signs that many people with the virus experience. Not a single person ended up in the hospital.
Dr. Richard Webby, who runs the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds, said that the cases in Washington were “more of the same” in a trend seen across the U.S. where people who are supposed to kill sick animals have gotten sick.
But one case in a person in Missouri has health officials and researchers stumped because that person had no touch with animals. The CDC says that more tests that might give clues are still being done and the results are not yet available. It is still not clear how the person was exposed. Six health workers who were around the patient said they were having breathing problems.
Experts are more worried about the virus spreading in cows for the past 10 months, Webby said. This is because cows are animals and often come into contact with people. That makes it more likely that the virus will change and spread from person to person.
As Webby, an infectious disease researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, put it, “Just because it hasn’t happened in 10 months doesn’t mean it can’t.”
Researchers have found that sick cows shed huge amounts of virus in their mammary glands. This means that the virus could be spread through raw milk. (The milk in grocery shops has been pasteurized, which kills the virus.)
At the same time, the U.S. is getting ready for flu season, which happens in the fall and winter when common flu viruses are more likely to spread. Two flu viruses can share the same host and change more quickly if they share genetic information.
A professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington and the director of its Center for One Health Research, Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, said, “You don’t want people who already have the seasonal flu virus to get a virus from animals and for those viruses to possibly mix again.”
It’s also important to make sure that farmworkers are safer and that they get their flu shots, according to Rabinowitz.
“This should wake you up.” “We need to do more to keep workers safe,” he said.
Itle said that cases in poultry were common in Washington state because birds on their way south or north passed through in the summer and early fall. It looks like some wild animals got the virus because owls and other birds of prey were recently found dead.
Wild birds can bring the virus to farms by coming into close contact with animals or birds, or by droppings, saliva, or food.
The current bird flu spread has made more than 103 million birds sick and killed or culled, according to the CDC. In 48 states, the virus has been found in chickens.
The CDC says that the disease has spread to 330 dairy cows.
Itle said that there hasn’t been an outbreak among dairy farmers in Washington, but that farms there are now checking every week.
Content Source: Bird flu cases in people quietly tick up, with dozens reported across 6 states
