First child case of bird flu detected in California, no threat
The first case of bird flu in a child has been confirmed in the USA. Californian medical services have taken preventive measures involving everyone who has had contact with the young patient—his immediate family, as well as staff and attendees of the daycare he attends.
7:04 AM EST, November 23, 2024
The first case of bird flu in a child has been diagnosed in the United States. The patient is from Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay Area. There is no danger to his life, and he is recovering at home after taking antiviral medications.
Californian medical services have conducted preventive tests among those who had contact with the child. This involved family members, as well as employees and attendees of the daycare. All test results were negative.
Medical services reassure the public
The initial test showed a low level of the virus, suggesting that the child was not in a state to infect others. A follow-up test, conducted four days later, returned negative. CDPH Director Tomas Aragon reassures that there is no risk of infecting other people.
"It’s natural for people to be concerned, and we want to reinforce for parents, caregivers and families that based on the information and data we have, we don’t think the child was infectious," said CDPH Director Tomas Aragon, adding that "no human-to-human spread of bird flu has been documented in any country for more than 15 years."
Bird flu pandemic in the USA
In March this year, a bird flu outbreak among birds and cows occurred in the USA. The H5N1 virus has been monitored by health services since 2022. In 2024, 55 cases of human infections were reported, 29 of which were in California.
At the beginning of April in Texas, USA, a case of bird flu infection from infected dairy cows was reported. This was the first instance of AH5N1 virus transmission between a human and another mammal, as reported by the New Scientist portal. The infected person experienced the illness very mildly, suffering only from conjunctivitis.
The number of bird flu cases is rising
The CDC emphasizes that the risk to the general public is low, although higher for people working with animals. On rare occasions, the virus is transmitted between humans, but it is limited to close contact with an infected person.
Since its first appearance in 1996, the bird flu (AH5N1) virus has gradually become more common, and since 2020 the number of infections in birds and mammals has significantly increased. This strain has caused the death of tens of millions of farmed birds as well as infecting wild birds and land and marine mammals.
