United States: First serious case of avian flu in humans

A first serious case of human contamination with the H5N1 virus has been detected in the United States, American authorities announced on Wednesday, at a time when fears of a possible avian flu pandemic are increasing.

The patient, hospitalized in Louisiana (south), is the 61st human case of avian flu detected since April in the country, the American Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) said in a press release.

Aged over 65 and suffering from other pathologies, he is in “critical condition” and “suffers from a severe respiratory illness”, Louisiana health authorities detailed to AFP. The other infected people had mild symptoms.

“A new pandemic”

For several months, the United States has been facing an epizootic – the equivalent of an epidemic in animals – of avian flu.

Several elements suggest that “avian flu is knocking on our door and could trigger a new pandemic,” Meg Schaeffer, epidemiologist at the American SAS institute, recently told AFP.

However, American health authorities assured Wednesday that their assessment of the risk presented by avian flu for public health was not changing and remained “low”. “No spread of avian influenza (subtype) H5 from person to person has been detected,” they said.

“I’m not panicking yet.”

Other serious cases of avian flu in humans have already been detected in other countries, they recalled. This was particularly the case of a teenager hospitalized in November in the Canadian province of British Columbia (west).

Researcher at Louisiana State University, Rebecca Christofferson explained to AFP that in the absence of rigorous monitoring, it was difficult to know whether contamination from animals to humans was becoming more frequent or if asymptomatic human-to-human transmission was occurring. “I’m not panicking yet,” she nevertheless clarified, while emphasizing the need for increased vigilance.

According to the CDC, the Louisiana patient had contact with sick and dead birds in a barnyard. Genomic sequencing showed that the H5N1 virus that infected him was the same type that infected people in the US state of Washington and neighboring Canada, as well as wild birds and poultry in the United States.

Emergency measures in California

This version of H5N1 is different from that detected in cattle as well as in mild human cases and some other poultry. The avian flu virus is circulating in the United States in poultry farms and has been spreading in unprecedented ways since March in cow herds.

And in late October, a pig on an Oregon farm that also housed poultry and livestock tested positive for H5N1, although it showed no signs of illness.

Faced with a spread of cases of avian flu on its cattle farms, California has taken emergency measures so that government agencies have free rein to “respond quickly,” announced its governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday.

A new plan to strengthen surveillance

The growing number of mammals infected with the disease worries experts who fear that high circulation could facilitate a mutation of the virus that would allow it to pass from one human to another.

The recent detection of avian flu in people with no known contact with an infected animal reinforces concerns in this regard. At least three people have been infected in recent months with the H5N1 virus in the United States without knowing the origin of their contamination.

While traces of the virus have been detected in raw or unpasteurized milk, the US Department of Agriculture announced on Wednesday a new plan aimed at strengthening surveillance in this area.

More than 300 million dead birds

There is uncertainty over how President-elect Donald Trump’s administration will approach the outbreak. The Minister of Health chosen by Donald Trump, Robert Kennedy Jr, is notably a notorious supporter of raw milk.

According to figures cited Tuesday in Geneva by an official from the World Organization for Animal Health, Gregorio Torres, the avian flu epidemic has led to the death of more than 300 million birds around the world since October 2021.

In three years, the H5N1 virus has been detected in 108 countries or territories on five continents and in more than 70 species of mammals, domestic or wild.

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