A letter sent to the editor-in-chief of New England Journal of Medicine and signed by Canadian health officials says the British Columbia teenager who tested positive for bird flu has been taken off supplemental oxygen and is no longer contagious.
The letter, which was released Tuesday and provides a summary and timeline of the case, was signed by doctors from the BC Center for Disease Control, BC Children’s Hospital, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture.
The patient is said to be a 13-year-old girl who went to the BC emergency room on Nov. 4 with a fever and conjunctivitis in her eyes.
The teenager, who is described as having a history of mild asthma and a high body mass index, was initially released without treatment but developed a cough, vomiting and diarrhea before returning on November 7 in respiratory distress.
The report says the girl was transferred the next day to the pediatric intensive care unit at British Columbia Children’s Hospital for treatment, which included temporary tracheal intubation.
Additional information posted on the newspaper’s website indicates that the patient was no longer deemed contagious on November 29 and no longer required supplemental oxygen as of December 18.
It also says the girl and her family have consented to the release of additional details about her case and adds that to date, the source of her exposure to the H5N1 virus has not yet been determined.
It says there have been no secondary cases of virus transmission in the girl’s home or hospital.
The teenager’s infection, announced in November, was the first human case of H5N1 avian flu contracted in Canada.
British Columbia’s commercial poultry sector has been affected by outbreaks of avian flu in recent years. The most recent data posted on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency website indicates that more than 8.5 million birds have been “affected” in the province since spring 2022.
Most outbreaks reported in recent months in the province have occurred in the Fraser Valley, located in the Fraser Health region.
