US health authorities announced on Friday, September 6, that a person had tested positive for bird flu without known contact with an animal, a first in the United States. Until now, human cases of bird flu detected in the United States came from the agricultural world. But the hospitalization for flu on August 22 of an adult in Missouri raised questions among the authorities, who requested additional tests. Result: it was not a simple flu but bird flu, report in press releases the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local health authorities in this state in the center of the country.
This 14th case of the year detected in the United States is the first in which the patient had no known contact with an animal. An outbreak of bird flu was detected in the spring in the United States, with an unusual fact: this disease that mainly affected poultry and birds is now also affecting cows. A first infection in Texas, in the southern United States, was announced on April 1. It was then the first known case worldwide of bird flu in a human via a cow.
But no bird flu infections have been reported in dairy cows in Missouri. Experts are concerned about the growing number of mammals infected with the disease, even though human cases remain rare. They worry that high circulation could facilitate a mutation of the virus that could allow it to jump from one human to another. The risk to the population “stay low”however, the CDC stressed on Friday, which has not changed its recommendations regarding the epidemic at this stage.
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