A fourth person in the United States has tested positive for avian influenza, aka bird flu, amid an ongoing global outbreak of the virus affecting poultry and other animals. Health officials recently confirmed a dairy worker in Colorado became infected with (H5N1), linked to a multi-state outbreak in dairy cows, the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. The patient experienced mild pink eye symptoms and has since recovered. Since March, H5N1 avian influenza has spread to over 139 dairy cattle herds in 12 U.
S. states. A dairy worker in Texas and two in Michigan have also tested positive for H5N1.
News of the fourth U.S. case comes less than a month after confirmed a person in Mexico died after becoming infected with avian influenza A (H5N2), which was the first laboratory-confirmed human case of H5N2 reported globally.
Additionally, a child in Australia was recently infected with bird flu. is a disease caused by infection with avian influenza A viruses, which occur naturally among wild aquatic birds and circulate among poultry, TODAY.com previously reported.
Occasionally, bird flu viruses spread to mammals and, rarely, to humans. No known human-to-human spread has occurred with the current H5N1 strains spreading in the U.S.
or H5N2 in Mexico. Based on available information, the WHO assesses the current risk to the general public posed by bird flu to be "low." However, the recent human cases and ongoing outbreak has sounded the alarm among officials in.
