Earlier this month, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis declared a disaster emergency not for the wildfires common to the Centennial State this time of year, but for a bird flu outbreak at a commercial poultry facility in Weld County, north of Denver. Now, several workers at the egg farm who had been culling poultry in response to the spread of avian influenza have tested positive for the disease.
Five people have been infected, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment . As of Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had confirmed four of those cases. None of the workers was hospitalized, Colorado officials said, noting their mild symptoms included conjunctivitis, or pink eye , and symptoms consistent with respiratory infection.
Colorado was already ground zero for animal-to-human spread of H5N1 , the current strain of bird flu circulating the globe. In 2022, a Colorado farm worker culling poultry tested positive. Until this month, CDC records show, no other poultry-to-human transmissions had been reported.
However, since April 1, 2024, four workers on U.S. dairy farms have tested positive for bird flu after interacting with cattle: two in Michigan, one in Texas, and, most recently, one in Colorado.
If the presumptive positive test from Colorado’s latest poultry outbreak is confirmed, 10 people in the U.S. will have contracted bird flu from cattle or poultry since 2022.
The CDC maintains that the general public’s risk of contracting .