Human Bird Flu Case Not Linked to Animal Exposure Reported in Missouri

NPR’s Juliana Kim reported over the weekend that “health officials have identified a person in Missouri sick with bird flu despite having no known contact with animals — marking the first case of the virus in the U.S. this year not linked to farm work.”

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that the Missouri patient was hospitalized and treated with influenza antiviral medications. The patient has since recovered and been discharged. The agency added that the virus did not appear to have spread to the patient’s close contacts,” Kim reported. “…There are no known bird flu outbreaks in cattle in Missouri, the CDC said. But there have been outbreaks in commercial and backyard poultry flocks in the state this year. In previous years, bird flu has been detected in wild birds in that state.”

ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud and Meredith Deliso reported that “the case of bird flu, also known as H5, was initially detected through the state’s normal influenza surveillance testing program. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also confirmed it to be a human case of the H5 subtype of flu, the Missouri health department said.”

This is the 14th Human Case in the United States

Benadjaoud and Deliso reported that “beyond Missouri, so far this year, 10 human cases of bird flu have been reported in Colorado, two in Michigan and one in Texas amid an outbreak in animals.”

“Before this year, there was only one reported case of bird flu in the United States — in a Colorado poultry worker who was infected in 2022,” Benadjaoud and Deliso reported. “In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a bird flu strain that had sickened millions of birds across the U.S. was identified in several mammals this year, including dairy cows.”

What Are Common Symptoms In Humans?

NBC News’ Aria Bendix reported in July that “disease researchers say commonalities between the (human) cases — all but one of which were reported in the last four months — are enough to start assembling a picture of how the virus may affect people.”

“Some patients have reported typical flu symptoms such as fever, chills, cough, sore throat or runny nose. Many have had conjunctivitis or pink eye,” Bendix reported. “‘One thing that we can conclude is that the current strain of the virus isn’t well adapted for human infection, and may not even be well adapted for infecting the lower respiratory tract,’ said Matthew Binnicker, director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory at the Mayo Clinic.”

“The cases’ mild nature stands in contrast to the flu’s effect on birds and some mammals — including seals, sea lions, foxes, skunks and cats — that have died from the virus,” Bendix reported. “This H5N1 strain is considered highly pathogenic, a term that, when used in the context of bird flu, means it has a high potential to kill chickens.  Hearing about such a virus ‘really scares people, but that term is really a USDA term for what happens in poultry,’ said John Lednicky, a research professor of environmental and global health at the University of Florida. ‘Just because it’s highly pathogenic in birds doesn’t mean it’s highly pathogenic in mammals or humans.'”

“Lednicky added that some strains of H5N1 are deadly in humans, while others are not,” Bendix reported.