The teenager who contracted Canada’s first-ever human case of avian influenza is in hospital in critical condition, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Tuesday.
“Our thoughts continue to be with the person and their family in this most difficult time,” she said in an update on the situation.
The young person is suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by inflammation in the lungs, Henry later added.
Henry said officials in B.C. are still waiting on confirmation from a national laboratory, but the assumption is the virus is H5N1, as that strain has been spreading in wild birds and poultry in North America.
About three dozen people who were in contact with the infected young person have been tested for avian influenza and given an antiviral medication to prevent symptoms should they be infected, but Henry said no other cases have been identified so far.
Humans can be infected with bird flu by inhaling the virus in aerosols and droplets, which get into H5 receptors in the eyes, the back of the throat, nose, or deep in the lungs, Henry said.
Henry said public health is currently trying to figure out where exactly the teenager was exposed, adding they’re following up on a number of leads, but it doesn’t appear the infection happened on a poultry farm.
As of Tuesday, 26 facilities in B.C. are currently infected with avian influenza, mostly in the Fraser Valley.
There have been 46 confirmed cases of H5N1 in humans in the United States, predominantly among dairy workers, where in Washington, Oregon and California hundreds of herds have been infected. The virus has so far not been detected in dairy cattle in Canada.
Henry said the U.S. cases have been mostly “very mild,” but noted that going back to early bird flu cases—about 900 people have been infected world-wide since 1997—the fatality rate has been “quite high,” particularly when children are exposed.
“Almost all of these have been traced back to direct contact with birds, sick birds or sick animals. There’s been very few that might have been transmitted from person to person,” she said. “So in some ways, this is reassuring, in that this virus doesn’t seem to spread easily between people if they get infections, but it also causes very severe illness, particularly in young people.”
Henry said officials don’t currently see a risk of many people getting sick with H5N1 in B.C., but reminded everyone to stay away from sick or dead birds and keep pets away—a dog in Ontario was recently infected after eating a dead bird—to stay up to date on the influenza vaccine and stay home when sick.
This is a developing story and will be updated.