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The unidentified teenager in British Columbia is too ill to answer questions about possible exposures, health officials said in a news conference on Wednesday (Nov. 13). It may not be possible to find the source, they said. In August, a person from Missouri fell ill with H5N1 with no known exposure to cows, poultry, or wild birds, and health officials were never able to find out how they caught the virus. (The virus was closer to the version circulating in cows than in wild birds, however. The patient ultimately recovered.)
A recent CDC study has found that H5N1 is evolving to better spread between mammals. It still does not spread as easily as the seasonal flu, however, researchers reported Oct. 28 in the journal Nature.
The case could be a one-off or a signal that H5N1 is spreading undetected, according to StatNews. Canadian health officials said that they were alert to both possibilities.
“We’ve not found anybody else who is sick. And we’ve been testing,” British Columbia provincial health officer Bonnie Henry told StatNews. She said that people close to the teen have not fallen sick. “So I’m more comfortable that it was a single exposure and a more rare event. … More cases would have come to light by now if this was an exposure event that exposed multiple numbers of people, or there had been person-to-person transmission, which we know is rare with H5N1.”
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Publish date : 2024-11-14 04:44:00
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