A person hospitalized with bird flu is the first human case detected in the United States without any known animal exposure, says the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
The person was sent to hospital on Aug. 22 and later tested positive with the H5 strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza. The infection was detected by Missouri’s standard flu surveillance system. The U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention said it will study the flu strain further.
The case, the first in the U.S. without known animal transmission and the first involving a hospital stay, has alarmed infectious disease experts.
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However, it has not been confirmed that bird flu infection caused the patient, who had underlying medical conditions, to be hospitalized. All 15 previous human cases in the U.S. during the current outbreak worked on farms and showed only minor illness.
Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Baylor College of Medicine have detected H5N1 in the wastewater of 10 cities in the state.
In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Texas researchers said they collected 399 wastewater samples from March 4 to July 15, and 100 tested positive for H5N1. The positive samples came from 22 of 23 sites and were found in all 10 cities examined. Before March, 1,337 samples tested negative for the virus.
There were no reported hospitalizations due to infection at the time of the journal’s publication. The wastewater testing program was established by the Texas Epidemic Public Health Institute.
Elsewhere, three wastewater sites in California’s Bay Area detected H5N1 in June.
More than 100 million poultry, as well as more than 10,000 wild birds and 200 dairy herds, had been affected by bird flu as of Sept. 11, according to the CDC. Outbreaks were detected in poultry in 48 states, as well as in dairy cows in 14 states.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has not detected infections in dairy cattle. However, poultry, wild birds and other animals have been infected.
According to the CFIA, there have been 183 confirmed or suspected cases of bird flu in 2024 so far, with poultry cases found in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia.
