A teenager is in critical condition in a British Columbia children’s hospital, in what is believed to be Canada’s first human case of bird flu.
“This was a healthy teenager prior to this, so no underlying conditions,” said the provincial health officer Bonnie Henry in a news conference on Tuesday.
“It just reminds us that in young people this is a virus that can progress and cause quite severe illness and the deterioration that I mentioned was quite rapid.”
British Columbia health officials said on Saturday the province had detected Canada’s first human case of H5 bird flu in a teenager.
Henry said the province was still identifying the exact strain, but assumes the case is H5N1.
The World Health Organization says H5N1’s risk to humans is low because there is no evidence of human transmission, but the virus has been found in an increasing number of animals including cattle in the United States.
Henry would not disclose the teen’s gender or age but said they had first developed symptoms on 2 November and were tested on 8 November, when they were admitted to hospital. Symptoms included conjunctivitis, fever and coughing.
As of Tuesday they were hospitalized with acute respiratory distress syndrome, she said.
The teen had no farm exposure but had been exposed to dogs, cats and reptiles, Henry said. No infection source had been identified. “That is absolutely an ongoing investigation.”
There has been no evidence that the disease is easily spread between people. But if that were to happen, a pandemic could unfold, scientists have said.
Read more via The Guardian
