B.C. teen in critical condition in hospital with 1st presumptive human case of bird flu
Global News
H5 bird flu is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows, with several recent human cases in U.S. dairy and poultry workers.
B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says the teenager in Children’s Hospital with Canada’s first presumptive case of avian flu is in critical condition.
Henry said the teen was admitted late on Friday and their condition varied over the weekend but that as of Tuesday they had taken a turn for the worst.
It was first reported over the weekend that the teenager was at B.C. Children’s Hospital with a suspected case of H5 bird flu.
Health officials are assuring the public they are working to figure out how the patient acquired the infection and who else they might have contacted. Henry said they are confident at this point, given the contract tracing and the length of exposure that they have not identified anyone else who may be infected.
Henry said that the province has a robust system in place to test for suspected viruses.
“It’s called a presumptive positive because to be confirmed as a truly positive, even though we have confidence absolutely in the PCR tests that are done at the BC CDC lab, it needs to be confirmed at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg,” Henry added.
“Those samples are on their way to Winnipeg and we are likely to have that confirmation in the next hours or days.”
The teenager likely caught the virus from a bird or animal, the province said in a statement over the weekend.
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