Marin County Public Health in California yesterday urged consumers to avoid drinking raw milk and said it is investigating a suspected avian flu infection in a child who experienced fever and vomiting after drinking raw milk.
Meanwhile, a large swath of states is seeing no let-up in H5 avian flu developments, with a wastewater detection on a second Hawaiian island, several more confirmations in California dairy cows, and new poultry outbreaks five states.
Child recovered; state and feds collaborating on investigation
In its statement, Marin County said the child tested positive for influenza A, which could indicate a range of viruses, from seasonal flu to avian flu. The statement didn‘t say if subtyping is underway but said it is actively investigating the case along with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The child has recovered, and no other family members were sick.
Earlier this month, a California raw milk producer recalled batches of raw milk after tests on retail milk turned up the virus. An outbreak in the farm’s cows recently prompted a quarantine that bars the distribution of its raw milk products.
On December 6 the CDPH issued an alert to health providers, notifying about recently confirmed H5 infection in California child who had no known exposure to infected animals. An update from the CDC yesterday said the sample from the child could not be completely sequenced and assigned a genotype, but that it most closely resembles the type circulating in dairy cattle.
The CDPH urged health providers to consider influenza A in patients with symptoms who recently had contact with sick animals or recent exposure to raw dairy products.
California has reported 32 confirmed human H5 infections this year, all but one in dairy workers.
Second wastewater detection in Hawaii
The Hawaii Department of Health yesterday reported the detection of H5 avian influenza in a wastewater sample collected on December 2 at a plant in Hilo on Hawaii’s Big Island.
Officials said testing isn‘t able to determine if the virus is related to the H5N1 virus found in birds and poultry on Oahu Island, which was a different genotype (A3) than B3.13 type spreading among US dairy cattle.
In the middle of November, a wastewater detection on Oahu Island was soon followed by detection of the state’s first outbreak, which involved backyard poultry, as well as a detection in wild duck.
More outbreaks in California dairy cows, poultry flocks in 5 states
On other animal developments, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed 32 more outbreaks in dairy cattle, all from California. The developments lift the state’s number of affected farms to 559 and the national total to 774 across 15 states.
Meanwhile, APHIS also confirmed more new outbreaks in poultry in five states, including on several commercial farms.
In California, the virus struck a broiler farm in Tulare County that has more than 330,000 birds, as well as a duck breeder in Stanislaus County and another farm in Kern County.
Missouri reported two more outbreaks in poultry, a commercial farm in Daviess County and a backyard birds in Cedar County. South Dakota, hard hit by recent outbreaks at turkey farms, reported three more from three different counties: Beadle, Charles Mix, and Moody.
Colorado and Idaho reported outbreaks in backyard birds, with Colorado‘s detection in La Plata County and Idaho‘s events in Jefferson County.
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