Child with conjunctivitis tests positive for H5N1 bird flu sparking pandemic fears as scientists warn ‘clock is ticking’
A CHILD in the US is believed to have tested positive for H5N1, health officials have confirmed.
The patient, from San Francisco in California, started with conjunctivitis and a fever before testing positive for both the flu and bird flu.
Local officials are trying to determine how the child contracted the virus, which scientists believe could soon evolve to spread more easily between humans.
This change, experts warn, could pave the way for a potential human pandemic.
“The clock is ticking for the virus to evolve to more easily infect and potentially transmit from human to human, which would be a concern,” Professor Luis Martinez-Sobrido, from Texas Biomed, warned.
However, Dr Grant Colfax, from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, reassured the public, stating, “I want to assure everyone in our city that the risk to the general public is low.
“There is no current evidence that the virus can be transmitted between people.”
This comes just weeks after California declared a state of emergency due to a bird flu outbreak affecting dairy cows and causing sporadic human cases.
So far, there are currently a total of 67 confirmed cases of bird flu in humans, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This is up one case from last week, which could reflect follow-up testing of a presumed positive involving a San Francisco child.
The majority (38) of the cases are coming from California.
Other states with confirmed cases include Colorado (10), Michigan (2), Missouri (2), Oregon (1), Texas (1) and Washington (11), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last month, a 65-year-old man in Louisiana became the first person ever to die of H5N1 bird flu in the US.
Nearly all of the cases detected so far have presented with mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis and sore throat.
This includes the child from San Fransocion, who was never admitted to hospitalised and has since made a full recovery, they said.
However, the Louisiana patient contracted a different strain of the virus, one linked directly to birds rather than the strain circulating amongst dairy cattle.
This bird-derived strain is believed to cause more severe illness.
The reason why the H5N1 strain circulating in dairy cattle, known as the B3.13 genotype, causes only mild illness in humans remains unclear.
Scientists believe it could be related to the way the virus spreads, with most cases linked to contact with milk from infected cows.
It’s thought that inhaling the virus directly into the airways could lead to more severe illness.
Another possibility is that the strain in cattle is inherently less aggressive than those found in wild birds.
Researchers recently found that H5N1 is just one mutation away from being able to transmit between humans – a change that could potentially trigger a global pandemic.
In preparation for this, the British government has purchased five million doses of an H5 vaccine, should the virus begin to spread between people.