A fourth person has tested positive for bird flu in the outbreak linked to dairy cows, this time in Colorado.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that the patient, a dairy worker at a farm where cows had also tested positive for the virus, had eye symptoms and has recovered after getting the antiviral drug Tamiflu.
The case mirrors the course of illness seen in two earlier cases in this outbreak, in Texas and Michigan dairy workers. The only symptoms either developed was pink eye. A third patient, also in Michigan, did develop upper respiratory symptoms, including sore throat, cough and congestion.
All of the patients have recovered, and none were connected to one another.
“Based on the information available at this time, this infection does not change CDC’s current H5N1 bird flu human health risk assessment for the U.S. general public, which the agency considers to be low,” the agency said in a news release Wednesday.
There is no evidence, the CDC said, of increased flu-like illnesses that would indicate that the virus — a strain called H5N1 — is spreading widely in people.
Since the outbreak was first detected in March, more than 780 people exposed to sick cows have been monitored, and 53 have been tested for the virus, the CDC said Tuesday in a briefing with reporters.
« Women’s soccer draws private-equity interest as team valuations soar‘A kind of civil war’: Divided France on alert for unrest amid political earthquake »
