Every week after an uncommon human case of H5 avian influenza was reported in Missouri, many questions stay. The newest on what’s identified — and never identified — concerning the case, and why scientists are nervous.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
When well being officers reported final week that somebody in Missouri examined optimistic for chicken flu, it raised the query, how did that particular person get contaminated? In contrast to the 13 different human circumstances of H5 chicken flu reported this 12 months, that particular person had no apparent connection to contaminated animals. NPR’s Pien Huang takes on that thriller.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: On August 22, a affected person was hospitalized in Missouri. At a media briefing on Thursday, Dr. Nirav Shah, deputy director on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, says they’d important underlying medical situations.
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NIRAV SHAH: The person offered with acute signs of chest ache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and weak spot and was hospitalized for causes associated to these underlying medical situations.
HUANG: The affected person took some antivirals, received higher, went dwelling. After which a pattern from the affected person examined optimistic for an uncommon sort of flu – H5. Shah says public well being officers suspect that it is linked to the present outbreak of H5N1 in birds and dairy cows. However in contrast to the opposite circumstances this 12 months, this particular person did not work on a farm.
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SHAH: Did they go to a farm, a good or a zoo or have another potential publicity to animals? Have been they in touch with anybody who was sick? Did they devour any type of uncooked dairy merchandise?
HUANG: The reply to this point is not any.
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SHAH: To this point, epidemiologists haven’t discovered a transparent supply of publicity.
HUANG: Researchers hope that testing a affected person pattern with the virus may give extra clues. Jacco Boon is a virologist at Washington College in St. Louis.
JACCO BOON: We hope that via figuring out the genetic sequence of this virus, that we will get nearer to understanding what the supply of this an infection could have been.
HUANG: However CDC says there is probably not sufficient virus within the pattern to completely sequence it. Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo with the Nationwide Institutes of Well being says it appears unlikely that this particular person in Missouri caught the virus from one other human or handed it on.
JEANNE MARRAZZO: There’s, at the moment, no proof to recommend human-to-human transmission. However that’s, in fact, our worst worry as a result of when you go there, then clearly all bets are off.
HUANG: She spoke at a current assembly of an NIH advisory panel. The earlier human circumstances have concerned shut contact with contaminated animals or the virus of their secretions. The danger to most people is taken into account low. Nonetheless, researchers of pandemic threats are fairly involved. Seema Lakdawala research how flu spreads at Emory College.
SEEMA LAKDAWALA: I feel that that is wanting fairly unhealthy. My largest concern proper now could be that the USDA doesn’t have a deal with on how widespread this outbreak is.
HUANG: Lakdawala says there is no common testing of dairy farms throughout the nation. In keeping with USDA, the speed that new dairy herds are getting contaminated appears to have slowed significantly. Nonetheless, the virus continues to unfold. Final month, California turned the 14th state to seek out chicken flu in dairy cows. Lakdawala says that heightens the danger to people.
LAKDAWALA: And the extra cows are contaminated, the extra virus is of their milk after which in a byproduct of our milk merchandise that we devour.
HUANG: Merchandise which have been pasteurized or heated to kill pathogens are thought of suitable for eating and drink, however extra sick cows places extra farmworkers in danger, extra veterinarians, extra home and wild animals which may drink from lagoons of disposed contaminated milk. All this provides the virus extra alternatives to make extra copies of itself and to spice up its standing as the subsequent pandemic menace.
Pien Huang, NPR Information.
SIMON: And on Friday, the CDC disclosed that an individual dwelling with the Missouri resident turned unwell on the identical day, however they are saying it is doubtless the 2 individuals have been uncovered to the identical supply somewhat than infecting each other.
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