Four poultry workers in Colorado and one in Texas have been diagnosed with bird flu, according to health officials from both states. Two more cases are presumed positive based on state testing. The new cases bring the U.S. total to nine since the first human case was detected in 2022.
The latest diagnoses were among workers at a commercial egg layer operation in Colorado, where three of the five infected individuals were reported last week by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). The other two cases are from Texas, which was the first state to report a human case earlier this year.
None of the infected workers was hospitalized. All had direct contact with infected birds while culling poultry at their respective farms. The CDPHE suspects that these cases are a result of working directly with infected poultry.
Bird flu virus has been spreading among mammals including dogs, cats, skunks, bears and even seals since 2020. Earlier this year the virus was detected in U.S. livestock and is now circulating in cattle in several states.
Health officials continue to characterize the threat to the general public as low and there have been no reports of bird flu spreading between people.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has sent teams to Colorado and Texas to help with investigations. The CDC advises that everyone avoid close or long exposure to sick or dead animals, animal poop or bedding. Poultry products are still safe to eat if they have been properly handled and cooked.
Recent human H5N1 cases in the US had been linked to dairy cattle before these cases were announced. A dairy cattle herd in Oklahoma has also tested positive for H5N1 bird flu, raising the number of states that reported impacted herds to 13.
Avian influenza (H5N1) was first identified in 1996 and has rapidly spread around the world since 2020, affecting over 99 million birds in the US alone. The virus infecting farmworkers, H5N1, was first identified in humans in Hong Kong in 1997.
