A baby in California has become the first child in the United States to test positive for bird flu infection, officials said Friday, as health officials conducted testing and preventive treatment for those who came into contact with the child’s day-care center. Is offered.
The child from Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay Area had mild symptoms and was said to be recovering at home after treatment with flu antivirals, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the California Department of Public Health. (CDPH).
As a precaution, close family members of the child were tested, with all results coming back negative.
Local authorities have also contacted caregivers and families at the day-care facility where the child showed mild symptoms before testing positive.
Initial testing revealed low levels of bird flu virus, suggesting the child was likely not infectious at the time of testing. A follow-up test four days later came back negative.
In the United States, day-care centers typically care for children ages six weeks to five years.
“It’s natural for people to be concerned, and we want to let parents, caregivers and families know that based on the information and data we have, we do not believe the child was infectious,” CDPH Director Tomas Aragon said. “
“There has been no documented human-to-human spread of bird flu in any country for more than 15 years,” he said.
Official statements have emphasized that in the rare cases of bird flu transmission between individuals, spread has been limited to a small number of close contacts.
Isolated and rare human cases of bird flu are expected with unclear sources of exposure or infection. They have occurred historically and during ongoing outbreaks, which public health officials began monitoring in 2022.
“Including this most recent case, there have been 55 human cases of H5 bird flu in the United States during 2024, 29 of which are in California,” the CDC said.
The CDC estimates the risk to the general public is low — although it is higher for those working directly with birds, dairy cattle and other livestock animals.
A multimillion-dollar outbreak of flu — technically highly pathogenic avian influenza, or H5N1 bird flu — was first reported in dairy cows in March.
The increasing frequency and diversity of mammalian infections in recent years has raised concerns about the adaptability of the virus and its potential for cross-species transmission.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
