The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) reported that another poultry worker responsible for culling birds over avian influenza has tested positive for H5N1 bird flu in preliminary tests. This worker was employed at a separate large layer farm and the illness raised the total number of cases to seven.
Also, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed initial positive results for H5N1 in two of Colorado’s recent cases, detailed genetic sequencing findings from a sample from a sick Colorado poultry culler, and reported preliminary results from a seroprevalence study in Michigan farm workers, according to the University of Minnesota’s CIDRAP.
Last week, the CDC made an attempt to convince the public that it’s climate change (sweltering conditions) that is spreading the bird flu. Apparently, heat makes personal protective gear less effective but heat through the pasteurization process kills the virus.
The CDC also said it has “uploaded” a genetic sequence of the virus from one of the Colorado cullers to public databases. It is closely related to the B3.13 genotype found in recent poultry outbreaks and infected cattle herds. “This is the only virus that CDC has been able to fully sequence out of the cases in Colorado so far,” the group said.
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In its update, the CDC also detailed initial findings from a Michigan-led seroprevalence study, which has so far looked at blood samples collected in June from 35 people who work on Michigan farms that had H5N1 outbreaks in dairy cows. The participants were from multiple counties and had different roles, though all had worked directly with sick cows.
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Early data from the CDC also suggest that asymptomatic cases of human bird flu are unlikely while the number of affected dairy farms continues to rise. A total of 168 farms have been impacted from 13 states, according to the latest update from the US Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). Four of the latest confirmations are from Colorado, with the fifth from Minnesota.
