Canadian health official tells medical journal B.C. teenager with bird flu was deprived of oxygen and is no longer contagious

A British Columbia teenager who tested positive for bird flu will have his supplemental oxygen stopped, according to a letter sent to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and signed by Canadian health officials. It is said that the virus is no longer contagious.

that letter, Published on Tuesday The document, signed by doctors from the BC Center for Disease Control, BC Children's Hospital, the Public Health Agency of Canada and BC's Ministry of Agriculture, provides an overview and timeline of the incident.

The patient is a 13-year-old girl who came to a B.C. emergency room on Nov. 4 with a fever and conjunctivitis in her eyes.

The teenager, who had a history of mild asthma and an elevated body mass index, was initially discharged without treatment, but developed a cough, vomiting and diarrhea, and died on November 7. He came back with difficulty breathing.

The girl was taken to the pediatric intensive care unit at British Columbia Children's Hospital the next day for treatment, where she was temporarily intubated, the report said.

WATCH | British Columbia officials don't know where human cases of bird flu have occurred.

Cause of H5N1 bird flu infection in B.C. teen still unknown, health officials say

B.C.'s top doctor says it's still unknown how the teenager contracted bird flu. This update comes after another case was confirmed in a child in California. As Michel Ghousoub reports, officials stress that the risk of human infection remains low.

According to additional information posted on the magazine's website, the patient was determined to be no longer infectious on November 29 and no longer required supplemental oxygen as of December 18.

It also indicates that both the girl and her family have agreed to release further details about her case, and states that to date the source of her H5N1 infection has not yet been determined.

There has been no secondary infection of the virus at the girl's home or hospital.

The teen's infection, announced in November, was the first human case of H5N1 avian influenza in Canada. The Ministry of Health said the boy is from the Fraser Health region, which includes several eastern and southern Vancouver suburbs and the Fraser Valley.

British Columbia's commercial poultry sector has been hit hard by recent outbreaks of avian influenza. More than 8.5 million birds have been “affected” in the province since spring 2022, according to the latest data posted on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's website.

Most of the outbreaks reported in the province in recent months have occurred in the Fraser Valley, within the Fraser Health region.

WATCH | WHO wants to step up surveillance of animals as bird flu spreads.

WHO says 'stronger' H5N1 surveillance in animal populations needed

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, Head of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness at the World Health Organization, calls for increased global surveillance of animal populations known to be susceptible to H5N1, including wild birds, poultry, pigs and cattle. I am calling on you to do so.

The investigation into the case of a B.C. teenager infected with H5 avian influenza will include environmental testing of soil and water, as well as testing of pets, birds and other animals on nearby properties, the province said. It is said to have been included.

The strain that infected the teenager closely matches a strain found in wild birds in the Fraser Valley region in October, and it has been determined that it is not directly linked to the outbreak at a poultry farm in British Columbia.

“It's a terrible virus.”

A letter sent to the New England Journal of Medicine says the H5N1 virus can cause serious illness in humans.

“Evidence of change” [protein structures] “The potential for increased binding to human airway receptors is concerning,” the letter concludes.

Watch | Doctors talk about the possibility of bird flu spreading to humans:

What are the chances of bird flu infecting humans and can we deal with it?

A pet cat in the United States died after contracting H5N1 avian influenza after eating raw pet food. Epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Labos told CBC News that while the risk of individual pets contracting bird flu is still low, the concern is that it's becoming more susceptible to infection in many different types of animals, and that “eventually this virus will spread. This means the virus is more likely to spread.” infect humans. ”

Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at Toronto General Hospital, said the letter and the symptoms described in it are consistent with other reports of human cases of bird flu over the past 20 years.

“Given the severity of this infection, I think it's pretty fair to say this is a scary virus,” he told CBC News.

“There's also, for lack of a better word, a very active host response and a significant inflammatory response to this virus.”

Bogoch said the virus was not yet easily transmitted from person to person, but called on authorities to take precautions.

“We need to infect as few mammals as possible with this virus,” he said. “So it doesn't give it a chance to mutate in a way that makes it more transmissible between humans.”