Well I don't know about you but this puts a damper on my Tuesday:
On Monday, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced that a person who was exposed to dairy cattle presumed to be infected with bird flu had also caught the virus.
It is only the second time a human in the U.S. has contracted HPAI A, or H5N1, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A person in contact with infected poultry was sickened in Colorado in 2022.
The state "issued a public health alert Monday" in which it asked health care providers "to be on the lookout for people with symptoms of bird flu who may have been exposed to an infected person or animal."
I think I speak for everyone in the entire world when I say:
Remember that it was only just recently that the bird flu was detected in U.S. livestock:
This warning from last month feels rather quaint now, doesn't it?
Thankfully, research to-date has shown mammals appear to be dead-end hosts, which means they're unlikely to spread HPAI further.
Thankfully, in Texas, "the person who tested positive for bird flu had reported eye inflammation, or conjunctivitis, as their only symptom." So hopefully that resolves quickly.
I'm gonna keep the cattle at arm's length for now just to be safe though.
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