NEW YORK — A Michigan dairy worker has been diagnosed with bird flu – the second human case linked to an outbreak in US dairy cows.
The patient experienced mild eye symptoms and recovered, U.S. and Michigan health officials said in announcing the case Wednesday. The worker was in contact with suspected infected cows and the risk to the public remains low, officials said.
A nasal swab from the person tested negative for the virus, but an eye swab tested positive, “indicating an eye infection,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.
The first case came in late March, when a farmworker in Texas was diagnosed in what authorities called the first known case globally of a person contracting this version of bird flu from a mammal. This patient also reported only ocular inflammation and recovered.
Since 2020, the bird flu virus has spread among more animal species – including dogs, cats, possums, bears and even seals and porpoises – in several countries. The detection in U.S. livestock farming earlier this year was an unexpected turn of events that raised questions about food safety and whether the disease would begin to spread among humans.
This did not happen, although there has been a steady increase in reported infections in cows. As of Wednesday, the virus had been confirmed in 51 dairy herds in nine states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Fifteen of the herds were in Michigan. Health officials declined to say how many people exposed to infected cattle have been tested or monitored.
The virus has been found in high levels in raw milk from infected cows, but government officials say pasteurized products sold in supermarkets are safe because heat treatment has been confirmed to kill the virus.
The new case marks the third time a person in the United States has been diagnosed with what is known as the H5N1 type A virus. In 2022, an inmate in a work program contracted the virus while killing infected birds at a chicken farm in Montrose County, Colorado. His only symptom was fatigue and he recovered. This predates the appearance of the virus in cows.
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