Re: Washington state reports posible human bird flu patient

On 10/24/2024 5:26 PM, RonO wrote:

On 10/22/2024 3:33 PM, RonO wrote:

On 10/21/2024 2:55 PM, RonO wrote:

https://doh.wa.gov/newsroom/first-presumed-human-infections-avian- influenza-under-investigation-washington-state
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Washington has not admitted to having infected dairy herds, but Poultry flocks started to go down with H5N1, and in all the other states the poultry flocks have gotten infected from infected dairy herds.
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Four of the poultry workers are being tested because they started to exhibit symptoms after working with the infected birds.
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Ron Okimoto
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https://www.nbc26.com/health/bird-flu/4-farm-workers-become-the-first- to-test-positive-for-bird-flu-in-washington-state
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This update indicates that 4 poultry workers exhibited symptoms and tested positive for H5N1.  Samples were sent to the CDC for verification.  This article also claims that other workers are also being tested so the number of infected is likely to change.  Officials are trying to contact other employees and contractors that worked at the farm so that they can be tested.
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Contact tracing should be done so that Washington can identify the dairy herd that likely infected the poultry farm due to shared workers.
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Ron Okimoto

 https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2024/10/24/cdc-confirms-two-people- in-washington-infected-with-bird-flu/
 The CDC has confirmed 2 of the 4 human cases submitted for verification with the other two still pending.  The total number of human cases submitted for verification from Washington has grown to 7.
 The CDC is participating in testing more than 100 people in Washington (equal to more than 1/3 of the total testing that the CDC has acknowledged to date).  So it looks like the CDC is finally going to try to test enough people to determine what the infection rate might be. They should also start testing the dairies because the poultry farms have always gotten the virus from infected dairy herds in all the other states.
 There are likely a lot of infected dairy workers in Washington that just are not being tested.
 Ron Okimoto
 

The CDC has increased the confirmed cases in Washington to 5 poultry workers today, but I can't find any comment on the case verifications.
https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/state/washington/article294480529.html
This news article claims that there are now 8 individuals sent to the CDC for verification, and they do not seem to know that the CDC is classifying the infections as the dairy virus.  The article indicates that they think that the poultry farms were infected by migratory fowl, but the closest state with the dairy infection is Idaho and California, and the migration is going south not north east.
More poultry flocks have gone down with the virus and the Washington health officials do not seem to know that poultry farms are usually infected by nearby infected dairy herds.  They should be contact tracing workers that worked at the farms when it got infected and trace them back to the infected dairies.  Both Texas and Michigan found out that some dairy workers also worked at poultry farms because most dairies do not maintain full time staff.  At the very least they should be bulk milk tank testing the dairies in the affected counties (three counties are claimed to have infected poultry).
The CDC needs to get the sequence information out to people that can start tracing how the infection is spreading.
Ron Okimoto