Jakarta – California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency regarding avian influenza. At least dozens of people have fallen ill due to the disease.
Quoted from Al Jazeera, Newsom said that by declaring a state of emergency, funds will be available to “facilitate and expedite” efforts to address the outbreak.
Since bird flu was detected in dairy farms in the United States in 2022, the disease has spread to hundreds of livestock herds in 16 U.S. states and caused infections in several dairy farm workers, all of whom have so far remained mild.
Previously, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that a 65-year-old man was hospitalized in critical condition after being infected with the H5N1 virus. “The CDC confirmed the first severe H5N1 avian influenza case in the US. While the investigation into the source of the infection is ongoing, it has been confirmed that the patient was exposed to sick and dead birds in a backyard flock,” the agency said.
The H5N1 strain was first detected in the US in March of this year. Since then, 61 people in seven states have been reported to have contracted the virus. Most of them only experienced mild symptoms, and 34 of them were in California.
CDC said that partial genomic data of the virus from infected patients indicate that the virus belongs to the D1.1 genotype, which has recently been detected in wild birds and poultry in the United States and in recent human cases in British Columbia, Canada, and Washington state.
Before 2022, cases of avian influenza in humans were not reported at all in the US. In 2022, only one case of avian influenza in a human was detected in the US, and no human cases were detected in 2023.
California Declares H5N1 Bird Flu Emergency, Here’s the Situation
