Bird flu cases are steadily increasing in states around the country, as concerns grow about it spreading further. This week, Washington reported its first cases of avian influenza. Four agriculture workers tested presumptively positive after working with infected birds at an egg farm in Franklin County.
Ahe state’s health department said that the workers had mild symptoms and were given antiviral medication. Additional people on the farm were also being tested, and 800,000 birds were euthanized after test results showed they had been infected. Washington was the sixth state to identify a human infected with the H5N1 virus.
The highly contagious virus is transmitted through infected saliva, mucous, and the feces of infected birds. It can also pass through the bodily fluids, organs, blood and respiratory discharge of other animals. Humans are infected when the virus enters the eyes, nose, mouth or is inhaled.
Infection ranges in severity, but can lead to acute disease that results in death. Symptoms include pneumonia, fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose, muscle or body aches, fatigue, trouble breathing and headaches. The total number of human cases across the US has risen to 31, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has officially reported cases in California, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri and Texas.
Nine of the 27 cases the agency reports were associated with exposure to infected poultry and 17 were linked to infected dairy cows. California has seen the mos.
