The Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge district health unit (HKPR) is monitoring after the first human case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu) was confirmed in British Columbia recently.
Dr. Natalie Bocking, HKPR medical officer of health, said a Richmond, B.C. teenager was diagnosed with the virus in early November. He was admitted to the province’s specialist children’s hospital, where he remains in critical, but stable condition.
Concerns around bird flu have heightened in recent years, with the virus killing millions of poultry across North America since 2020. The most recent strain, H5N1 can be particularly nasty, Bocking notes, with it mainly targeting the respiratory tract. It can also cause gastrointestinal and central nervous system issues.
While human-to-human transmission is rare, Bocking advised people to avoid handling dead or sick birds. She said there’s been an increase in the virus over the past two years, most significantly to cattle. Bocking said the affliction has also taken hold with pigs.
“When you see a basic increased transmission, then an increased transmission within mammals, then from mammal to humans, that puts the virus at an advantage to continue to continue to mutate and potentially develop into a strain that could be passed on from human to human,” Bocking said.
Last year, HKPR confirmed one local case, in a flock of infected poultry, but there haven’t been any concerns since. The last fatal case of bird flu reported in Canada was in Alberta in 2014.
