CHICAGO (Reuters) – Bird flu has infected three more people from Washington state after they were exposed to poultry that tested positive for the virus, according to health authorities in Oregon, where the cases were identified.
A total of 39 people have tested positive in the U.S. this year as the virus has spread to more than 400 dairy herds, federal data show. All but one of the people were farm workers who had known contact with infected animals.
The CDC updated an online count of U.S. human cases to include the three new infections from Washington, and Washington raised its state count to nine people from six, the Oregon Health Authority said in a statement on Thursday.
The Washington State Department of Health had no immediate comment. Its website showed nine humans have been infected after being exposed to poultry.
Oregon identified the three new cases after the people traveled to the state from Washington while infected, the Oregon Health Authority’s statement said. They have since returned to Washington, where they are being monitored by Washington public health staff, according to the statement.
There have been no infections among people living in Oregon and is no evidence of human-to-human transmission, the Oregon Health Authority said. It added that the risk for infection to the general public remains low.
Since 2022, the virus has wiped out more than 100 million poultry birds in the nation’s worst-ever bird flu outbreak.
H5N1 bird flu was confirmed in a pig on a backyard farm in Oregon, the first detection of the virus in swine in the country, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
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