B.C. teen in critical condition in hospital with 1st presumptive human case of bird flu
B.C. provincial health officer Dr.
Bonnie Henry says the teenager in Children’s Hospital with Canada’s first presumptive case of avian flu is in critical condition.Henry said the teen was admitted late on Friday and their condition varied over the weekend but that as of Tuesday they had taken a turn for the worst.It was first reported over the weekend that the teenager was at B.C. Children’s Hospital with a suspected case of H5N1 bird flu.“Their initial symptoms started, not surprisingly, with conjunctivitis,” Henry said.“So infection in the eyes, fever and cough, and those are really the hallmarks.
It’s very difficult early on to determine if that is from influenza from COVID, from other respiratory viruses. So it really was this surveillance network that we have in place and the testing that was done that led us to identify the H5N1 in this person.”Health officials are assuring the public they are working to figure out how the patient acquired the infection and who else they might have contacted.
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