The California Department of Public Health reported a possible case of bird flu in a child with mild respiratory symptoms on Tuesday, but said there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus and that members of the child’s family had tested negative.
California officials said they sent test samples from the child to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for confirmation.
A CDC spokesperson said the agency is aware of the presumptive positive case of H5 avian influenza, is cooperating with the state’s investigation, and will provide further updates immediately. The agency said the risk to the general public remains low.
Although human infections in the United States are rare, bird flu has sickened 53 people since April, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most recent of which was a person in Oregon last week linked to an outbreak of bird flu at a commercial poultry operation in the state.
In Canada, officials reported earlier this month that a teenager infected with bird flu in British Columbia was in critical condition.
The state said the child in California was in foster care and had mild symptoms before the illness was reported.
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Local health officials have contacted caregivers and families potentially exposed to the virus to check for symptoms and offer preventive treatment and testing if they develop symptoms.
The child and all immediate family members were treated with prophylactic medications, the state said. The child had no known contact with an infected animal, but public health experts are investigating possible exposure to wild birds.
“It is natural for people to be concerned, and we want to assure parents, caregivers and families that based on the information and data we have, we do not believe the child was contagious,” said Dr. Thomas Aragon, director of the California Department of Health. He added: “No human-to-human transmission of bird flu has been documented in any country for more than 15 years.”
Most bird flu cases in the United States, including 26 in California, have occurred among farmworkers who work with poultry or dairy cows infected with the virus.
Because bird flu viruses can mutate and gain the ability to spread more easily between humans, California public health officials said they are carefully monitoring animal and human infections.
The state urged residents to avoid contact with sick or dead wild birds, and renewed the warning against consuming raw milk or raw milk products that have not been pasteurized to inactivate the bird flu virus and other harmful pathogens.
