(NewsNation) — Texas’ Department of State Health Services reported a human case of avian influenza virus, also known as the bird flu, on Monday.
The case, health officials said, was identified in someone with direct exposure to dairy cattle that was assumed to be infected with the flu. Health officials said this is the first human case of avian influenza recorded in Texas — and only the second in the United States.
Even with this case, the bird flu risk to the general public remains low, the Department of State Health Services said in a news release.
Last week, U.S. officials announced that milk from dairy cows in Texas and Kansas tested positive for bird flu, and that the virus is affecting animals in New Mexico as well. Federal agriculture officials also confirmed infections in a Michigan dairy herd that recently received cows from Texas, the Associated Press wrote.
Wild birds, the United States Department of Agriculture said, were likely the source of the infection.
Before that, the Minnesota Board of Animal Health said goats on a farm where animals were already being quarantined tested positive for the variant as well. That marked the first time bird flu was believed to be found in U.S. livestock.
“Although avian (bird) influenza (flu) A viruses (sic) usually do not infect people, there have been some rare cases of human infection with these viruses,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote on its website.
Bird that are infected shed the virus through their saliva, mucus and feces. Humans can get the virus via their eyes, nose, mouth or through inhaling it.
Illnesses people get from bird flu can range in severity from having virtually no symptoms, to mild illness, to severe disease that results in death, according to the CDC. Less common symptoms, per the CDC, include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, or seizures.
The first time a human was diagnosed with bird flu in 2022, for instance, he said his only symptom was fatigue, and he ultimately recovered. This human had been in a prison work program, and picked up the virus while killing infected birds at a poultry farm in Montrose County, Colorado.
Laboratory testing is needed to diagnose bird flu virus infection, the CDC wrote. This is usually done by collecting a swab from the person’s nose or throat.
Bird flu was first identified as a potential threat to people when there was a 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong, China. More than 460 people have died in the past twenty years from bird flu infections, the World Health Organization says.
NewsNation digital producer Steph Whiteside and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
