Teenagers – the bastion of youth and health. But in Canada a teenager is now in critical condition after being infected with a version of the H5N1 avian influenza flu virus. Doctors and epidemics researchers are on high alert. According to news outlets in Canada the teen is in stable but critical condition, and has developed acute respiratory distress syndrome, where the lungs become so damaged that they can no longer supply enough oxygen to the body.
The teen developed symptoms on November 2, and was hospitalized at the British Columbia children’s hospital on November 8. The teens symptoms started with conjunctivitis – an infection in the eyes – along with a fever and a cough.
Viral genome sequences from the virus suggest that this is a mutated form of H5N1 — which is related to the one infecting US dairy cattle but this permutation might be better at infecting people through the human airway. If true, it could mean that this virus could rapidly evolve to make the jump from birds to humans. “There is reason to be concerned,” says immunologist Scott Hensley. “But not reason to totally freak out.”
“The fact that we have a first human case in Canada is not at all surprising, given what is happening in the US and Europe, as well as what is happening in domestic bird flocks in British Columbia,” said Dr. Brian Ward, a professor of medicine at McGill University, researcher with McGill’s J.D. MacLean Centre for Tropical Diseases, and co-director of McGill’s Vaccine Study Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
“Millions of migratory waterfowl are flying over Canada right now, many of which may be carrying or infected with the virus,” he added. “The bottom line is that increasing evidence of mammal-to-mammal spread among dairy cows, elephant seals, and mink and ermine farms is worrisome, but we don’t need to sound the sirens yet.”
Infected birds shed the avian flu in their saliva, nasal secretions, and feces. Birds become infected when they have contact with the virus as it is shed by infected birds. There is a danger when birds from poultry farms are overcrowded and wild birds contact the industrial ones under stressed conditions.
