B.C.’s provincial health officer says the teenager who has tested positive for bird flu is in critical condition in B.C. Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Bonnie Henry says the teenager, who has the first presumptive human case of bird flu contracted in Canada, was admitted to hospital late Friday. B.C. tests last week confirmed the teenager has the virus, but are waiting confirmation from a national laboratory in Winnipeg.
She says it’s likely that the teenager contracted the illness from exposure to an animal or the environment, although there’s a “very real possibility” that the source will never be found.
Henry says 12 other people have been tested for avian flu, including medical workers who came into contact with the teen,but they haven’t identified anyone else as having the illness.
She says they have found no link between the teen, who lives somewhere in the Fraser Health region, and any of the two dozen poultry farms in B.C. that have had avian flu outbreaks during the fall migration of wild birds.
The provincial health officer said earlier that infection in a human — caused by the H5N1 strain of avian influenza — is rare and has happened in only a handful of cases in the U.S. and abroad.
READ MORE:B.C. has its first human case of avian flu: Here’s what you need to know
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