Less than two months after a first case, a second person was infected with avian flu in the United States, linked to an epidemic of this virus that spread in the country’s cow herds, health authorities announced Wednesday .
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This new patient works on a farm in Michigan where the H5N1 virus has infected cows, said the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).
For health authorities, however, the risk assessment for the American population remains “low”.
A first case in Texas, in the south of the United States, was announced on 1er april. This was “probably” the first case of avian influenza infection from a cow worldwide, according to the CDC.
A first human case of avian flu was discovered in the country in 2022, in Colorado, but it was then an infection by poultry.
For the person infected in Michigan as in Texas, the patient only showed symptoms in the eyes, the CDC specifies.
Experts are concerned about the growing number of mammals infected with the disease, although cases in humans remain rare.
There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission at this time, but scientists fear that high circulation could facilitate a mutation of the virus that would allow it to pass from one human to another.
