Canadian health officials confirmed on Wednesday the first known fatal case of the H5N1 avian influenza strain in North America. The resident of Alberta had recently traveled to Beijing and first showed symptoms of the flu on a flight from Beijing to Vancouver on December 27. The passenger continued onto Edmonton and on January 1 was admitted to the hospital where they died two days later. Dr. Gregory Taylor, deputy chief public health officer for Canada, said that the patient was relatively young, with no underlying health conditions.
“As Canada’s Health Minister, I want to reassure the public this is an isolated case,” Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose said. “The risk of H5N1 to Canadians is very low. There is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission. It is also important for Canadians to know that this case is not part of the seasonal flu that circulates in Canada every year,” she said.
Canadian authorities have followed up with all close contacts of the infected person and offered Tamiflu as a precaution. None are showing signs of illness, Taylor said, and there is no evidence for human-to-human transmission on airplanes.
Most avian flu viruses do not cause disease in humans, according to the World Health Organization. However, some viruses like H5N1 are zoonotic, which means they can infect humans and cause disease, even death. The H5N1 virus has been primarily found in poultry in parts of Asia and northeastern Africa, where some individuals have contracted the virus and died. Canadian authorities are working with Chinese authorities on the case, but, at this time, there is no evidence that the infected person had been on a poultry farm or had much contact with birds while in Beijing, so it is unclear how the individual caught the virus.
“H5N1 has been circulated in poultry over the last decade and occasionally humans are infected,” said Professor Nick Phin, a flu expert from Public Health England. “Infection of humans causes severe illness with a high death rate, but the virus does not transmit readily from person-to-person,” he said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of the 648 human cases of H5N1 infections detected since 2003 have occurred in people with direct or close contact with poultry. Of those cases of H5N1 infections in 15 countries, 384 people died.
CDC considers that the health risk to people in the Americas posted by the detection of this one case is very low and is not recommending that the public take any particular actions regarding the H5N1 virus in response to the Canadian case.
Authorities in Shanghai recently decided to suspend sales of live poultry between January 31 and April 30. Sales will be banned periodically over the next five years in an attempt to stem avian flu.
