For the first time in Canada’s British Columbia province, a person has been diagnosed with H5 bird flu. The suspected adolescent patient is being treated at a children’s hospital. News from Reuters.
Authorities said in a statement that no other cases of H5 bird flu have been detected in the province so far. The identified patient is most likely infected with the virus through an animal or bird. Investigations are underway into the source of infection and whether anyone came in contact with the patient.
“This is a rare event,” Bonnie Henry, one of the state’s leading physicians in the province of British Columbia, said in a statement. This is the first case of H5 bird flu in the province of British Columbia or the whole of Canada. Outside of Canada, very few such patients have been identified in the United States and other countries. That’s why we’re conducting a thorough investigation into the source of transmission of the disease in British Columbia.
