San Francisco public health officials announced Friday that a child in the city had tested positive for bird flu.
The child, who has fully recovered, experienced fever and conjunctivitis but was not hospitalized.
“The risk to the general public remains low as there is currently no evidence of person-to-person transmission,” the San Francisco Department of Public Health said in a news release.
The department urged residents not to consume raw milk or raw milk products and to avoid dead and sick birds. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be doing additional testing to confirm the case, local officials said.
More than half the confirmed cases of H5N1 bird flu in humans in the current outbreak have occurred in California. If confirmed by the CDC, this would be the 38th case in the state and the 67th in the country.
Louisiana last week reported the country’s first bird flu death in a human. Close to 1,000 confirmed cases have been reported outside the U.S.; about half of those were fatal.
There has been no evidence of person-to-person transmission in the current outbreak, according to the CDC. While it’s unclear how the child in SF contracted the virus, most bird flu infections have been caused by exposure to sick animals.
The public health department said the child initially tested for COVID-19, influenza, and RSV and tested positive for influenza. The specimen was then tested for H5N1 bird flu as part of the agency’s enhanced surveillance program. The department is continuing to investigate the case.