Five new human bird flu infections in Colorado

Colorado public health officials reported five new cases of bird flu on Sunday, more than doubling the number of bird-to-human cases of the disease in the United States this year.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Department of Agriculture jointly confirmed five cases of poultry workers having contracted the virus at a commercial egg layer operation site.

The human infections with the virus come as a result of a widespread outbreak of bird flu among several mammal species since 2022. The outbreak has become more severe, however, since dairy cows began contracting and spreading the virus in late March.

Since then, there had been four cases of dairy industry personnel contracting the virus: two in Michigan, one in Texas, and one in Colorado.

State public health officials said the human infections in this case were a direct result of working with infected poultry and that the investigation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still ongoing.

“The workers were culling poultry at a farm in northeast Colorado and exhibited mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis (pink eye) and common respiratory infection symptoms,” the state press release noted. “None were hospitalized.”

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture has bolstered funding for personal protective equipment for both dairy and poultry workers in an effort to minimize human exposure.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is coordinating with USDA to monitor mutations in the virus that would allow for human-to-human transmission, which so far is not possible.