Increased human protections offered as H5N2 outbreak spreads

CHICAGO: Hundreds of farm workers exposed to a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu have been offered antiviral medication as a preventative measure in recent days, US public health officials said.

To date, the virulent H5N2 influenza, which has infected turkeys and chickens on Midwestern poultry farms, has not affected humans. But because flu viruses are highly mutable, there is a worry that those in direct contact with infected birds could fall ill from the disease.

How severe such human infections could be is not known. But even if some people become ill, government researchers and public health experts said, it is highly unlikely the illness could be passed between humans – in part due to the genetic make-up of this particular flu strain.

Dr. Alicia Fry, a medical officer in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s influenza division, said that while health officials are cautiously optimistic that humans will not be affected, her agency has isolated a pure strain of the H5N2 virus for potential use in a human vaccine, should one be needed.

Concerns about human health risk have prompted investigators to ramp up biosecurity measures on infected farms, with some government staff overseeing the culling of birds wearing full protective body suits and ventilators.

At the same time, the CDC is also working through legal issues related to releasing the government’s stockpile of Roche's antiviral drug Tamiflu to be used for this outbreak, agency officials said.

An estimated 300 people in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and South Dakota have been told they should take the drug as a precaution, public health officials told Reuters, but fewer than half of them have begun doing so.

In South Dakota, all of the infected turkey flocks have been on farms owned by Hutterites, members of a Christian sect that lives and farms collectively, and more than 100 workers there have declined the medical treatment, state officials said.

Elsewhere, workers refusing the drug have said that they do not feel they are at high risk or want to wait to see if they actually get the virus before taking medication, agency officials say.