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Four workers in rural Washington state were presumptively diagnosed with bird flu at an egg farm, officials said Sunday.
Washington is the sixth state to detect what is formally known as highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 in workers. The farm in southern Franklin county was the source of a known outbreak where workers had already euthanized about 800,000 chickens.
“Washington has monitored the spread of H5N1 closely since it was first detected in poultry in the state in 2022,” the state’s secretary of health, Dr Umair Shah, said in a statement. “Our state is prepared with the knowledge, relationships, and tools to minimize its impacts on our community.”
Authorities with the local health district said samples had been sent to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to confirm the presumptive diagnosis.
The health district said workers’ symptoms have been mild. Anyone local to the area with pink eye, respiratory infections and recent work with chickens has been asked to call the local health district.
There have been 27 known bird flu cases in humans, not including the new diagnoses in Washington, according to the CDC. The federal health authority said the risk to the general public is low.
Most known cases occurred in people with close contact with infected animals.
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However, experts have criticized the government’s response to the outbreak, arguing there is not enough testing to know its true extent. At least one confirmed human infection in Missouri had no known animal exposure, and large shares of exposed workers have not been tested.
Some experts have also argued that it’s almost certain dairy herds are more widely affected than current testing reflects.
Often, outbreaks have occurred in heavily Republican and agricultural areas, where some farmers have resisted testing because of distrust of authorities or fear of losing income.
Nearly every state has had bird flu inflections confirmed in wild birds and poultry, with more than 103m chickens affected since the outbreak began, the CDC said. Fourteen states have confirmed infections in dairy herds.