Indicators of H5N1 chicken flu virus have been detected at three wastewater websites in California’s Bay Space, in accordance with sampling knowledge.
Whereas optimistic wastewater samples have been present in seven different states, California is the one one which has but to report a chicken flu outbreak in a herd of dairy cows.
Genetic proof of chicken flu was detected in San Francisco wastewater on June 18 and June 26. Extra H5 “hits” have been seen at a web site in Palo Alto on June 19, and one other on June 10 from the West County Wastewater facility in Richmond.
In keeping with the San Francisco Division of Public Well being, officers have been carefully monitoring H5N1 together with federal, state and native companions, and are “conscious of the latest detections of fragments of H5N1 in San Francisco’s wastewater.”
“As with the earlier detections reported from earlier than mid-Might 2024, it’s unclear what the supply of H5N1 is, and an investigation is ongoing,” wrote division officers in an announcement. “It’s doable that it originated from chicken waste or waste from different animals resulting from San Francisco’s sewer system that collects and treats each wastewater and stormwater in the identical community of pipes.”
Well being officers mentioned the chance stays low for most people.
The virus has not been recognized in California cows, but it surely has been present in wild birds and home poultry within the state.
The discovering “is regarding” due to their city origin, mentioned Devabhaktuni Srikrishna, an entrepreneur who’s growing methods for illness detection, and the chief government and founding father of PatientKnowHow.com. “There will not be many dairy or animal farms in San Francisco.”
There are additionally no dairy farms in Palo Alto or Richmond.
The plant supervisor from Palo Alto was out of the workplace Friday, so couldn’t remark. A spokesperson for the Richmond web site directed inquiries to the state.
A request for remark from the state’s Wastewater Surveillance Program had not but been returned.
Though the samples from the Bay Space wastewater websites examined optimistic for H5, the testing was not particular to H5N1.
Nonetheless, researchers say a optimistic genetic identification for H5 is suggestive of chicken flu — whether or not H5N1, the virus that has been present in U.S. dairy cattle (and which has contaminated three dairy employees ) or H5N2, the subtype implicated within the loss of life of a person from Mexico Metropolis this month.
Most human influenza A viruses are of the H1 and H3 selection.
The virus has been detected in 133 dairy herds throughout 12 states. It has additionally been present in wild birds and home poultry flocks all through america.
In latest weeks, H5 was additionally detected in wastewater samples in Idaho. amongst different states.
Whereas there’s “no menace to most people from the H5 detection in wastewater” at the moment, mentioned Christine Hahn, Idaho state epidemiologist, “we’ve got decided that it’s important that we work to grasp these latest findings as a lot as doable.”
The state is working together with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention to analyze the problem.
WastewaterSCAN, the analysis group that detected the virus, is an infectious illness monitoring community run by researchers at Stanford, Emory College and Verily, Alphabet Inc.’s life sciences group.
A overview of their knowledge — which samples from 194 places throughout the nation — suggests H5 has additionally been detected at websites in Michigan, Texas, Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa.
California is the one one in all these states that has not reported H5N1-infected cattle.
