Person infected with avian influenza in Texas after contact with livestock
At least one person in Texas has been diagnosed with bird flu after coming into contact with presumably infected dairy cows, state officials said Monday.The announcement adds a worrying dimension to an epidemic that has affected millions of birds and marine mammals around the world and, more recently, cows in the United States.So far, there are no signs that the virus has evolved in ways that would help it spread more easily among people, federal officials said.The patient worked directly with sick dairy cows, said Lara M. Anton, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. “We have tested about a dozen symptomatic people who work on dairies and only one person tested positive” for the virus, she said in an email.The patient's main symptom was conjunctivitis; the ...