County well prepared for a bird flu yet to arrive

Bird flu has raised concerns for many, as healthcare professionals in the county take preventive measures to ease worries.

“The bird flu is referring to avian influenza,” said Dr. Jyoti Somani, Jackson Health System’s medical director for infectious diseases and associate medical director, infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship, “and it’s a type of influenza virus that affects birds. What’s been concerning is it got into dairy cows as well. It doesn’t just affect birds … a lot of other animal species as well, but particularly birds, and it’s very deadly in chickens and other birds.

“The worry is that it could eventually … spread to humans, and then also mutate to where it can spread from one human to another. That’s the real worry.”

Although concerns have risen, Dr. Somani said that Miami-Dade County has not had any cases. Additionally, Jackson has taken the necessary steps in light of the bird flu, he said.

“Jackson Infection Control Department has always worked very closely with the state public health officials and with CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention],” she said. “We’re part of their CDC flu surveillance. The CDC and the state health department has recommended some increased testing, at least awareness for looking forward.”

“What that means,” she said, “is we do our normal flu testing, but what we’re asking physicians to do, and caregivers to do is: if a patient tests positive for flu, depending on the type, if it’s not your regular H1N1, which is what’s going around … then our lab is sending it off for more specific testing to look to see if it’s H5N1, which is the one … that you test positive for if it’s avian flu.”

In addition to this, she explained, doctors are asking exposure questions when patients come in with flu symptoms, questions such as whether the patient is taking care of chickens or working on a poultry farm. If the patient is doing so, extra precautions are taken.

Based on history of exposure or a patient’s severe symptoms, said Dr. Somani, infection control precautions are taken to a higher level than they would be for regular flu.

“The purpose of the infection control precautions,” she said, “are mainly while we’re waiting on testing to make sure we’re not allowing it to spread … patient to patient. However, having said that, so far, there has been no spread … one human to another for this avian flu, even in the cases that we’ve had already.”

Dr. Bhavarth Shukla, UHealth’s medical director for infection control and associate professor, division of infectious diseases, also said the county has not witnessed any cases of bird flu yet and advised those closest to animals to be on the lookout.

“So far, there haven’t been any … human-to-human transmission events,” he said. “Most of the cases that have been reported are related to people who either take care of animals or have chicken coops and things like that. I think if you do interact a lot with animals especially, you should watch out for any symptoms.”

Bird flu circulates among different bird species, said Dr. Shukla. It has been circulating since “sometime in March-April last year, spreading among different bird and mammal species.”

Dr. Shukla shared UHealth has taken preventative measures as bird flu has raised concerns.

“We always like to prepare,” he said, “and so we’ve certainly worked with our laboratory to make sure we have capability to diagnose it, and have certainly shared some information about it with our clinical staff, so that people are prepared.”

Birds get very sick quickly from avian influenza, said Dr. Somani as she explained precautions people can take. Individuals should stay away from any sick or dead birds. Another concern raised is: should people eat eggs?

“You can eat eggs,” she said, “especially as long as you cook them, but that’s true for other things that are carried in eggs, like salmonella, so we should always eat well-cooked eggs, especially if we have a weak immune system.

“What’s worrisome is dairy cows, when they’re getting avian influenza, they’re actually not getting sick from it, and they have found high levels of the virus in raw milk from cows.” People should be very cautious about drinking raw milk, Dr. Somani said.

Cases have increased since fall, said Dr. Somani. The Department of Agriculture and other public health officials have taken steps to ensure that the bird flu does not spread between dairy farms and poultry farms.

“I think the main thing is … it doesn’t seem to be a threat to humans at this time,” said Dr. Shukla, “but it’s important to always be vigilant, and so certainly we and other people in healthcare are doing so, and we’ll continue to monitor and see what happens.”