Students across B.C. return to school on Tuesday but the news that a teen is in hospital in Vancouver with a suspected case of H5 bird flu has some people worried.
Dr. Anna Wolak, a family physician in Vancouver, said many parents are likely having flashbacks to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite this flu being a single case.
“So my main concern is the safety of our children,” she said.
“As we go back to the crowded areas, to schools in general where children are packed in the classroom, what I am hoping is that over the summer and over the last few years of this, living with COVID, that the schools have updated their filtration, their purification and their ventilation systems.”
Wolak said teachers should still open windows to ventilate the rooms and clean the air in crowded areas, helping minimize kids’ exposure to an airborne virus.
The teen remains in B.C.’s Children’s Hospital and health officials are assuring the public they are working to figure out how the patient acquired the infection and who else they might have contacted.
The teenager likely caught the virus from a bird or animal, the province said in a statement over the weekend.
Wolak said there are still other respiratory viruses going around and encouraged parents and caregivers to make sure everyone’s vaccines are up to date.
“I don’t know that we need to be panicked,” she added. “But it’s always good to just be concerned, like staying home when you’re sick … vaccinating and then making sure that ventilation is adequate for children who are immunocompromised.”
H5 bird flu is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows, with several recent human cases in U.S. dairy and poultry workers.
Human-to-human transmission is rare and there has been no evidence of sustained transmission between humans, according to Health Canada.
It is an airborne virus and cannot be contracted from eating eggs or chicken.
Dr. Troy Bourque with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency told Global News that avian flu has been in Canada since December 2021.
“We’re now currently in wave six of that response,” he said.
“The wave six started in B.C. this year in October and so far has infected 24 farms in the Fraser Valley.”
Bourque said about six million birds have been euthanized since December 2021.
“Our effort is to try to control that disease in the animal population to prevent any further spread of it. In the domestic population, humans can be exposed to avian influenza from a sick or dead bird, whether that’s a domestic bird or wildlife bird. So those precautions should be taken when if you see a dead wild bird or any dead animal, actually and be careful doing that.”
Bourque said every country seems to be dealing with bird flu at this time and everyone should take precautions, whether they work on or live close to a farm or not.
