A child has been confirmed with bird flu in California – the first reported case in a US minor, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health authorities say the child had mild symptoms, was treated with antiviral medication, and is recovering.

“It’s natural for people to be concerned, and we want to reinforce for parents, caregivers, and families that based on the information and data we have, we don’t think the child was infectious – and no human-to-human spread of bird flu has been documented in any country for more than 15 years,” said Dr Tomás Aragón, California's public health director.

According to state officials, the child attends daycare and lives in Alameda County, which includes Oakland and surrounding communities. No further information about him was released.

Officials said they are investigating how the child was infected. California health officials previously said in a statement that they were looking into a “possible exposure to wild birds”.

There is no evidence that bird flu spreads from the child to other people.

However, it is reported that those living in the child's household have reported having similar symptoms, but their test results were negative for bird flu. Health officials noted the child and the household members also tested positive for other common respiratory viruses.

The infection brings the reported number of US. The CDC said that bird flu cases this year reached 55, including 29 in California. Most of those infected have been farmworkers who tested positive with mild symptoms. One exception was an adult in Missouri who did not work at a farm and had no known contact with an infected animal. It remains a mystery how that person was infected, even as health officials have said there was no evidence of it spreading between people.

Canadian officials have also said that a British Columbian teen was recently hospitalized with bird flu.

According to statistics, the virus has since 2021 killed at least 280 million poultry birds and caused the largest sudden loss of the world’s wild birds in decades. It has spread as far as the Antarctic region – where it has led to mass deaths of elephant seals and fur seals.

H5N1 Bird flu began spreading in US dairy cattle in March. California - the nation’s top dairy producer, has become the center of the US outbreak. Since August, the state has detected 402 herds infected – 65 per cent of the 616 herds confirmed with the virus in 15 states.

Experts have called for a significant need for more testing and training for farm workers to protect themselves from this illness. Most doctors say not enough is being done to make sure that we are protecting people from getting infected and certainly making sure that people who are infected get access to medicines that could potentially keep them from getting severely ill.

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