MERCER COUNTY — The Ohio Department of Health is reporting the state’s first probable human case of bird flu.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, a Mercer County man who was a farm worker came in contact with dead commercial poultry and was infected with the virus, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers the current risk of bird flu for the general public to be low.
However, human infections can happen when the virus gets into a person’s eyes, nose, or mouth, or if it is inhaled. If people think they were exposed, doctors want them to go to the hospital and get tested.
“Have you heard of bird flu?” News Center 7′s Taylor Robertson asked someone Wednesday.
“No, not until I came up here,” said Zach Sparks.
He moved to Celina from Cincinnati when he learned what bird flu was.
“Because, up here, I’m assuming it’s all the farmland and stuff,” Sparks told Robertson.
He was surprised to hear when the CDC said it was rare for the virus to spread among people. But it can happen.
The Ohio Department of Health advised the public to avoid direct contact with wild birds or sick or dead poultry.
The ODH said people should look for eye redness and respiratory illness symptoms if they think they got exposed. But some will experience no symptoms at all.
Sparks says he is not worried. What bothered him more was the sky-high egg prices.
“I eat a lot of eggs, my roommates can tell you that. I go through 60 eggs in about a week, maybe a week and a half,” he told Robertson.
Robertson contacted ODH and the Department of Agriculture, but they told her they were not unavailable.
News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.
More guidance from the ODH on bird flu can be found here.
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