A fourth farm worker has been infected with bird flu in the growing outbreak linked to dairy cows, health officials reported Wednesday.
The worker had direct contact with infected dairy cows on a northeast Colorado farm, state and federal health officials said. The man developed pink eye, or conjunctivitis, received antiviral treatment and has recovered.
Three previous cases of human infection linked to cows have been reported in dairy workers in Texas and Michigan since March. Two of those workers also developed pink eye, while one had mild respiratory symptoms, In 2022, the first U.S. case of bird flu was detected in a Colorado farm worker exposed to infected poultry.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the new infection “does not change” the agency's assessment that the risk to the general public remains low. Surveillance systems tracking flu in the U.S. have shown no unusual activity, officials said. However, people with prolonged contact with to infected birds or other animals, including livestock, or to their environments, are at higher risk of infection.
The Colorado man was being monitored when he developed symptoms because of his work with dairy cows, according to the CDC. Tests at the state level were inconclusive, but samples sent to CDC tested positive. Full results of genetic analysis of the sample are pending.
As of Wednesday, more than 135 dairy herds in a dozen states had reported infections with the H5N1 virus that originated in poultry, according to the Agriculture Department.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - Dairy cattle feed at a farm in New Mexico on March 31, 2017. A fourth dairy worker in the U.S. has been infected with bird flu. On Wednesday, July 3, 2024, U.S. health officials said a fourth dairy worker has been infected with bird flu in the outbreak linked to U.S. dairy cows. The man, who worked on a Colorado farm where dairy cows tested positive for the virus, developed conjunctivitis or pink eye, Colorado health officials said. The worker received antiviral treatment and has recovered. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — A probe into the military's role in the disappearance of four children in Ecuador this month was delayed for almost two weeks, even though police had access to surveillance videos showing soldiers taking two of the children, The Associated Press has learned.
The case of the children, aged 11 to 15, who went missing on Dec. 8 in the coastal city of Guayaquil after playing soccer, has struck a nerve in Ecuador, with rights groups and the public demanding information about their whereabouts and asking that the case be investigated as a forced disappearance.
The surveillance video was handed in to authorities a day after the children went missing, two persons familiar with the investigation told the AP. But an investigation of the military’s role in the disappearance was not announced until 15 days later.
The two spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case. The probe only started after the children's families went on local news channels and social media to demand more action from authorities.
The security footage, showing men in military uniform grabbing two boys and driving off with them in a pickup truck, became public earlier this week. The two children in the video are believed to be among the four who disappeared that night.
On Tuesday, four badly charred bodies were found near an air force base in the city of Taura, officials said, and they were looking into whether the bodies could be of the missing children.
Later that day, 16 soldiers from the base were arrested. Investigators said it could take up to a month to confirm if the bodies are of the children because their fingerprints had been burnt off and forensic workers will have to extract DNA fragments from bones or teeth for identification purposes.
The soldiers are due to appear at a hearing next Tuesday, where they are expected to be charged with the forced disappearance of the children, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
Ecuador’s Defense Minister, Gian Carlo Lofffredo said Thursday that the 16 soldiers will also be questioned by a military tribunal and that the patrol linked to the disappeared children had not been authorized by officers at the Taura base.
Ecuador’s police deferred questions from the AP about the videos to the national prosecutor’s office, which declined to respond. The Ministry of Defense and the Ecuadorean army also did not respond to questions about the footage.
Violence in Ecuador intensified in January after a gang leader escaped from prison amid deadly riots. Two days later, members of another drug gang attacked a television channel and interrupted a live broadcast to make demands to the government.
President Daniel Noboa's government has leaned on the military to curb gang violence . However, the military has now been implicated in several abuses, including the disappearance of two children in August in the central province of Los Rios, and the case of a 19-year-old who was fatally shot by the military at a checkpoint on a road in Guayaquil.
Noboa has promised to reduce violence as he prepares to run for reelection in February.
But many Ecuadorians have expressed their discontent as the homicide rate has tripled in the South American country since 2021, and extortion by drug gangs has forced thousands of people to migrate to the United States.
People protest outside the prosecutor's office against the disappearance of four children who were last seen on Dec. 8 running away from a military convoy in Guayaquil, Monday, Dec. 23, 2024. The sign reads in Spanish "Where are our children? The four from Guayaquil, Ecuador." (AP Photo/Cesar Munoz)
People protest outside the prosecutor's office against the disappearance of four children who were last seen on Dec. 8 running away from a military convoy in Guayaquil, Monday, Dec. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Cesar Munoz)
A mural of a child and the Spanish message "Where are they?" cover a wall in protest of the disappearance of four children who were last seen on Dec. 8 running away from a military convoy in Guayaquil, Monday, Dec. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Cesar Munoz)
