CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — This past week, a dairy farm worker in North Texas was confirmed to have H5N1 which is the bird flu. He apparently got it from an infected cow.
Now, the flu has been detected at a poultry farm in Farwell which is in the Texas Panhandle.
To hear about one human infection, the first one ever in Texas, followed by the poultry farm cases is certainly worrying to many who don't know much about the disease.
3NEWS started with our own infectious disease expert, Dr. Jaime Fergie at Driscoll Children's Hospital, who reassured that the bird flu is not a current threat to us the Coastal Bend.
"This is nothing that we need to worry about," Fergie said. "This is for the CDC to worry about, the state health department to worry about, but for us from a distance we'll watch it before we need to worry about. It's still a small problem that you can be protected by just getting your flu vaccine."
The interview with the director of the infectious disease department at Driscoll Children's Hospital was just before the State Agriculture Department announced discovering the bird flu at a chicken farm in the Panhandle.
"We have avian influenza in a chicken farm in Farwell, Texas," Texas Agriculture Commissioner Miller said. "It's Cal-Maine foods, they're our largest egg producer in the state. We're going to have to depopulate that flock; 1,600,000 hens and 366,000 pullets."
The human case at a North Texas dairy farm is believed to have been spread the same way the flu is spread between humans.
Miller says raw milk may carry the virus but not store bought milk.
"Consumers can rest assured that none of the milk got into the food chain," he said. "If it did it wouldn't have mattered. We pasteurize milk so that kills all the pathogens."
Miller says even though experts don't know if you can catch the bird flu from chicken meat or eggs, a lot of eggs are being destroyed. He says that should not have a significant impact on the price of eggs.
Dr. Fergie said the bird flu has been around for decades.
"Avian flu we have had since 1997 in the world, and since then we have had a little outbreak in different countries," he said. "About 23 countries have reported the bird flu throughout the years, but human to human transmission, very uncommon."
3NEWS was told the dairy worker had what amounted to a case of pink eye and is being treated.
For more information from the Texas Agriculture Commission, click here.