On Dec. 18, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state-wide emergency over the avian flu outbreak which has thus far been limited to agricultural areas. But now counties across the Bay Area are ramping up outreach efforts to inform the general public about actions they can take to keep themselves safe and prevent the disease from becoming something much worse.
The H5N1 avian flu virus was first identified in China in 1996. Since then about 900 people worldwide have gotten the illness, of which about half have died. But it’s not what the disease has done so far that has health officials worried. Rather, it’s what it could become.
In the Bay Area, it began as a threat to birds in local wildlife hospitals. Shortly thereafter, North Bay poultry farms became infected, requiring the euthanasia of hundreds of thousands of birds. Then there were reports that it had passed into cows. But after dairy workers in other parts of the country began testing positive, it has now sparked a statewide effort to get ahead of the virus…