Overview
- The patient is an older Grays Harbor County resident with underlying conditions who was hospitalized in early November and is being treated in a King County hospital.
- Health officials suspect exposure from a backyard flock with wild-bird contact, with Washington State Department of Agriculture testing of the live birds pending.
- State teams have begun contact tracing and asked close contacts to monitor for symptoms and get tested if needed.
- Sequencing of the virus is underway to determine its origin and how it relates to strains circulating in animals.
- The CDC counts 71 U.S. human avian-flu cases in the current outbreak, reports no known person-to-person spread, and assesses overall risk as low.