B.C. doctor reflects on treating teen with H5N1 for 2 months [Video]

A British Columbia doctor who treated a 13-year-old avian flu patient says the case has made him concerned about the potential for more human H5N1 infections. 

While the patient was recently discharged from hospital with her case deemed rare, the two-month ordeal is being examined to better understand the path of avian flu from wild birds and poultry to humans, who get very sick. 

Dr. David Goldfarb, a medical microbiologist and pediatric infectious disease physician at B.C. Children’s Hospital first saw the young patient on Nov. 8. 

She was in respiratory distress, but there was no “clear flag” that suggested she was infected with H5N1. Goldfarb sent diagnostic tests to the hospital lab to determine the type of influenza that had sickened the teen. They all came back negative. 

Occasionally, he said this happens if the sample is weak with a very small amount of the virus in it. 

But …