What Are The Symptoms of Bird Flu? And What Can You Do If You Get It?

If you work with birds, symptoms of flu may be a sign of bird flu. If you don't work with birds, you are not likely to get bird flu. Contagious birds transmit the virus through their feces in large amounts. If your job doesn't require you to deal with chicken droppings, chances are you won't get this strain of bird flu.

The first symptoms of bird flu are:

• Fever,
• Chills,
• Sore throat, and
• Muscle aches,

much like any other kind of flu. The majority of people who are exposed to H5N2 won't even develop these relatively mild symptoms. Their immune systems will be able to deal with the virus. However, in other outbreaks, bird flu viruses have mutated into forms that can cause acute respiratory distress syndrome, a viral pneumonia that can quickly cause death even if aggressively treated.

For that reason, if you think there is any possibility you have been exposed to bird flu, especially if you develop flu-like symptoms after working with dead birds during summer weather, you should seek medical care at once. Your family and other people with whom you share your home should wipe down any surfaces that could be contaminated with your bodily fluids in any form, and you should avoid sharing glasses, towels, and bedding until the doctor tells you it is safe.

The US government is sufficiently concerned about this bird flu outbreak that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has tapped its emergency supplies of Tamiflu (oseltamivir). Poultry workers cleaning up the dead birds or killing sick birds have been asked to take Tamiflu to prevent flu symptoms, and possibly to prevent them from spreading the virus to other people. The CDC has not recommended the use of Relenza (zanamivir) because as an inhaled medication, it can make respiratory distress worse.

Should you worry about catching this latest strain of bird flu?

The H5N2 outbreak had spread to a total of 12 states in the United States, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin, and also in Ontario, Canada, by the end of April, 2015, but CDC officials describe the risk of a human epidemic as "low." That is because some genetic markers associated with the most highly infective strains of the last bird flu virus, H5N1, aren't found on H5N2. 

See Also: H1N1 Vaccine Side Effects: Reactions to Swine Flu Vaccine

Summer warmth and increasing sunlight may kill the virus, so that the current outbreak is naturally contained by the middle of 2015, even without mass dispersal of bird flu vaccines to stop bird flu spread. However, it's a good idea to stay alert to bird flu symptoms, especially if you work directly with chickens or turkeys in the poultry industry.