Cattle at a farm in California’s Central Valley are shown

CVV News l October 21, 2024

A person who came into contact with cattle at a dairy farm is Merced County‘s first confirmed human case of H5N1 bird flu infection this year, public health officials said Monday.

The case was detected based on symptoms from direct exposure and confirmed by laboratory test results, according to a Merced County news release.

Officials said the level of risk to the public is low. Those people who were exposed to the infected cattle have been notified and are actively being monitored.

As of Oct. 18, the California Department of Health reported the number of humans with bird flu was 13. All of those individuals came into contact with infected dairy cattle.

Dairies in the Central Valley have been overwhelmed by the virus. In some cases, the situation is so severe that dairies have been inundated by the large volume of cattle carcasses.

The disease is also extremely contagious and highly fatal to birds. The virus renders all meat and eggs from the flock unsafe for human consumption. Because of the virus, millions of birds have been euthanized at poultry facilities in Merced County and California.

Humans can be infected with the virus by coming into direct contact with infected birds, cattle or other animals, even if they are dead.

It is also unsafe to come into contact with contaminated bedding, feed, water troughs, and other contaminated surfaces.

The risk of human infection of bird flu is low, and human-to-human transmission is rare, according to the release.

Symptoms are consistent with acute respiratory tract infections including, but not limited to cough, sore throat, fever, runny or stuffy nose, fatigue, muscle or body aches, conjunctivitis. shortness of breath or difficulty breathing.

Individuals who are exposed and develop symptoms should seek treatment as soon as possible through their doctor or the Merced County Department of Public Health.

For more information on bird flu, visit the California Department of Public Health website.

Merced County public health director resigns after nearly seven years on job

By Victor A. Patton August 27, 2024

Merced County’s public health director has stepped down from her role after nearly seven years on the job, The Merced FOCUS has learned.

Rebecca Nanyonjo resigned from her position effective August 20, Merced County spokesperson Mike North confirmed in an email. 

Meanwhile, the county is in the beginning stages of recruiting for a new public health director. North did not elaborate on the reasons behind Nanyonjo’s resignation. “Since it’s a personnel matter, we can’t comment beyond that due to confidentiality,” North said.

Nanyonjo was hired as Merced County public health director in January 2018, after having served as a chief deputy director of Stanislaus County’s Health Services Agency. Prior to that, she was public health director for Stanislaus County, according to her LinkedIn page. 

Merced County’s public health department received its national accreditation about a year after Nanyonjo started in her role.

Her time in the position included playing a critical role in spearheading the local response to the COVID pandemic.

Nanyonjo was the leader of the public health department when the county’s first case was discovered in March 2020. She and other health officials witnessed how the virus quickly ballooned into thousands of cases. 

She was critical of the state’s level of transparency during the early days of the COVID vaccine rollout. “We’re essential enough to feed the state, and the world, but we’re not essential enough to keep from dying,” Nanyonjo told the Board of Supervisors during a January 2021 meeting.

In more recent months, Nanyonjo had championed a new Community Health Worker Specialized Training Certificate program that’s a partnership between UC Merced Extension and the Department of Public Health. 

“The San Joaquin Valley is often a forgotten area. We have these persisting inequities in access and navigation to health care. A program of this magnitude in a health provider shortage area is long overdue,” Nanyonjo said in a July UC Merced news release on the program. 

North said Assistant County Executive Officer Mark Hendrickson is stepping in to provide leadership and “ensure continuity of service” until a new director is identified.