Canada has detected its first presumptive case of H5 bird flu in a person, a teenager in the western province of British Columbia, health officials said on Saturday.

New CDC research suggests that a small but significant percentage of dairy farmers working near infected cows have recently contracted H5N1, often without knowing.

The statement says the positive test was done by the BC Centre for Disease Control ... “a rare event” and only a handful of cases of bird flu, caused by the H5N1 strain of the avian influenza virus, have been detected in humans in the U.S. and abroad.

A teenager in BC has tested presumptive positive for avian influenza. This is the first detection of a presumed human case in Canada.

The West Coast Canadian province of British Columbia said on Saturday that it had detected the first presumptive positive case of H5 bird flu virus infection acquired by a human in Canada. The individual presumed to be infected is a teenager who is receiving care at a children's hospital,

Health officials in B.C. are investigating Canada’s first-ever presumed human cases of avian influenza after a B.C. teenager tested presumptively positive for the disease, the Ministry of Health announced Saturday.