The CDC has convened an urgent meeting over a potential outbreak of bird flu in the United States — amid fears the virus could jump to humans.
At the meeting on Friday, local health officials were urged to have ‘up-to-date operational plans’ in place in case any farm workers in their state tested positive for H5N1.
They were told to be prepared to test any workers suspected of being infected, as well as to be ready to isolate and treat any farmers who may have the virus.
Only one case has been reported in a person in Texas so far, but doctors are now being urged to test any farm workers who they suspect of being infected.
Cattle on 16 farms across six states have also tested positive, raising concerns that because of close contact with farmers they could pass the virus to humans.
Officials say the risk from bird flu to the public is low, but farm workers in close contact with infected animals and equipment are thought to be at higher risk.
The above shows how bird flu is edging closer to human spillover in the US
The meeting was led by the CDC’s deputy director Nirav Shah and Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who was involved in the national response to the outbreak of monkeypox — or mpox — in 2022.
It was attended by local health leaders including representatives from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, which has members across all 50 states and Washington D.C.
A release from the CDC on the meeting read: ‘CDC recommended that state public health officials… ensure that they have up-to-date operational plans to respond to avian influenza at the state level.
‘For example, the CDC emphasized the importance of having plans in place to quickly test and provide treatment to potentially impacted farm workers following positive results among cattle herds.’
The release added that officials ’emphasized that, although the risk to the public remains low, the agency wants state public health officials to be prepared to respond.’
The one person infected with the virus has only one symptom — inflammation of the eye — and has been reported to be isolated and ‘recovering well’.
The above map shows states where infections in cattle have been detected
They are also being treated with the drug oseltamivir, or Tamiflu, and are not thought to have passed the virus on to anyone else.
It comes after the CDC said it was taking bird flu ‘very seriously’, with the agency’s director Dr Mandy Cohen saying they were ‘monitoring the situation very closely’.
‘Any case of H5N1 is concerning,’ she said, ‘because it is highly dangerous to humans, although it has never been shown to be easily transmissible between people.’
Tests on the virus that infected the person in Texas showed it had gained a mutation that was not recorded in cattle.
But the CDC said this was also a mutation they had recorded previously, and not one that made them concerned the virus was becoming more likely to jump to humans.
Experts are worried about H5N1 because of the scale of mammal species it has infected — more than 40 so far.
They warn that the ease with which the virus has spread between species raises the risk of it gaining mutations making it better able to infect people.
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