The U.S. has two vaccines ready to circulate if bird flu begins spreading easily to humans, with doses that could begin shipping widely within weeks, if needed, NBC News reported May 1.
Both vaccine candidates are already in the nation's stockpile in limited qualities, health officials said. And studies suggest they will offer "good cross-protection against cattle outbreak viruses," Demetre Daskalakis, MD, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told NBC.
State and federal health officials on April 1 confirmed an individual in Texas who worked on a dairy farm had tested positive for H5N1. The case is believed to be tied to recent detections of bird flu among dairy cows in the U.S. The Department of Agriculture has confirmed cows on dairy farms in Texas, Kansas, New Mexico and Michigan had been sickened by the virus, marking the first time the disease has been found in dairy cattle.
While emphasizing there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission, "The risk here of something going from one or two sporadic cases to becoming something of international concern, it's not insignificant," CDC Principal Deputy Director Nirav Shah, MD, said at a Council on Foreign Relations event May 1. "We've all seen how a virus can spread around the globe before public health has even had a chance to get its shoes on. That's a risk and one that we have to be mindful of."
Here are four more recent updates about bird flu:
The FDA confirmed that the milk supply shows no signs of live, infectious viruses after conducting a larger sample study but continues to advise against the sale and consumption of raw milk, it said in a May 1 statement. On April 23, the FDA said remnants of the bird flu virus have been detected in samples of pasteurized milk in the U.S. The agency said the finding does not change its assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe.
The virus has spread quickly among dairy cows, infecting at least 36 herds in nine states, with some concerned it could acquire mutations to infect humans, NBC reported.
About 25 human test samples have been sent to the CDC for reference testing amid the dairy outbreak, and more than 100 workers are being monitored, the White House said in a May 1 call, Politico reported. The CDC is warning clinicians and state health departments to watch for bird flu cases.
According to the World Health Organization, the bird flu does not transmit easily between people but has a mortality rate of about 50%.