Several labs will work with federal health authorities to develop a test for avian influenza , as the number of human cases rise across the country. The Utah-based ARUP Laboratories said Friday that it was selected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as one of five lab partners, along with Quest Diagnostics, Labcorp, Aegis Sciences, and Ginkgo Bioworks. The CDC decision ensures that labs can work with the agency, responding to outbreaks and testing in real time.
Last week, a person in Missouri was infected with bird flu despite not having any exposure to animals. The state’s health department said the individual recovered from their illness but that a household contact of the patient had become ill with similar symptoms on the same day. The CDC said that no additional cases had been found, and that the risk of infection among the general public remains low.
“There is no epidemiologic evidence to support person-to-person transmission of H5 at this time,” the agency said. However, 14 cases of human bird flu have been reported in the US since since April. Of those, four were associated with an exposure to sick dairy cows and nine were related to virus-infected poultry.
Those infected included farmworkers in Colorado, Michigan, and Texas. A dairy worker in Texas was the first instance of cow-to-human transmission . A recent study found the virus in the wastewater of 10 Texas cities, from March through July.
Those who were infected experienced mild sympto.