The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that dairy workers who’ve been exposed to bird flu should be tested for the virus even if they don’t have symptoms and be recommended Tamiflu to reduce their risk of getting sick. This comes at a time when a new report found asymptomatic bird flu infection in some workers. According to a report in NBC News, these asymptomatic cases were discovered using blood, or serology, testing and seem to have been transmitted from sick animals, not people.
Dr Nirav Shah, the CDC’s principal deputy director during a media briefing said, “There is nothing that we’ve seen in the new serology data that gives us any concern about person-to-person transmission.” This year, 46 people have been diagnosed with bird flu in the United States till now. All but one of those patients had been exposed to sick cattle or poultry on farms.
Most of these cases have been reported in California (21), Washington (11) and Colorado (10). According to the new study, the researchers looked at blood tests from workers at 115 dairy farms who were exposed to H5N1 over the summer in either Colorado or Michigan. Of those 115, eight (7%) had antibodies showing they’d been infected with the bird flu.
Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who heads the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases said “All eight reported milking cows or cleaning the milking parlor.” He added that masks and safety goggles were rare. Daskalakis said, “None wore r.