An officially reported bird flu case in a human being has not been reported in three months. That is leaving scientists and the mainstream media pondering the reason.
“We just don’t know why there haven’t been cases,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University. “I think we should assume there are infections that are occurring in farmworkers that just aren’t being detected.”
But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seems to think everything is fine, considering the drop in animal cases.
“Given the fact that the number of animal detections has fallen according to USDA data, it’s not surprising that human cases have declined as well,” the CDC said in a statement.
Dr. Gregory Gray, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, also expressed no concern about the CDC’s failure to identify new cases for months. “I don’t think that anybody’s hiding anything,” he said.
According to a report by CBS News, the H5N1 bird flu has been spreading widely among wild birds, poultry, and other animals around the world for several years, and starting early last year, became a problem in people and cows in the U.S. In the last 14 months, infections have been reported in 70 people in the U.S. — most of them workers on dairy and poultry farms, and mostly with mild symptoms. One person died in Louisiana.
Louisiana Patient Tests Positive For Bird Flu – On Par With Dr. Peter Hotez’s Pandemic Threats
“We are really at risk of this virus evolving into one that has pandemic potential,” Dr. Kamran Khan recently told “60 Minutes.” “And the reality is none of us know whether this is next week, or next year, or never. I don’t think it’s never. But it may be here far sooner than any of us would like.”
California had been a hotspot, with three-quarters of the nation’s infections in dairy cattle. But testing and cases among people have fallen off. At least 50 people were tested each month in late 2024, but just three people were tested in March, one in April and none in May so far, state records show. Overall, the state has confirmed H5N1 infections in 38 people, none after Jan. 14. –CBS News
So is it a big deal? Is this going away? Will it ramp back up? What do you think?
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