The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said they are taking the bird flu outbreak “very seriously” as fears grow of the virus jumping from cattle to humans.
This week, a farm worker in Texas became the second person in the US ever to become infected with strain H5N1 of the bird flu after catching it from an infected cow. It’s also the first time the virus has been detected in cattle.
CDC Director Mandy Cohen said that the agency is “monitoring the situation very closely” as dairy farms in Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, and Texas struggle with outbreaks.
Cohen said to NPR: “That just means more opportunity for this virus to mutate and change. And that’s what we want to make sure we are continuing to stay ahead of.”
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that the organization was in “close contact” with the CDC about the outbreak.
WHO Director Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus said: “Any case of H5N1is concerning because it is highly dangerous to humans, although it has never been shown to be easily transmissible between people.”
The White House has also said it is “monitoring” the situation and President Joe Biden is up to date.
Cohen added: “What we’ve learned through Covid in our experience is: viruses change, and we need to stay ahead of it. That’s why we at the CDC and the whole of US government is taking this very seriously and monitoring the situation very closely.”
Cohen added that a case of human-to-human spread of the bird flu has never been seen in the US before now.
She said: “And the version of avian flu that we’re seeing in cattle, and in this one human case, is the same strain that we have seen previously in birds. We’ve never seen that spread human-to-human.”
