The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a bird flu update to the health agency’s website on Wednesday, the first since President Donald Trump took office. The report provides snapshots of recent human H5N1 cases, including two people hospitalized after being infected by different means, resulting in 70 and 1 death in the country.
The new February 26 update includes recent confirmed cases in Nevada, Ohio and Wyoming. Nevada's case is the mildest of the recently confirmed cases involving a dairy product whose symptoms include conjunctivitis (redness and irritation in the eyes). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the worker was infected by the cows they worked with and had only mild symptoms before recovering.
These two more serious cases involve being infected by birds under different conditions. The Ohio case involves a commercial poultry farm worker who is systematically slaughtering birds on a farm with infected poultry. Poultry farm workers experienced respiratory symptoms and what the health agency calls “severe illness” and were hospitalized. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the worker is now home and recovering.
The Wyoming case also involves people infected by birds, but in this case, poultry is a backyard breed. The person was infected by dead poultry and their property known to have died from bird flu. A Wyoming patient initially tested negative for influenza virus when upper respiratory specimens, but another test was performed after the person was hospitalized and a lower respiratory specimen was collected a few days after the first test, with H5N1 positive.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the Wyoming case is a “potential health condition that can make people more vulnerable to severe flu disease.” This language is often used during the Covid-19 pandemic to rationalize the more than 1.2 million deaths suffered in the United States since 2020 as acceptable in some way.
The USDA reports that more than 19 million birds have confirmed bird flu farms and other properties in the past 30 days, including 87 commercial flocks and 51 backyard flocks.
Before February 26, the last update date on the CDC website was January 17, a few days before President Trump opened on January 20. Trump has been demolishing the U.S. federal government and his billionaire friend Elon Musk under the auspices of Doge, and the CDC is the victim of massive cuts, including massive shootings.
But the health agency has not yet identified the differences between people in the 70 confirmed cases and the risk to the public remains low. Hopefully it will remain that way, as scientists fear that mutations that will cause spread between humans will start a new pandemic.
