As avian influenza spreads through birds and dairy cattle across the United States, Georgia has become the latest state to detect the virus in commercial poultry, and on Friday, it halted all poultry sales to slow the spread of the disease. Nationally, the price of eggs is on the rise—if you can find them all at your local grocery store. The ongoing outbreak in animals has also resulted in at least 67 cases of bird flu in humans, all but one causing mild illness. Earlier this month, a person in Louisiana died after being hospitalized for severe bird flu in December. This is the first recorded death in the country due to H5N1. The US has previously licensed three H5N1 vaccines for humans, but they are not commercially available. The government has bought millions of doses for the national stockpile when needed. But even as the outbreak spreads, federal health officials under President Joe Biden are hesitant to spread it. Experts say the decision comes with a risk, and for now, the risk of H5N1 remains low. Rolling out the vaccine to farm workers and others at higher risk of infection would be a more targeted tactic, but such a move may be premature. Now, with a change in federal health leadership looming as President Donald Trump begins his second term, the decision rests with the new administration. it’s important to get a vaccine to protect people,” said William Schaffner, a physician and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. H5N1 has been identified, but health officials are monitoring the virus for genetic changes that would lead to transmission between people. Most bird flu infections of the 67 known human cases in the US, 40 have been linked to sick dairy cattle and 23 have been linked to poultry farms and culling operations In the US, most cases have been mild, and in some cases, people have had mild respiratory symptoms. All of those who have tested positive for H5N1 have historically been hospitalized , H5N1 has been fatal in about 50 percent of cases. Since 2003, a total of 954 human cases of H5N1 have been reported to the World Health Organization, and about half of them have died. Egypt, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China have reported the highest number of bird flu deaths. For one thing, many of these deaths occur in places where sick poultry live. “In these circumstances, the thought is that there is a possibility of exposure to a very large dose of the virus,” Schaffner said. In addition, the case fatality rate – the proportion of infected people who die from the disease – only takes into account known cases, and some cases of H5N1 may not necessarily go undetected because the symptoms of bird flu are similar to those of other respiratory viruses. In the US, language barriers among farm workers, lack of testing, and reluctance among workers to report that they are sick are also factors. “We probably miss more cases than we detect, and we’re more likely to detect severe cases,” said Shira Doron, chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Boston and a hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center.
