For the most recent case, a nasal swab for H5N1 came back negative, while an eye swab confirmed the presence of the virus, raising concerns among experts that health officials might miss cases.
“The Centre for Disease Control laboratory is one of a few labs where eye specimens can be tested for H5N1 – this needs to be fixed, easier access to eye swab testing is needed to protect and diagnose farm workers,” said Dr Jennifer Nuzzo, Director of the Pandemic Centre and Professor of Epidemiology at the Brown University on X (formerly Twitter).
“If symptoms are mild and a person has ocular symptoms it could be attributed to a viral or bacterial conjunctivitis rather than considering testing for H5N1” added Dr Krutika Kuppalli, a spokesperson for the Infectious Disease Society of America and former WHO medical officer.
“The current health risk to the general public remains low,” Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
“This virus is being closely monitored, and we have not seen signs of sustained human-to-human transmission at this point,” she added.
Experts think it likely that we will begin to see more human cases of H5N1 in dairy workers in the coming weeks and months, as surveillance efforts ramp-up across America.
To help tackle reluctance in testing animals and people due to potential financial losses in produce, the US Department of Agriculture announced earlier this month a new support programme of up to $2,000 per affected farm for premises who facilitate testing of workers by local and federal public health bodies – in the hope it will help experts to better understand how the virus is spreading.
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