CDC Issues Health Alert for Faster Bird Flu Testing

The CDC said that the risk from avian influenza to the public remains low.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta on April 23, 2020. Tami Chappell/AFP via Getty Images

Federal health officials on Thursday recommended faster testing for bird flu, or within 24 hours, days after a Louisiana man with H5N1 avian influenza died and as high levels of seasonal influenza persist.

In a health alert, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that clinicians and laboratories across the United States should use “a shortened timeline for subtyping all influenza A specimens among hospitalized patients and increasing efforts at clinical laboratories to identify non-seasonal influenza.”

Clinicians and lab workers are also “reminded to test for influenza in patients with suspected influenza and, going forward, to now expedite the subtyping of influenza A-positive specimens from hospitalized patients, particularly those in an intensive care unit,” the advisory said.

The agency added that it believes the risk from H5N1 avian flu to be low but characterizes it as a “dynamic situation,” noting that most people who are currently hospitalized with a form of influenza “probably have seasonal influenza” and that there has been no evidence of person-to-person spread.

About 70 people in the United States have contracted avian influenza since April of last year, and most of the cases involve farm workers as the virus has circulated in dairy cows and flocks of poultry birds. An individual in Louisiana, who was over the age of 65 and had underlying health problems along with the virus, died earlier this month, officials confirmed.

That patient was hospitalized in mid-December 2024 after exposure to wild birds and a backyard flock that was infected with avian influenza, officials said.

Meanwhile, the CDC confirmed in late December 2024 that the flu virus sample from the Louisiana case appeared to have mutated. But the CDC has stressed there has been no known transmission of the virus from the Louisiana patient to another person.

Faster testing aims to help doctors identify how people became infected and provide their close contacts with testing and medicine more quickly, if needed, said Nirav Shah, the agency’s principal deputy director.

The CDC does not believe it has been missing bird flu infections in people, Shah said. No surveillance system detects 100 percent of cases, he added later.

“The system is working as it should,” said Shah, adding that health officials want results sooner in case any public health action is needed.

“What we need is to shift to a system that tells us what’s happening in the moment.”

The agency said last week that the level of seasonal influenza “remains elevated” across the United States, although data suggest that “some indicators have decreased or remained stable this week compared to last.”

The CDC also estimated that about 9.1 million illnesses, 110,000 hospitalizations, and 4,700 deaths from influenza have occurred this season.

Aside from the CDC, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said earlier in January that it would rebuild the U.S. stockpile of bird flu vaccines for poultry that match the strain of the virus that has been circulating since April 2024.

The USDA said that it “believes it is prudent to again pursue a stockpile that matches current outbreak strains.” It also said it has enrolled 28 states in its bulk milk testing program to detect bird flu in herds.

Reuters contributed to this report.