May 22, 2024 - Health

CDC wants states to keep up flu surveillance

Axios

A photo of CDC headqaurters — Photo: Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants states to keep up influenza surveillance during the summertime to help detect "even rare" cases of bird flu in humans.

The big picture: Flu monitoring usually drops off as the weather warms up, but the CDC this week asked state and local health officials to maintain those efforts and increase submission of positive influenza A samples — of which H5N1 is a subtype.

A worker at a Texas dairy farm has been the only confirmed human case in this current outbreak.

The intrigue: States' abilities to monitor H5N1 exposure and how they would deploy treatments or vaccines vary, according to a newly released survey the CDC and Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists conducted just before the outbreaks in dairy cattle and the Texas farm worker's infection.

The variation underscores "the need to strengthen and standardize" public health preparedness and response, especially if more human cases are reported, the authors wrote.

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CDC wants states to keep up flu surveillance

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