Important Takeaways:

• The state is not one of the 14 others that have reported outbreaks in dairy cattle
• Disease investigators have not been able to determine how a person in Missouri with no known exposures to animals or poultry became infected with an H5 bird flu virus, the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
• But Nirav Shah said the ongoing investigation has turned up no evidence of onward spread of the virus, suggesting this case may turn out to be a one-off infection that defies explanation.
• “Here’s the bottom line: Our influenza surveillance system is designed to find needles in haystacks,” Shah said at a news briefing. “Here in this case, we found such a needle, but we don’t know how it got there. Our investigation continues, and we will keep everyone updated as we learn more.”
• It isn’t unheard of to have cases in which investigators fail to be able to trace a human infection with novel flu viruses back to a source of infection, Shah said, noting that of the more than 500 swine flu infections that have been detected in the U.S. since 2010, about 8% have been in people with no traceable contact with pigs or other infected people.

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