Four more health-care workers reveal respiratory symptoms after exposure to H5N1 bird flu patient

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Important Takeaways:

  • More health-care workers in contact with Missouri bird flu patient report respiratory symptoms
  • One health-care worker who had symptoms had what investigators consider high-risk contact with the patient, meaning they provided care before the hospital advised taking precautions such as wearing a mask when tending to the patient.
  • Three additional workers reportedly had low-risk contact with the patient after the hospital required precautions.
  • None of these workers was tested at the time they experienced symptoms, the CDC reported Friday.
  • It has been three weeks since the CDC and Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services announced that a person who had no contact with animals had tested positive for H5N1, the 14th human infection in the United States since April.
  • None of the people in the US with a confirmed H5N1 infection is known to have infected other people. That would raise alarm because it would suggest that the virus was changing in ways that could allow it to more easily infect humans.
  • The agency says the immediate risk to the public from H5N1 bird flu continues to be low.

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