{"id":6791,"date":"2024-06-11T14:08:04","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T19:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=6791"},"modified":"2024-06-11T14:08:08","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T19:08:08","slug":"bird-flu-tests-are-hard-to-get-so-how-will-we-know-when-to-sound-the-pandemic-alarm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/06\/11\/bird-flu-tests-are-hard-to-get-so-how-will-we-know-when-to-sound-the-pandemic-alarm\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird Flu Tests Are Hard To Get. So How Will We Know When To Sound the Pandemic Alarm?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/bird-flu-tests-pandemic-possibility-preparedness\/\">KFF<\/a> Stanford University infectious disease doctor Abraar Karan has seen a lot of patients with runny noses, fevers, and irritated eyes lately. Such symptoms could signal allergies, covid, or a cold. This year, there\u2019s another suspect, bird flu \u2014 but there\u2019s no way for most doctors to know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the government doesn\u2019t prepare to ramp up H5N1 bird flu testing, he and other researchers warn, the United States could be caught off guard again by a pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re making the same mistakes today that we made with covid,\u201d Deborah Birx, who served as former President Donald Trump\u2019s coronavirus response coordinator, said&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2024\/06\/04\/health\/video\/dr-deborah-birx-interview-pandemic-preparedness-transparent-communication-digvid\">June 4 on CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To become a pandemic, the H5N1 bird flu virus would need to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/bird-flu-h5n1-risks-questions-answered\/\">spread from person to person<\/a>. The best way to keep tabs on that possibility is by testing people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scientifically speaking, many diagnostic laboratories could detect the virus. However, red tape, billing issues, and minimal investment are barriers to quickly ramping up widespread availability of testing. At the moment, the Food and Drug Administration has authorized only the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s bird flu test, which is used only for people who work closely with livestock.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KFF Stanford University infectious disease doctor Abraar Karan has seen a lot of patients with runny noses, fevers, and irritated eyes lately. Such symptoms could signal allergies, covid, or a cold. This year, there\u2019s another suspect, bird flu \u2014 but there\u2019s no way for most doctors to know. If the government doesn\u2019t prepare to ramp [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-headlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6792,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6791\/revisions\/6792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}