SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah company is playing a big role in the country's surveillance of bird flu infections, partnering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a test for the disease.
“We've been much more proactive in addressing this outbreak, in part because we've been able to monitor it more quickly,” said Dr. Ben Bradley, Medical Director of Virology at ARUP laboratories in Salt Lake City.
The good news is that doctors have yet to see the virus spread between humans.
“Right now, there is no evidence of widespread human-to-human spread of this virus,” explained Dr. Donald Karcher, president of the College of American Pathologists.
However, some experts believe the number of people who have had bird flu is higher than the 61 cases the CDC is currently reporting.
“There were some people that they think probably definitely had infection, it just never was confirmed. They weren't able to catch it at the time of infection," explained Dr. Bobbi Pritt, chair of the Cap Council on Scientific Affairs.
Pritt says seeing animals from cats to cows and pigs get infected is concerning.
“It makes me nervous seeing so many animals and so many different types of animals being infected that, in my mind, increases the likelihood that we could get a mutation that would result in more human-to-human spread," she said.
Although it hasn’t been proven yet that flu vaccines can protect against bird flu, Bradley says it’s still a good idea to get one.
“Pandemic influenza threat is something that will always be with us, so long as there are waterfowl on this earth and so long as there are mammals, this is something that's always going to happen," he shared, "and these events are not going to become less over time, as we get more interface between humans and animals, more international travel, these events become more likely.”
