DELHI Delhi: US H5N1 bird flu has quietly spread from animals to some humans who treat animals, according to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study showed that veterinarians, unlike infected poultry workers, had no symptoms, and therefore did not seek medical care. The findings come at a time when the U.S. India is battling bird flu, and about 68 human bird flu infections were reported last year. Dr. Gregory Gray, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said the new study is further evidence that the numbers are “probably significantly lower.” “This means that people are becoming infected, possibly because of their occupational exposure, and are not developing symptoms of the disease and therefore are not seeking medical care,” Gray said.
The researchers said that tracking medical clinics that report bird flu cases may not be enough to fully understand the transmission of bird flu. For the study, the team used U.S. Examined blood tests from 150 veterinarians from 46 states in the U.S. Although none of them had red eyes or other symptoms common with bird flu, tests showed that about 3 or 2 percent of the veterinarians had antibodies to H5N1 infection. Although all three worked with dairy cattle as well as other animals, none were infected. One reported working with a flock of infected chickens. Previous studies have shown that some dairy farmworkers experienced symptoms but were never properly diagnosed. Being small-scale studies, they couldn’t give a reasonable estimate of undiagnosed human infections. But these could translate into hundreds or thousands of infections, Gray said. Currently, there is nothing to be concerned about, but changes or mutations in the virus could potentially make people very sick. are, or may promote, the spread of the H5N1 virus, said Ohio State University researcher Jacqueline Nolting.
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