For the second time in two months, the United States has confirmed a case of bird flu in a dairy worker employed by a farm with H5N1-infected cows. 'The only thing I'm surprised about is that it's taken this long to get another confirmed case,' Steve Valeika, a veterinarian and an epidemiologist based in North Carolina, told me.
The true case count is almost certainly higher, with anecdotal reports of sick farmworkers trickling in, hindering a full understanding of the outbreak. Farm buy-in for testing is lacking, making it difficult to measure the outbreak's true extent.
The risk to the general public remains low, but the threat to farmworkers is high, emphasizing the need to protect a vulnerable community often overlooked in health and safety measures.
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