Federal health officials on Thursday recommended faster testing for bird flu, or within 24 hours, days after a Louisiana man with H5N1 avian influenza died and as high levels of seasonal influenza persist.
In a health alert, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that clinicians and laboratories across the United States should use “a shortened timeline for subtyping all influenza A specimens among hospitalized patients and increasing efforts at clinical laboratories to identify non-seasonal influenza.”
Clinicians and lab workers are also “reminded to test for influenza in patients with suspected influenza and, going forward, to now expedite the subtyping of influenza A-positive specimens from hospitalized patients, particularly those in an intensive care unit,” the advisory said….