Dr. Leana Wen: US is not reacting fast enough to deal with threat of bird flu; Biden Admin needs to increase testing efforts and vaccine approvls - CBS Interview
- There is no reason to hold off on testing efforts; We need to know how many bird flu cases are present in USA.
- We need to minimize risk of virus reassortment. Reassortment involves shuffling of complete genome segments which leads to new strains of the virus.
- Most US cases of bird flu have remained in farming community to date, but risk to bird flu spread is real and could impact more vulnerable population in U.S.
- The U.S. has not learned lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic that it could use to mitigate the threat of pathogens like H5N1 bird flu that keep showing signs of their own pandemic potential.