Bird flu: Two patients in US admitted to hospital with H5N1 as concerns over spread grow
Two people in the US have been admitted to hospital with H5N1 avian flu, adding to concerns over the growing number of infections in cattle, poultry, wildlife, and humans worldwide.
As of 24 February, a woman in Wyoming remains in hospital while a man in Ohio has been discharged. Both patients had severe “respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms,” the CDC said in its weekly flu report.1
“This shows that H5N1 can be very severe, and we should not assume that it will always be mild,” Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organisation at the University of Saskatchewan, told the Guardian .2
The hospital admissions bring the total number of patients with severe cases of H5N1 in the US to four since the first was reported in …