ST. LOUIS — A total of seven Missourians developed mild respiratory symptoms after being exposed to the state's first, and so far only, confirmed human case of bird flu on Sept. 6, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Friday.
The CDC's most recent update on Missouri's bird flu investigation said four additional healthcare workers developed bird flu-like symptoms after the exposure, on top of the other previously identified two healthcare workers and one household contact.
Three of the healthcare workers were among the estimated 94 exposed to the state's only confirmed human bird flu case after precautions against virus spread were put in place.
The CDC has since collected blood specimens from the six symptomatic healthcare workers and is testing them for possible influenza A(H5N1) antibodies. One of the six healthcare workers tested negative for influenza by a PCR test. The five other workers reportedly displayed only mild symptoms and were not PCR tested because experts believed the testing would be unreliable at the time of discovery.
Results of the antibody testing are still pending, a process that the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) says could take additional days or weeks, possibly made more complicated by Hurricane Helene hitting the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases continuing their seasonal increase.
"I wish I had a black-and-white answer for [a testing timeline]," said DHSS spokesperson Lisa Cox. "Serology is the next step in seeing if the workers had antibodies detected for this specific strain to see if they actually had it at the time. It will be a little bit before that happens, especially with the hurricane...It could be a few days or weeks depending on what they find initially or if they have to do additional testing beyond."
