Connect with us

Health

DNA Ancestry Tests and Other Family History Genealogy Tips

CHANNEL TODAY BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Published

on


You want to learn as much as you can about your family: where they came from, what their stories were, and how their experiences shaped your own. 

Part of this work may be helped through the science of DNA ancestry tests. And part of it is also social, relational, cultural — and sometimes, hard to trace. It may span countries and centuries. 

Here are ways to trace the roots of where your ancestors came from.

DNA ancestry tests may help you learn more about yourself and your familial roots. People often use them to learn about their ethnic makeup and family history. But you should keep in mind that the results related to ethnicity and genealogy may not be perfect and rely upon each company’s database.

There are many reasons why you may want to get a DNA test. Some reasons include:

  • To learn about your ancestry. DNA tests may be used to trace your lineage up to 10 generations back. The tests may also help you learn more about where your ancestors lived, though it may be at the level of a region, not a specific city. When DNA test results are accurate, you may even find out if you have any living or recently deceased relatives.
  • To establish paternity. The most common use of DNA tests is to solve paternal disputes. Children inherit genes from their biological parents. With a DNA paternity test, a child’s DNA is compared to that of the alleged biological father. The paternity dispute would then be resolved if the alleged father’s genes showed a 99.9% match.
  • Forensic science. Like fingerprints, a person’s DNA is unique. At crime scenes, investigators will collect DNA samples such as hair, skin, semen, and blood. Forensic scientists will then analyze this DNA to help solve crimes.
  • Checking on risky variants. Through DNA testing, doctors can look for gene variants that may raise your risk of certain medical conditions or genetic disorders. If you and your doctor decide that this testing would be helpful, it may help determine treatment options if it turns out that you are at risk for a condition. Keep in mind that scientists haven’t found all the gene variants for every condition. And many conditions have additional risk factors besides genes.

DNA ancestry accuracy relies on the amount of data the test center has gathered. There is a wide range of DNA sequences. The more DNA sequences there are of people from your ethnic group and ancestral geographic range, the better the accuracy rate.

Many people come from a heterogeneous background, meaning that their family tree includes people from more than one racial/ethnic group. This may affect the accuracy of the test results. But if the testing companies have enough DNA data from your lineages, you may get more accurate results.

DNA tests may be inaccurate for reasons including:

  • Each company has its own database, and results may not be definitive. Most DNA testing companies use common genetic variations found in their database as the basis for testing DNA accuracy. So you may get different results if you use different companies. Some of the ethnicities from Africa, East Asia, South America, and South Asia may be harder to trace because DNA testing companies have limited DNA data in their databases to refer to.  
  • DNA testing companies don’t look at all possible genetic variations. They focus on a relatively small amount of the millions of SNPs contained in your DNA. 
  • Y chromosome DNA tests only look at your paternal line, so the results may be limited.

Tracing your family history isn’t just about taking a DNA ancestry test. It often involves digging through research, interviewing relatives, and combing through online databases for clues. It’s not always simple, especially if records are missing or incomplete. But there can be moments that make the hunt especially rewarding.

Meeting lace makers who create intricate mundillo or bobbin lace in tiny Moca, Puerto Rico, is seared in Ellen Fernandez-Sacco’s mind. Having discovered that she had relatives who had made lace, she learned enough to make a small book mark. For Trisa Long Paschal, it was the joy of seeing her great-grandfather’s signature on census documents. And Mary Elliott screamed in the Library of Congress when she discovered letters between her great-great uncle and Booker T. Washington. 

These are among the cherished memories of family historians.

The spark starts early for some. At 14, Paschal suddenly started to relish the memories shared by older relatives at family reunions. Armed with a notebook, she asked questions about everything, while deciphering nicknames like Bruh, Red, and Boot.

Over the last half-century, Paschal has collected bits and pieces of history on both sides of her family and inherited bags of photos. She and her brother Elmer built a large wooden board with a golden family tree that their maternal grandparents proudly hung at their home in Pine Mountain, GA. 

Finding those stories can be challenging for many reasons. While some families can trace their roots to the 1500s in Europe, African Americans like Paschal often hit a wall at the 1870 census, the first to list their ancestors by name after the end of slavery. 

Other obstacles, for people from a wide range of backgrounds, include language, mixed lineage, migration patterns, and politics.

“You have to always look for the workaround,” says Fernandez-Sacco, an independent scholar who specializes in studying Latino genealogy and enslavement. 

Zayneldin Shourbaji of Howard County, MD, noticed differences in tracing his father’s side of the family (from Tennessee, Egypt, and Syria in the early 1900s) vs. his mom’s side (from the early 1800s in Illinois and Canada, all the way back to Scottish barons linked to William the Conqueror). 

“It does get a little more frayed going back, just tracking between the different countries,” Shourbaji says. Finding official records in Egypt has been hard, beyond birth certificates and other personal papers or the occasional business document for family entrepreneurs.

Names can also be tricky. Multiple people might have the same name. They may have changed spellings and names. Census workers could have introduced errors. For instance, Paschal’s great-grandmother is listed as both Anner and Annie Johnson.

“If you have a really common surname, it presents certain challenges,” says Fernandez-Sacco. In Puerto Rico, “Fernandez is second, right after Gonzalez,” she says. Similarly, Pierre, Joseph, and Charles are common surnames in Haiti. 

Some people who immigrated from China to the U.S. from 1882 to 1943 purchased documents for new identities as the “paper” sons and daughters of U.S. citizens because the Chinese Exclusion Acts, which drastically restricted immigration of Chinese people to the U.S., were in effect. Many people came through the U.S. immigration station on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay from 1910 to 1940. You can read about Angel Island’s immigration station – and how it differed from Ellis Island in New York. If your family came through Ellis Island, you can check its online database.

Family histories can get personal – very personal. Some relatives don’t want to discuss troublesome memories. 

“I couldn’t get my grandfather to tell me anything,” Paschal says. “He would laugh at me and say, ‘Boo, you don’t even know what you’re asking.’”

When you encounter someone who’s reluctant to share what they know about your family’s history, ask someone else, suggests Elliott, whose love of history led her to become a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.

Think outside the box when you run into any historical roadblock, Elliott and Fernandez-Sacco say. Delve into the history and culture of the period to add context to your ancestors’ lives and better understand why they made certain decisions.

They encourage researchers to visit historical societies, special holdings at research centers, the National Archives, museums, and places of worship. Also look at military records and documents from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (also called the Freedmen’s Bureau), which Congress established in 1865 and abolished in 1872.

You can also research people close to but not in your immediate family. This could include indirect relatives (such as aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives), neighbors, people with the same surnames, “play cousins” (kids you grew up with but aren’t related to), and families whose names keep popping up in conversations, such as the Culpeppers that Paschal heard about over and over again. Mary Elliott called every Elliott in Starkville, MS. 

To encourage storytelling and accuracy, Linda Jones created Afrobituary Legacy Writing to teach people how to write their obituary and legacy letters. 

“A lot of information in obituaries is wrong,” Jones says, because it’s often “based on guesswork when people are grieving” and feel pressure to get their loved one’s obit done in a short amount of time.

Family research and storytelling can be empowering. “It’s enjoyable to see where you come from and how far your lineage goes,” Shourbaji said.

Elliott worked with a woman who realized this after admitting that learning about her ancestors helped her shed the shame of their slavery. “My teeth almost fell out my mouth,” Elliott says. “Do you know how much it took for them to get you here?’”

As a descendant of business and community leaders who lost everything in the Tulsa Race Massacre, Elliott also encouraged residents of Africatown, AL, to cherish their history and resilience. She appeared with them in Descendant, a documentary on the Clotilda, a ship that was intentionally sunk after illegally transporting their ancestors from Africa. The descendants, who have also had to endure being surrounded by polluting industries, recently opened a museum to tell their story. “Clotilda: The Exhibition” is on view at the Africatown Heritage House.

Family stories can also save your life. Elliott discovered breast and ovarian cancer in her family tree. It turns out that she and several women in her family carry the BRCA gene.

“It is these histories of survival and resilience that have the power to heal and inspire self-care,” Fernandez-Sacco says. “Our ancestors matter.”

More: Get questions you should ask your relatives about your family’s health history.



Source link

Health

Putting a Hole in Our World

CHANNEL TODAY BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Published

on


May 10, 2024 – When we’re young, we take our macula for granted. At the center of our retina – the deepest layer of the eye that’s chock-full of photoreceptors and that confers color to our world – the macula is like a high-resolution camera. As light hits our eyes, the retina’s macula recasts our world in a bloom of color with astoundingly high visual sharpness.

But as you age, your vision dulls. What once stood out sharply becomes foggy, like condensation on a windowpane. After some time, a coal-black smudge or cloudy circular area begins to affect your central vision. 

This effective blind spot widens over time if left untreated. What remains is a “macular hole” in the center of your retina.

This unfortunate series of events marks the advanced stage of age-related macular degeneration, a dangerous retinal disease that affects about 20 million people in the U.S., and nearly 200 million people worldwide. 

And it’s not getting better. Estimates are that by 2040, the disease may affect nearly 300 million people worldwide. We are very limited in our ability to treat or prevent it. Read on for what to know. 

First, What Causes Age-Related Macular Degeneration? 

AMD’s causes are varied, and whether it will affect you is mostly determined by age and genetics, said Marco Alejandro Gonzalez, MD, an ophthalmologist and vitreoretinal specialist in Delray Beach, FL. 

Because of the different cocktails that we have in terms of our genetic makeup, some people’s photoreceptor cells in the macula “basically start to shut down,” he said.

AMD’s development involves over 30 genes, and if you have a first-degree relative – parent, sibling, child – who has the disease, you’re three times more likely to get it, too. 

Gonzalez explained how the expected rise to 300 million cases by 2040 is due mostly to improved diagnostic tools, along with the fact that the world is getting older and living longer. (Usually, an optometrist can detect signs of AMD during a routine eye exam.)  

Eye experts still struggle to stop AMD’s most harmful sign – the cause of those muddy, milky, or even coal-colored circles in your central vision: geographic atrophy.

Geographic atrophy can occur in either of the two forms of age-related AMD: “dry” AMD and “wet” AMD.

Nearly every case of AMD begins as the dry kind, affecting 80% to 90% of AMD patients. 

Retinal disease expert Tiarnán Keenan, MD, PhD, offered  a vivid image of geographic atrophy for those who have dry AMD. 

“As time passes, the circular patches of GA expand like a brushfire, taking more and more vision with it, often to the point of legal blindness,” he said. 

A researcher in the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications at the National Eye Institute, Keenan recently led a study that tested the efficacy of the antibiotic minocycline in slowing geographic atrophy expansion in dry AMD. The study operated on the grounds that the body’s immune system could be at play in developing the disease.

When your body’s immune system is overactive, microglial cells (central nervous system immune cells) can get into the sub-retinal space and possibly eat away at the macula and its sensitive photoreceptors. 

Though minocycline had been shown to reduce inflammation and microglial activity in the eye in diabetic retinopathy, it didn’t slow the expansion of geographic atrophy or vision loss in patients with dry AMD during Keenan’s study.

When asked if microglial activity could have very little to do with the atrophy expansion, Keenan said it’s something to consider: “Maybe microglia are just there as bystanders clearing up the debris … so inhibiting them is less likely to slow down progression.”

In future drug trials, “maybe it’s possible the minocycline or another approach to target microglia would be helpful, but it would be needed in combination with some other therapy and be ineffective by itself,” he said. 

Two Sides of the Same Disease 

In dry AMD, Gonzalez compares macular degeneration to the loss of pixels on a screen. “Some of those pixels burn out … and that’s the way you lose vision classically in the dry form.”

Wet AMD is a more progressive form of the disease. It causes abrupt vision loss due to abnormal blood vessel growth. 

“If you don’t treat wet AMD quickly, it’s game over,” warned Gonzalez. “Wet macular degeneration is the quicker process of vision loss because these blood vessels wreak havoc.” These new blood vessels bleed, causing fluid to build in the macula, which ultimately leads to scarring. 

Gonzalez shed light on why wet AMD develops. “The wet form, for some reason, is the body’s last-ditch effort to try to kind of ‘help’ a dying macula. … When these blood vessels start to grow under the retina, they quickly destroy the architecture of the macula.”

Stopping the Bleeding in Wet AMD

Though wet AMD is rarer, it’s more treatable than dry AMD. Signs and symptoms can be eased with various therapies injected into the eye. 

Putting it simply, Gonzalez said these therapies to treat wet AMD “all basically do the same thing. They make these new blood vessels regress temporarily before they cause damage to the macula.”

The injected medication clears away those blood vessels and restores the architecture of the macula. People can recover some vision in this way, but it’s only a temporary tune-up, and shots must be given as often as once a month.

“Degeneration of the cells is still the main problem. You’re not stopping that. But degeneration itself is a lot slower than actual vision loss associated with these blood vessels.” 

The Struggle in Developing New Treatments 

According to Keenan, “nobody has been able to stop geographic atrophy from happening” in either form of AMD. “So, that’s the main work in the field with trials.”

In December 2023, the FDA approved two new drugs: Syfovre and Izervay, both of which only slow geographic atrophy. Degeneration still happens, regardless. 

Keenan explained how these two new drugs are “complement inhibitors … given by injection into the eye once a month or so.” 

“Complement” refers to the body’s complement pathway, a trigger that activates a cascade of proteins in enhancing immune response. 

Clinical trials showed Syfovre slowing the rate of geographic atrophy by up to 22% over 2 years, and Izervay up to 14% over 1 year. 

Though these drugs are a new weapon against this troublesome affliction, they aren’t without their complications. 

“Anytime you give an injection in the eye, there’s always the risk of an infection because you’re introducing something from the outside. So that’s the biggest risk,” explained Gonzalez. 

An infection is uncommon, but potentially devastating, as you can lose your eye altogether. There’s also the chance of a damaging reaction to the shot.

“You have to pick and choose your patients,” said Gonzalez. “Not everybody is a good candidate for those new shots … and the patient is never going to see better. … It’s a harder sell than the ones for wet AMD.”

A Common Protective Measure 

Keenan and Gonzalez both have a fair degree of confidence in reducing the risk of AMD with vitamin therapy. 

As a bit of background on how vitamins were found to act as a sort of preventive measure, Gonzalez said, “In the early and late ‘90s, there were series of studies which were called the age-related eye disease studies.” These are now referred to as AREDS 1 and AREDS 2.

Researchers proved that a certain cocktail of vitamins slowed down degeneration. The most is a combo of antioxidants: vitamins C and E and lutein and zeaxanthin, all of which are in the AREDS 2 formula.

People who took these vitamins had a lower chance of losing their vision over the next 2 to 5 years. “[The combo] seems to be complementary and additive … with a combined treatment effect of 55% to 60%, an excellent safety record, and very low cost,” Keenan said. 

Gonzalez recommends the AREDS 2 formula of vitamins to every patient of his. “It’s such an easy thing to take, and the downside is minimal.”

Unfortunately, if your genes make you more likely to have the condition, a change in diet or vitamin use could have no effect. 

Dire? Possibly. But not all is lost in this fight. 

Vigilance with AMD and What to Do Next if You’re Diagnosed

Gonzalez is adamant in educating his patients before time has run out on treating AMD. Recognition is key. “The most common reason a lot of these people get to me ‘too late’ is they don’t realize there’s a problem.”

He explained a typical scenario: “Let’s say you have macular degeneration in both eyes at different stages. One of your eyes starts developing wet macular degeneration … so the better eye takes over and you may not notice there’s a problem.” 

Even after a patient is diagnosed with AMD, they usually see a specialist only twice a year. Gonzalez often tells his patients to cover one of their eyes to make sure their vision is intact in both eyes. “You’ll be able to pick up on subtle differences” in each eye, he said. 

This type of self-care and vigilance can be the difference between successfully living with and treating the disease for the rest of your life, and trying to get help when it’s simply too late. 

For wet AMD, as mentioned before, a round of injections is basically what everyone does. Without quick, invasive treatment, the point of no return approaches rapidly. 



Source link

Continue Reading

Health

Federal Experts Talk Bird Flu ‘What Ifs’ in WebMD Live Event

CHANNEL TODAY BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Published

on


May 16, 2024 – Multiple U.S. agencies are working to contain the recent bird flu outbreak among cattle to prevent further spread to humans (beyond one case reported in early April) and use what we learned before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic to keep farm workers and the general public safe. 

Fingers crossed, the bird flu will be contained and peter out. Or the outbreak could continue to spread among dairy cattle and other animals, threatening the health and livelihoods of farmers and others who work with livestock.

Or the virus could change in a way that makes it easier to infect and spread among people. If this happens, the worst-case scenario could be a new influenza pandemic. 

With so many unknowns, WebMD brought together experts from four federal agencies to talk prevention, monitoring, and what the “what ifs” of bird flu might look like.

Communication with the public “about what we know, what we don’t know, and ways you and your family can stay safe is a priority for us at CDC,” said Nirav D. Shah, MD, JD, the CDC’s principal deputy director. “We at the federal level are responding, and we want the public to be following along.”

People should consult the websites for the CDC, FDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) for updates.  

It is essential to not only stay informed, but to seek trusted sources of information, Shah said during “Bird Flu 2024 – What You Need to Know,” an online briefing jointly sponsored by the CDC and WebMD. 

An ‘Experimental Hamburger’

If one take-home message emerged from the event, it was that the threat to the general public remains low. 

The retail milk supply is safe, although consuming raw or unpasteurized milk is not recommended. “While commercial milk supply is safe, we strongly advise against drinking raw milk,” said Donald A. Prater, DVM, acting director for the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

As for other foods, thoroughly cooked eggs are less risky than raw eggs, and the nation’s beef supply remains free of the virus as well.

For years, federal inspectors have purchased and tested meat at retail stores, said Eric Deeble, DVM, USDA deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Congressional Relations. So far, H5N1, the virus behind bird flu, has not been detected in beef. 

The USDA took testing a step further and recently cooked ground beef from dairy cows in their lab. Using what Deeble described as an “experimental hamburger,” the agency showed cooking beef to 165 F or higher kills the virus if it ever becomes necessary.

The federal government now requires all cattle be tested and be free of bird flu virus before crossing any state lines. The government is also reimbursing farmers for veterinary care and loss of business related to the outbreak, and supply personal protective equipment (PPE) like gloves, masks, and face shields to workers. 

Vaccination Not Recommended Now

Federal scientists know enough about H5N1 virus to create vaccines against it quickly if the need arises. It’s more about planning ahead at this point. “Vaccines are not part of our response right now,” said David Boucher, PhD, director of infectious diseases preparedness and response at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. 

If the virus changes and becomes a bigger threat to people, “we have the building blocks to produce a vaccine,” Boucher added. 

An event attendee asked if the seasonal flu shot offers any protection. “Unfortunately, the flu shot you got last year does not provide great protection from the avian flu,” Shah responded. “It might do a little bit … but that is the vaccine for seasonal flu. This is something more novel.”

Treatments Stockpiled and Ready

Antiviral medications, which if given early in the course of bird flu infection could shorten the severity or duration of illness, are available now, Shah said. The dairy farmer who was infected with bird flu earlier this year responded to oseltamivir (Tamiflu) treatment, for example. 

When it comes to bird flu symptoms, the fact that the only infected person reported so far this year developed pink eye, also known as conjunctivitis, is interesting, Shah said. Officials would have expected to see more typical seasonal flu symptoms, he added. 

“Influenza is not a new virus,” Boucher said. “With this strain of influenza, we are not seeing any genetic markers associated with resistance to antivirals. That means the antivirals we take for seasonal influenza would also be available if needed to treat H5N1.”

ASPR has stockpiled Tamiflu and three other antivirals. “We do have tens of millions of courses that can be distributed around the country if we need them,” he added.

“Influenza is an enemy we know well,” Boucher said. That is why “we have antivirals ready to go now and many types of PPE.”

Science in Action

The feds intend to stay on the case. They will continue to monitor emergency department visits, lab test orders, and wastewater samples for any changes suggesting a human pandemic risk is growing.

“While we’ve learned a great deal, there are still many things we do not know,” Deeble said. 

Shah added, “As in any outbreak, this is an evolving situation and things can change. What you are seeing now is science in action.”

For the latest updates on bird flu in the United States, visit the CDC’s H5N1 Bird Flu: Current Situation Summary website. 



Source link

Continue Reading

Health

Federal Experts Talk Bird Flu ‘What Ifs’ in WebMD Live Event

CHANNEL TODAY BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Published

on


May 16, 2024 – Multiple U.S. agencies are working to contain the recent bird flu outbreak among cattle to prevent further spread to humans (beyond one case reported in early April) and use what we learned before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic to keep farm workers and the general public safe. 

Fingers crossed, the bird flu will be contained and peter out. Or the outbreak could continue to spread among dairy cattle and other animals, threatening the health and livelihoods of farmers and others who work with livestock.

Or the virus could change in a way that makes it easier to infect and spread among people. If this happens, the worst-case scenario could be a new influenza pandemic. 

With so many unknowns, WebMD brought together experts from four federal agencies to talk prevention, monitoring, and what the “what ifs” of bird flu might look like.

Communication with the public “about what we know, what we don’t know, and ways you and your family can stay safe is a priority for us at CDC,” said Nirav D. Shah, MD, JD, the CDC’s principal deputy director. “We at the federal level are responding, and we want the public to be following along.”

People should consult the websites for the CDC, FDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) for updates.  

It is essential to not only stay informed, but to seek trusted sources of information, Shah said during “Bird Flu 2024 – What You Need to Know,” an online briefing jointly sponsored by the CDC and WebMD. 

An ‘Experimental Hamburger’

If one take-home message emerged from the event, it was that the threat to the general public remains low. 

The retail milk supply is safe, although consuming raw or unpasteurized milk is not recommended. “While commercial milk supply is safe, we strongly advise against drinking raw milk,” said Donald A. Prater, DVM, acting director for the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

As for other foods, thoroughly cooked eggs are less risky than raw eggs, and the nation’s beef supply remains free of the virus as well.

For years, federal inspectors have purchased and tested meat at retail stores, said Eric Deeble, DVM, USDA deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Congressional Relations. So far, H5N1, the virus behind bird flu, has not been detected in beef. 

The USDA took testing a step further and recently cooked ground beef from dairy cows in their lab. Using what Deeble described as an “experimental hamburger,” the agency showed cooking beef to 165 F or higher kills the virus if it ever becomes necessary.

The federal government now requires all cattle be tested and be free of bird flu virus before crossing any state lines. The government is also reimbursing farmers for veterinary care and loss of business related to the outbreak, and supply personal protective equipment (PPE) like gloves, masks, and face shields to workers. 

Vaccination Not Recommended Now

Federal scientists know enough about H5N1 virus to create vaccines against it quickly if the need arises. It’s more about planning ahead at this point. “Vaccines are not part of our response right now,” said David Boucher, PhD, director of infectious diseases preparedness and response at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. 

If the virus changes and becomes a bigger threat to people, “we have the building blocks to produce a vaccine,” Boucher added. 

An event attendee asked if the seasonal flu shot offers any protection. “Unfortunately, the flu shot you got last year does not provide great protection from the avian flu,” Shah responded. “It might do a little bit … but that is the vaccine for seasonal flu. This is something more novel.”

Treatments Stockpiled and Ready

Antiviral medications, which if given early in the course of bird flu infection could shorten the severity or duration of illness, are available now, Shah said. The dairy farmer who was infected with bird flu earlier this year responded to oseltamivir (Tamiflu) treatment, for example. 

When it comes to bird flu symptoms, the fact that the only infected person reported so far this year developed pink eye, also known as conjunctivitis, is interesting, Shah said. Officials would have expected to see more typical seasonal flu symptoms, he added. 

“Influenza is not a new virus,” Boucher said. “With this strain of influenza, we are not seeing any genetic markers associated with resistance to antivirals. That means the antivirals we take for seasonal influenza would also be available if needed to treat H5N1.”

ASPR has stockpiled Tamiflu and three other antivirals. “We do have tens of millions of courses that can be distributed around the country if we need them,” he added.

“Influenza is an enemy we know well,” Boucher said. That is why “we have antivirals ready to go now and many types of PPE.”

Science in Action

The feds intend to stay on the case. They will continue to monitor emergency department visits, lab test orders, and wastewater samples for any changes suggesting a human pandemic risk is growing.

“While we’ve learned a great deal, there are still many things we do not know,” Deeble said. 

Shah added, “As in any outbreak, this is an evolving situation and things can change. What you are seeing now is science in action.”

For the latest updates on bird flu in the United States, visit the CDC’s H5N1 Bird Flu: Current Situation Summary website. 



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending