FRIDAY, Jan. 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is urging health care workers to accelerate bird flu testing for patients hospitalized with flu symptoms, as the H5N1 avian influenza outbreak continues to grow in the United States and Canada.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging health care workers to accelerate bird flu testing for patients hospitalized with flu symptoms.

FRIDAY, Jan. 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed another human H5N1 avian flu case -- otherwise known as bird flu -- in California on Thursday, bringing the nationwide total of cases to 67.

Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that hospitals speed up testing people who are hospitalized with the flu for H5N1 bird flu. Health care workers in hospitals are urged to perform additional testing on patients hospitalized with influenza A — ideally within 24 hours of admission — to determine

CDC officials say medical professionals are seeing more patients whose illness cannot be traced back to an infected animal or bird.

Bird flu is a disease caused by avian influenza A viruses, according to the CDC. The virus mostly spreads between birds and dairy cows, but there have been 67 human cases of bird flu nationwide and one death tied to the infection since 2024, CDC records show.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is asking that people with flu severe enough to require hospitalization be tested for bird flu.

The CDC on Thursday urged labs nationwide to determine within 24 hours of admission whether people hospitalized with the flu have seasonal influenza or are infected with the bird flu that's behind an escalating outbreak in dairy cows and poultry.

The CDC is calling for expanded testing of bird flu after a child in California tested positive for the virus despite no known contact with animals.