Missouri officials are under growing pressure from national public health experts to pinpoint the source of the state’s first human bird flu infection.

After a patient with bird flu was hospitalized last month, state and federal health officials first determined the patient may have infected one household member and two hospital workers. However, "Missouri has since identified four additional health care workers who later developed mild respiratory symptoms,

Three government agencies—the FDA, the CDC, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture—share responsibility for the bird-flu response, and it’s unclear which agency is truly in charge. The USDA, for example,

The United States is in the middle of an unprecedented bout of bird flu, also known as H5N1. Since 2022, the virus has killed millions of birds and spread to mammals, including co

As of Monday evening, there is only one confirmed human case of bird flu in Missouri. The single case is one of 15 reported nationwide since 2022. However, the recent Missouri case is unusual... because there is no known animal link to that case.

Health authorities in the US are studying seven people who developed influenza symptoms after being exposed to a Missouri bird flu patient, raising the possibility of the first human-to-human transmission of the infection.