#18,200
Last week the CDC Held a 1-hour webinar for clinicians and healthcare centers on the epidemiology, identification, and treatment of HPAI H5N1 cases which is now online, and available for viewing. This presentation also comes with a 48-slide PDF file.
The goals for this webinar are stated as:
This presentation is at times fairly technical, and is of greatest interest to clinicians and healthcare providers, but also may be of interest to the general public.At the conclusion of today’s session, the participant will be able to accomplish the following:
- Discuss the epidemiology and clinical features of human cases of HPAI A(H5N1) virus infection.
- Describe risk of human infection with HPAI A(H5N1) viruses, identify higher risk populations, and what to assess in clinical settings.
- Describe testing, using antivirals, and infection prevention and control recommendations for patients with HPAI A(H5N1) virus infection.
It is a far better source of information than most of what I've seen on trending on social media. But I digress . . .
A fully captioned video and edited transcript will be posted within the next few days, but between the video and PDF, most will find the current presentation easy enough to follow. The presenters include:
Alicia Budd, MPH
Team Lead
National Surveillance and Outbreak Response Team
Epidemiology and Prevention Branch
Influenza Division
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Ryan Fagan, MD, MPH&TM
Medical Officer
Prevention and Response Branch
Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Tim Uyeki, MD, MPH, MPP
Chief Medical Officer
Influenza Division
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Case counts mentioned in this webinar, which reflect what was known last week, have changed. Dr. Uyeki refers to 4 infected poultry workers in Colorado, but 6 have now been confirmed (and a 7th is reportedly awaiting confirmation).
There are also anecdotal reports of symptomatic dairy workers who were never tested for the virus (see EID Journal: Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Virus among Dairy Cattle, Texas, USA), raising the possibility that some cases have gone undetected.
In order to improve detection, the webinar includes the following two slides on the clinical presentation, and recommended testing, of patients with suspected H5N1:
The CDC is promoting aggressive antiviral treatment with oseltamivir for both patients, and for close contacts.
There are also presentations on Healthcare Infection Prevention and Control by Ryan Fagan, MD, MPH&TM and H5N1 Surveillance and Monitoring by Alicia Budd, MPH. The webinar ends with a brief Q&A session.
The full hour-long presentation is very much worth your time. Highly recommended.
