MPH’s Schaffner: Avian flu unlikely to spread among people despite positive tests in TN chickens
An outbreak of avian flu in Tennessee has health officials on alert as the virus has surged across parts of Asia in recent months.The Tennessee Department of Agriculture confirmed yesterday that approximately 74,000 chickens from a commercial farm in Lincoln County were culled after some of the animals tested positive for a strain of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who consulted with the Tennessee Department of Health, agreed that the virus is unlikely to spread widely among people in the U.S. due to the nature of the virus and the fact that people rarely interact with live poultry.