The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday that a person in Texas has tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza, otherwise known as H5N1 bird flu.

“This person had exposure to dairy cattle in Texas presumed to be infected with HPAI A(H5N1) viruses. The patient reported eye redness (consistent with conjunctivitis), as their only symptom, and is recovering,” the CDC said in a statement. “The patient was told to isolate and is being treated with an antiviral drug for flu.”

The CDC said this is the second case of a human testing positive for H5N1 in the United States, after a previous case was observed in Colorado in 2022.

“This infection does not change the H5N1 bird flu human health risk assessment for the U.S. general public, which CDC considers to be low,” it added. “However, people with close or prolonged, unprotected exposures to infected birds or other animals (including livestock), or to environments contaminated by infected birds or other animals, are at greater risk of infection.”

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Last week, dairy cows in Texas and Kansas were reported to be infected with bird flu – and federal agriculture officials later confirmed infections in a Michigan dairy herd that had recently received cows from Texas.

This bird flu was first identified as a threat to people during a 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong, according to the Associated Press. More than 460 people have died in the past two decades from bird flu infections, the World Health Organization says.

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Eggs are cleaned and disinfected at the Sunrise Farms processing plant in Petaluma, California, on Jan. 11, 2024, which had seen an outbreak of avian flu.  (AP/Terry Chea)

Texas officials did not identify the newly infected person, nor release any details about what brought them in contact with the cows.

The CDC said it is “working with state health departments to continue to monitor workers who may have been in contact with infected or potentially infected birds/animals and test those people who develop symptoms.” 

A researcher wears a protective suit while collecting samples of wildlife, where the H5N1 bird flu virus was detected, at Chilean Antarctic territory in Antarctica, in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters on March 13. (Reuters/Instituto Antartico Chileno)

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“Human illnesses with H5N1 bird flu have ranged from mild (e.g., eye infection, upper respiratory symptoms) to severe illness (e.g., pneumonia) that have resulted in death in other countries,” the CDC also said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

• Dr. John Nkengasong, who currently oversees the global AIDS effort, recalls the desperate scenes in Africa before the introduction of PEPFAR in 2004.
• PEPFAR, initiated by the Bush administration, has revolutionized HIV care, saving an estimated 25 million lives in hard-hit countries.
• Funding debates in Congress threaten the program’s future, he said.

Through his office window at what was then one of Africa’s few modern clinics dealing with HIV and AIDS, the man who now oversees the United States’ threatened global AIDS effort used to hear the sound of taxis pulling up throughout the day.

If he turned his head to look out the window, Dr. John Nkengasong said, he knew what he would see: another desperate family carrying a dying loved one — a man or woman already lapsing into a coma, a stick-thin child — and hoping to find help.

It was before the Bush administration started the U.S. President’s Emergency Relief Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, in 2004. There was almost no affordable effective treatment anywhere between South Africa and the Sahara, no rapid HIV tests or high-quality government labs, and few beds for AIDS patients.

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Nkengasong has spent decades working in Africa on HIV and AIDS, a career intertwined with the U.S. program that since its introduction 20 years ago has transformed care in some of the hardest-hit countries and saved an estimated 25 million lives. He spoke to The Associated Press during a battle over funding in Congress that imperils the AIDS program’s future.

Opponents say the HIV/AIDS funding could be indirectly supporting abortion abroad, although the Biden administration and PEPFAR’s defenders say there is no evidence that it does. After a handful of conservative lawmakers threatened for months to block the funding unless restrictions were attached, a compromise was struck in late March that extends the funding for a year.

But advocates of the program warn that without the full five-year renewal, its future remains in doubt as the political debate over abortion and reproductive rights only becomes more combative.

Before PEPFAR, in most cases, Nkengasong’s infectious disease clinic in Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast, could offer the families no care. In their loved ones’ last hours, the families who came there often were left to crouch outside, in the parking lot.

They would surround “a skeleton of a human being, with a tinge of flesh over their bodies,” Nkengasong recalled. “They held their loved ones, giving them the best comfort they could.”

Soon enough, the sound of wailing would rise through his windows. The cries signaled another death to HIV/AIDS, one of millions in Africa by the mid-2000s.

The scene would be repeated “nearly hour by hour,” Nkengasong said. Sometimes he would get up and close the curtains, blocking out the misery of an epidemic he could not then stem.

Two decades later, Nkengasong says, his trips to the region from his offices in Washington bring joyous meetings with men, women and children whose lives were saved through PEPFAR, credited as the biggest government effort ever against a single disease.

In all, the U.S. program has spent more than $110 billion on HIV care and treatment, local medical systems and social programs aimed at stemming infection. The U.S. says it has saved 25 million lives in sub-Saharan Africa and other vulnerable regions, including those of 5.5 million children.

‘A THRIVING INDUSTRY OF COFFINS’

Nkengasong, who was born in Cameroon and did his graduate studies in Belgium, worked in Africa in the 1990s, when the AIDS epidemic was raging all but unchecked.

It made for a “thriving industry of coffins,” he said. Visiting cities in Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and elsewhere for his work on infectious diseases, he would travel streets lined by handmade coffins of all sizes.

Beds of infectious-disease clinics were full of “adults lying there looking like babies, because of what HIV had done. That ugly face,” Nkengasong recalled.

With early retroviral medication averaging $10,000 per patient per year, only 50,000 HIV-infected people in sub-Saharan Africa were estimated to be receiving effective treatment in the mid-to-late 1990s. That was out of what the World Health Organization said was 10 million people there living with HIV and AIDS.

THE ‘AHA’ MOMENT

One day in spring 2002, as he was in his lab conducting tests, a large American delegation suddenly arrived at the clinic in Abidjan.

Health Secretary Tommy Thompson and other leading U.S. health officials crowded into the facility, along with representatives of businesses and members of faith-based organizations.

“I remember opening the door and the first person who walked through was Dr. Fauci,” Nkengasong recounted. Anthony Fauci, a leading HIV researcher, was then a top official at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and a leader in Nkengasong’s field of HIV and AIDS work. “And he said, ‘John, good to see you again.’ And I was so excited.”

Unbeknownst to Nkengasong and his colleagues, national security adviser Condoleeza Rice and other officials privately had been making the case to President George W. Bush that the global HIV epidemic was where the U.S. could make a huge difference.

For the Bush administration, the epidemic presented an opportunity to do good at a time when the U.S. was waging war in Afghanistan and later Iraq as well after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Nine months after the Americans showed up in his lab, “we’re watching news on CNN, it was the State of the Union address,” Nkengason recalled. “And President Bush announced the start of PEPFAR.”

That night, the president pledged an initial $15 billion over the next five years to tackle the AIDS epidemic around the world.

Nkengason called it the “aha moment” for himself and others fighting AIDS in the most vulnerable region of the world.

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Two decades later, AIDS deaths globally have fallen nearly 70% from their peak in 2004. Sub-Saharan Africa is still the most vulnerable region and home to two-thirds of the people living with HIV. But the PEPFAR program and others have strengthened health care systems to deal with infectious diseases, made treatment available to millions, and expanded support for the most at-risk populations, including women.

On a trip back to Abidjan, Nkengasong met a healthy 17-year-old girl, one of millions spared from infection at birth thanks to medical treatment that prevented HIV transmission from their infected mothers.

This past summer, he visited a clinic in Namibia where HIV-infected mothers had delivered “super healthy” babies thanks to treatment that saved them from infection.

“I grabbed some of the babies and looked at them,” he said. Holding them, he wondered what would have happened to them without proper care.

“And they just give you that smile,” he said.

Adults who are admitted to the hospital are often inappropriately diagnosed with — and treated for — pneumonia, new research suggests.

These misdiagnosed adults almost always receive a full course of antibiotics that may not be necessary, according to a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Among older adults who were treated for community-acquired pneumonia in the hospital, 12% were misdiagnosed, researchers found.

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Among those patients who were misdiagnosed, 88% received a full antibiotic treatment course — with 2% of those experiencing adverse side effects from the medication, the study also found.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about 47 million courses of antibiotics are prescribed annually in the U.S. for infections that don’t require that course of action.

Overuse of antibiotics can lead to resistance, meaning that the bacteria becomes strong enough to withstand the medication. 

Each year, over 23,000 deaths occur in the U.S. due to antibiotic resistance, per the CDC.

This can limit treatment options and make it more difficult for doctors to treat and cure infections.

Each year, over 23,000 deaths occur in the U.S. due to antibiotic resistance, per the CDC.

Main types of pneumonia

There are two primary types of pneumonia: community-acquired and hospital-acquired.

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) describes a type of pneumonia in a patient who has not recently been hospitalized.

In these scenarios, patients acquire the lung infection while in a community setting, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

Overuse of antibiotics can lead to resistance, meaning the bacteria becomes strong enough to withstand the medication.  (iStock)

Hospital-acquired pneumonia occurs after patients are admitted to the hospital. 

They don’t have the infection when they’re first admitted, but acquire it later after being exposed to bacteria in the hospital setting.

Many patients with community-acquired pneumonia are treated without needing to be hospitalized.

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Certain individuals with CAP, however, may require hospitalization if they have serious medical problems, severe symptoms, are unable to eat or drink, are over age 65, or are taking antibiotics but not improving, the NIH noted.

CAP is one of the most common causes of hospitalization in the U.S., according to the CDC.

What the study found

Researchers at the Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the University of Michigan Medical School – led by lead researcher Ashwin B. Gupta, M.D., clinical associate professor at the University of Michigan Health – examined patient records from the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium, an initiative to improve the hospitalized care of patients.

Patients in the study were admitted to the hospital for general care and later were diagnosed with pneumonia and were treated with antibiotics on the first or second day of admission.

They analyzed approximately 17,000 adults who were hospitalized between July 1, 2017, and March 31, 2020, at 48 hospitals in Michigan.

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Patients in the study were admitted to the hospital for general care and later were diagnosed with pneumonia and were treated with antibiotics on the first or second day of admission.

Participants were considered “inappropriately diagnosed” if they had fewer than two symptoms of pneumonia or if their chest X-rays tested negative for the infection. (In other words, if they got the diagnosis but didn’t have two symptoms or positive X-rays, the diagnosis was wrong.)

Patients in the study were admitted to the hospital for general care and later were diagnosed with pneumonia and were treated with antibiotics on the first or second day of admission. (iStock)

The study found that an inappropriate diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia among hospitalized patients is common – especially among certain groups, such as older adults or those with dementia and altered mental status.

Those who were inappropriately diagnosed almost always received a full course of antibiotics, the researchers noted.

Common symptoms

A classic diagnosis of pneumonia involves typical symptoms — such as cough, fever, chills and shortness of breath — combined with radiographic evidence on a chest X-ray, according to experts.

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The X-ray is necessary because many symptoms can overlap with other conditions.

“When you present to the hospital with cough or shortness of breath, for example, the list of potential etiologies is quite broad,” lead researcher Gupta told Fox News Digital via email.

A classic diagnosis of pneumonia involves typical symptoms — such as cough, fever, chills and shortness of breath — combined with radiographic evidence on a chest X-ray. (iStock)

“We found that often, those who likely have an underlying non-pneumonia etiology (e.g., congestive heart failure) are being classified as having pneumonia and are treated as such,” he continued.

“Inappropriate diagnosis and treatment of pneumonia may have implications, such as delays in understanding the actual problem or adverse effects related to antibiotic treatment.”

Dangers of unnecessary antibiotics

“Inappropriate diagnosis is not benign,” the lead researcher warned. 

“It means that the understanding of the underlying cause of a patient’s illness may be delayed or missed altogether.”

He added, “Antibiotic therapy is not benign, either — our study demonstrated that full durations of antibiotic therapy in this population are associated with antibiotic-associated adverse events.”

“Inappropriate diagnosis … means the underlying cause of a patient’s illness may be delayed or missed altogether.”

Outside experts also warned of the risk.

“I think the study is alarming in that many patients (one out of eight, or over 10%) are receiving inappropriate diagnoses of pneumonia and being given full treatment courses,” Dr. Scott Roberts, associate medical director of infection prevention at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, told Fox News Digital. 

He was not involved in the study. 

Common side effects of antibiotic use include an itchy, full-body rash; nausea and diarrhea; and yeast infections, according to the CDC. (iStock)

“This is especially problematic because the patient population where this is occurring are the ones most at risk for the adverse events associated with antibiotic use.”

Roberts emphasized the need for providers to diagnose conditions accurately before subjecting patients to full courses of antibiotics, which may be unnecessary and could lead to adverse side effects.

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Common side effects of antibiotics include an itchy, full-body rash; nausea and diarrhea; and yeast infections, according to the CDC.

Serious side effects may include life-threatening allergic reactions and a bacterial infection called C. diff (Clostridioides difficile), which can lead to severe colon damage and sometimes death.

A doctor emphasized the need for providers to diagnose conditions accurately before subjecting patients to full courses of antibiotics. (iStock)

“Diagnosis is challenging, and by and large, providers are trying to best care for their patients,” Gupta noted.

“We often think about problems related to underdiagnosis of conditions (e.g., missed infection), though there are real risks to inappropriate diagnosis as well,” he said. 

Study limitations

The researchers likely underestimated the number of patients who were inappropriately diagnosed, as the signs and symptoms of pneumonia have significant overlap with other conditions, the researchers noted.

The study was also not designed to assess “causation,” Gupta pointed out.

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“So, while we can say that there is an association between a full duration of antibiotics and antibiotic-associated adverse events, we cannot say that a full duration of antibiotics caused the antibiotic-associated adverse events,” he continued.

He said he hoped that “this work will provide a framework on which providers, hospitals and health systems can calibrate the accuracy of their pneumonia diagnoses among hospitalized patients.”

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health.

Fox News Digital publishes an array of health pieces all week long to keep you in the know on a range of wellness topics: health care access, innovative surgeries, cancer research, mental health trends and more — plus, personal stories of people and families overcoming great obstacles.

As you wind down your weekend, check out some of the top stories of the week in Health that you may have missed, or have been meaning to check out. 

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These are just a few of what’s new, of course. There are many more to see at http://www.foxnews/health. 

Dive into this selection here.

Woman ‘shakes off’ brain surgery with Taylor Swift songs

A New Jersey woman stayed awake during her brain surgery — and sang Taylor Swift songs to help doctors gauge her cognitive function. Selena Campione, 36, shared her story with Fox News Digital. Click here to get the story.

Health care is ‘overwhelmingly complex’ for seniors

Adults tend to need more medical care as they age, but coordinating that care can be stressful and strenuous for seniors. Doctors discussed the health care challenges older adults face — and what needs to change to improve the situation. Click here to get the story.

Adults tend to need more medical care as they age, but coordinating that care can be stressful and strenuous for seniors. Here’s what to know. (iStock)

Should busy doctors use ChatGPT as ‘assistants’?

It’s happening more often — busy physicians are turning to chatbots for help in summarizing medical reports. Experts weighed the benefits and the risks of using AI in the health care space. Click here to get the story.

AI responses, such as those from ChatGPT, were found to be 70% shorter than real physicians’ responses in a new study. (iStock)

Intermittent fasting could have unexpected effects

Time-restricted eating has been linked to a higher risk of heart-related death in a new study. The researchers and cardiologists offer their insights on the surprising connection. Click here to get the story.

Previous studies have found that time-restricted eating can improve key measures related to heart health, including blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol levels, the AHA noted in a press release. (iStock)

Cancer and Princess Kate: What to know about screenings

Kate Middleton’s announcement of a cancer diagnosis has sparked an outpouring of support — and concerns about the uptick of cases among younger adults. Here’s what to know about the recommended cancer screenings for early detection. Click here to get the story.

“We hope that you will understand that, as a family, we now need some time, space and privacy while I complete my treatment,” Middleton said in her announcement on Friday. (The Prince and Princess of Wales Twitter)

Cold therapy under hot scrutiny in new study

The benefits of cold plunging and other ice therapies have been called into question by a new study. The researchers plus cold therapy experts reacted to the findings. Click here to get the story.

Cold therapy has been a popular health trend in recent years, but a new review suggests it might not live up to the hype. Still, others disagree with that. (iStock)

Smokers at high risk of heart attacks

People who smoke marijuana daily face a significantly higher risk of heart attack and stroke, a new study found. Get the details on the effects of frequent cannabis use. Click here to get the story.

Daily weed smoking could cause complications for heart health, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. (PABLO VERA/AFP via Getty Images; iStock)

Drug overdoses hit record high

Drug overdoses reached a new high last year in the U.S., according to a new CDC report. Find out what groups were most affected — and what addiction experts think about the surge. Click here to get the story.

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At-home abortions are on the rise

Since 2020, the prevalence of medication abortions — triggered by what’s known as the abortion pill — has risen 10%. Women’s health experts detailed the possible reasons for the increase. Click here to get the story.

A medication abortion typically costs around $800, according to the Planned Parenthood website, but some health insurance policies may cover it.  (iStock)

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