No FDA-approved rapid tests exist that specifically test for H5N1, and the first near-point-of-care test for mpox was approved by the WHO only in late October. Without widespread testing, we don’t know the true number of infections, don’t catch dangerous mutations early on, and can’t identify hotspots fast enough to contain the outbreak.

Bird flu (H5N1) has been spreading across the country, among both animals and people, since April of this year. As the Centers for Disease Control and