VISALIA, Calif. – Federal health officials were in the San Joaquin Valley this week as part of a pilot program to help contain bird flu.
On Monday and Tuesday, nurses offered free testing for the virus under a red tent outside a Walgreens in Visalia.
Brian Strong, director of New Service Development at Walgreens, said the purpose of the clinic was to provide surveillance testing for farmworkers who may be at risk of contracting bird flu, due to their proximity to possibly infected animals, as well as their close contacts.
“It's a covid and flu test that we're going to do on site here and then we specifically take a sample to look to see if it is actually the bird flu strain,” he said.
Strong flew out from the pharmacy chain’s headquarters in Illinois for this pop-up clinic. So did an official from the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The clinic was part of a brand new initiative by the CDC, known as the Farmworker Enhanced Surveillance Program, to test for bird flu in states with some of the highest virus caseloads.
“CDC is working with pharmacy networks eTrueNorth and Walgreens on a pilot program to provide free testing of symptomatic persons in California and one other state initially that have confirmed H5N1 bird flu infections in people, poultry, or livestock,” a CDC webpage reads.
Other goals of the program include raising awareness of the virus among farmworker populations – who are particularly at risk through their work with cattle and poultry – as well as to determine how well conventional flu tests can identify the avian influenza strain.
The clinic this week did not receive much foot traffic. Officials there said they had had zero patients the first day, and KVPR observed only one during the few hours we were there for the second. However, organizers said they plan to return again next Monday and Tuesday.
So far, the virus has been reported in 21 people in California – the highest human total of any state – and in cattle at 278 dairies. According to health officials, there’s been no evidence so far of virus transmission between people.
