Hospital workers reported respiratory symptoms after encountering a Missouri patient with H5N1 who had not been exposed to farm animals. Officials say bird flu transmission is unlikely.

U.S. health officials have run into obstacles in their efforts to determine whether a Missouri person infected with H5N1 bird flu passed the virus on to others.

A routine flu screening in late summer found the H5N1 virus in a Missouri patient. Unlike the other reported cases of avian flu, this person did not report being in recent contact with animals.

Chances are low that human-to-human spread of bird flu occurred in a group of people who were exposed to a patient infected with the virus in Missouri, US health authorities said.

The latest developments are highly concerning, as they raise the possibility that the H5N1 virus has evolved the ability to transmit from human-to-human and thus the potential to cause the next pandemic.

In what could be the first cases of bird flu spreading between humans in the United States, a group of potential H5N1 infections in Missouri has now grown to eight. However, state health officials are still awaiting antibody tests to confirm whether the H5N1 infection is growing,

Missouri officials are under growing pressure from national public health experts to pinpoint the source of the state’s first human bird flu infection.