CDC says bird flu viruses "pose pandemic potential," cites major knowledge gaps

Bird flu continues to appear to pose a "low risk to the general public" for now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. But the agency's scientists ran into roadblocks investigating a human case of this "pandemic potential" virus this year, they said in a new report.

Epidemiologists from the agency were ultimately unable to access a Texas dairy farm where a human was infected with the virus in March, they disclosed in attachments to the report published Friday by the New England Journal of Medicine. That prevented investigators from being able to investigate how workers might have been exposed to the virus on the farm. 

That is because the dairy worker who came to a Texas field office for testing "did not disclose the name of their workplace," said Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services.