The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging hospitals to accelerate advanced testing of people they suspect may have bird flu.

Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that hospitals speed up testing people who are hospitalized with the flu for H5N1 bird flu. Health care workers in hospitals are urged to perform additional testing on patients hospitalized with influenza A — ideally within 24 hours of admission — to determine

CDC officials say medical professionals are seeing more patients whose illness cannot be traced back to an infected animal or bird.