U.S. poultry producers should ramp up testing and monitoring of turkeys for bird flu before they are slaughtered to ensure the virus stays out of the food supply, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Friday.

The CDC advises testing hospitalized flu patients for bird flu within 24 hours to prevent delays in identifying human infections. While the public risk remains low, nearly 70 Americans have contracted bird flu.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is urging health care workers to accelerate bird flu testing for patients hospitalized with flu symptoms, as the H5N1 avian influenza outbreak continues to grow in the United States and Canada.