As bird flu is confirmed in 33 cattle herds across eight US states, Ian Sample talks to virologist Dr Ed Hutchinson of Glasgow University about why this development has taken scientists by surprise, and how prepared we are for the possibility it might start spreading among humans How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know Source link
Dairy cattle moving between states must be tested for the bird flu virus, U.S. agriculture officials said Wednesday as they try to track and control the growing outbreak. The federal order was announced one day after health officials said they had detected inactivated remnants of the virus, known as Type A H5N1, in samples taken from milk during processing and from store shelves. They stressed that such remnants pose no known risk to people or the milk supply. “The risk to humans remains low,” said Dawn O’Connell of the federal Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. The new order, which goes into effect Monday, requires every lactating cow to be tested and post a negative result before moving to a new state. It will help the agency understand how the virus is spreading, said Michael Watson, an administrator with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. “We believe we can do tens of thousands of tests a day,” he told reporters. Until now, testing had been done voluntarily and only in …
“I’m not worried about H5N1 transmission to humans (yet) but the USDA’s pathetic lack of transparency, how long it took for the genomes to be released, lack of testing asymptomatic cattle,” Dr Eric Topol, director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, wrote on X. While the FDA said investigations are ongoing and they are “committed to sharing results as soon as possible”, the latest statement on milk had glaring holes. It did not, for instance, say how many commercial samples were tested, where they were purchased, the percentage PCR-positive for H5N1, or the levels of genetic material found in samples. “This information was shared with no supporting data, characteristic of the current response,” said Dr Rasmussen. “It’s very unclear why all the relevant data has not been shared rapidly. “I’m not attributing this to malice, incompetence, territorialism, bureaucracy, or anything else, but it’s very clear that this apparent lack of transparency and urgency to share these relevant data are greatly harming both the US and global capacity to respond. “It’s a matter of …
The apparent ability of the virus to spread between cows is significant because it provides more opportunities for it to evolve to better infect other mammals, potentially including humans. Of particular concern is whether H5N1 might now be able to infect pigs, often described as ‘mixing vessels’ for influenza and making it more likely that the virus could spill over into humans. There have also been unconfirmed reports that the virus has jumped from cows back to birds, highlighting the potential threat of recombination – when different viruses merge and mix their properties together to create a new strain. Dr Gerlad Parker, Associate Dean for Global One Health at the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, said the cattle outbreak demonstrated the need to improve pathogen surveillance in the US. “The virus is more widespread than what has been reported … and has likely been circulating in cattle for some time before recognised in February, and it also tells us we must modernise surveillance systems in a one health manner that integrates animal and …
The risk of bird flu jumping into humans is of “enormous concern,” the World Health Organization has warned as the virus continues its spread into new species. Since 2020, an outbreak of the H5N1 strain has killed tens of millions of birds worldwide, along with thousands of mammals, including sea lions, elephant seals and even one polar bear. More recently, the virus emerged in 16 herds of cattle in Texas – a development which has surprised experts, as it was previously believed the animals were not susceptible to infection, and raised concerns that H5N1 could eventually spill over into humans. “This remains, I think, an enormous concern,” Dr Jeremy Farrar, the WHO’s chief scientist, told reporters on Thursday in Geneva. “When you come into the mammalian population, then you’re getting closer to humans … this virus is just looking for new, novel hosts.” He warned that, by circulating in new mammals, the virus improves its chances of further evolving and developing “the ability to infect humans and then critically the ability to go from human …
In August 2023 dead elephant seals washed ashore on beaches in Argentina. First a handful appeared outside Rio Grande, a coastal city on the eastern side of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The next day there were more. Then the sightings moved up the seaboard, from Rio Gallegos to the Chubut province to Rio Negro to Buenos Aires. Park rangers saw pregnant seals head toward the shore, seize up in the water, spasm, and drown. Later that month, an Argentine veterinarian named Marcela Uhart traveled out to Península Valdés, a flat mushroom-shaped peninsula jutting into the Atlantic that serves as a popular seal breeding ground. Raised on a ranch in the pampas, Uhart has studied fauna in the region for nearly thirty years; she currently works in Patagonia for the University of California, Davis. Arriving at the peninsula, she found over a thousand dead seal pups, their bodies rotting into the sand. “It was surreal,” she told me last month. “The beach [was] filled with carcasses, scattered individuals, sick and dying, pups that were caught …
One person in the US has contracted bird flu after being exposed to dairy cows that have the virus, but experts say there is no immediate threat of a wider outbreak in people Source link
A producer of fresh eggs in the United States has temporarily shut down a plant in the southwestern state of Texas after the H5N1 strain of bird flu was detected in chickens. Cal-Maine Foods issued a statement Tuesday that it had destroyed about 1.6 million egg-laying hens and another 337,000 young hens, equaling 3.6% of its total flock, after the virus was detected at the plant. The company said it was working with government officials at all levels and other industry groups to “mitigate the risks of future outbreaks.” The company said there is no known risk of bird flu associated with eggs, and that none have been recalled. Tuesday’s announcement came a day after Texas health officials announced that a person who had worked on a dairy farm with cows infected with bird flu tested positive for the virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control said this is the first case of a person catching bird flu from dairy cattle. A person in the western state of Colorado tested positive for bird flu in …
ATLANTA — A person in Texas has been diagnosed with bird flu, an infection tied to the recent discovery of the virus in dairy cows, health officials said Monday. The patient was being treated with an antiviral drug and their only reported symptom was eye redness, Texas health officials said. Health officials say the person had been in contact with cows presumed to be infected, and the risk to the public remains low. It marks the first known instance globally of a person catching this version of bird flu from a mammal, federal health officials said. However, there’s no evidence of person-to-person spread or that anyone has become infected from milk or meat from livestock, said Dr. Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Genetic tests don’t suggest that the virus suddenly is spreading more easily or that it is causing more severe illness, Shah said. And current antiviral medications still seem to work, he added. Last week, dairy cows in Texas and Kansas were reported to be infected …
Dairy cows Shutterstock / Yuangeng Zhang A person in the US has contracted bird flu from infected dairy cows in Texas. This is the first confirmed case of a subtype of the virus, named H5N1, transmitting between a human and another mammal. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the news today after confirming the positive test results over the weekend. The person, whose only symptom is eye inflammation, is on antiviral medications and recovering. They had been exposed to cows believed to be infected with the virus, which has decimated global bird populations. Last week, cows across five US states – Texas, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico and Idaho – tested positive for H5N1. It is unclear how they became sick, but it now seems that the virus may be spreading among the animals, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Previously, mammals had only been confirmed to contract the virus from sick birds. “There have been a couple of outbreaks that didn’t include humans where it is possible there was mammal-to-mammal …
