Avian flu surges in poultry as federal response scales back: vaccinations

When birds fly south for the winter, they carry with them an unwelcome cargo: the H5N1 virus, or bird flu.

The virus has emerged in the last 30 days 66 poultry flocksresulting in the deaths of more than 3.5 million turkeys, chickens and ducks, a steep increase compared to the summer months. The virus can spread easily when infected wild birds mix with commercial or backyard flocks.

The states in the middle of the country are currently the most affected. However, given bird migration patterns, scientists expect more outbreaks to occur in other parts of the country.

If not taken seriously, the consequences could lead to more than just high egg prices. Influenza researchers fear a repeat of last year, when there were nearly 70 human cases in the U.S. for the first time, including one death.

“In any case, we will see human infections, just like we did a year ago,” he says Semad lawa virologist at Emory University who studies bird flu. “Nothing significant has changed to suggest otherwise.”

And while no human cases have been reported since the start of this year, scientists involved in tracking the virus say they don’t have a good insight into what’s happening in animals or humans. This is because the federal government has scaled back surveillance and communication.

“We’re not in a good position to monitor things,” he says Wendy Puryeara virologist at Tufts University. “I’ve been deep in the weeds since it arrived here in the US and find myself in a very uncomfortable place.

Reduced federal response

Puryear says a Flu Network Previously, researchers were in constant contact with their colleagues at federal health authorities about H5N1, setting research priorities and discussing changes in the virus.

But now, she says, ““Much of this infrastructure was either completely closed or significantly compromised under the Trump administration due to staff cuts, early retirements and other measures.”

In fact, Puryear recalls a recent meeting at which only her colleagues announced that they had to stop their human studies of H5N1 due to government funding cuts.

“It was a pretty depressing meeting,” she says. “Just one person at a time closing their doors.”

Another pressing problem: Data from the state-run laboratory that carries out genetic sequencing of viruses from infected animals has declined to a minimum, which was the case even before the government shutdown, they say Dr. Keith Poulsenwho directs the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

He says the loss of staff at the U.S. Department of Agriculture – and the fact that communications with scientists must be “pre-approved” – have created obstacles at a time when the threat of wildlife transmission is increasing.

The shutdown only made the situation worse.

For example, the network of veterinary laboratories responsible for testing stopped its regular meetings due to the closure, says Poulsen.

“The shutdown adds gas to the smoldering fire and makes us vulnerable,” he says. “It’s a national security issue.”

The USDA did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s influenza team would not be affected by cuts and that the response to urgent public health threats could continue during a shutdown.

A virus that is difficult to contain on farms

Based on reported data, cases in dairy herds seem to be relatively rare in the last few months. A USDA program The process put in place during the Biden administration for detecting bird flu in milk remains in place, as do regulations requiring that cattle be tested before they are transported across state lines.

However, it is unclear how much routine testing is actually being done on cattle – and some like Lakdawala speculate that the reported drop in cases may be due to a lack of testing.

The dairy farm business model is based on transporting cattle between farms and new research from Lakdawala’s team offers a sobering picture why it is so difficult to eradicate the virus on a farm.

They found that it is ubiquitous – in the air of the milking parlor, throughout the equipment, even in waste streams sometimes used to clean livestock stalls.

Cows “excrete it in such high amounts in their milk,” even animals that may have few or no symptoms, she says. “There are so many viruses in the environment that these cows will be bombarded with them. Of course they will become infected.”

As far as scientists know, the widespread H5N1 strain has not undergone such mutations that would make it possible It’s easy to infect people.

But Lakdawala says conditions on farms with infected cattle clearly pose a risk to workers, essentially inhaling H5N1 particles, which are in aerosol form and remain infectious.

In Minnesota, where there have been about two dozen farm outbreaks since mid-September, Karen Martin, an epidemiologist with that state’s health department, says they are monitoring about 35 people who were exposed to the virus for symptoms. The Department is in contact with key individuals in the CDC Influenza Division should they require assistance.

“For me, it’s about continuing to have the resources to respond. We’re holding it together now,” she says.

A call for better testing of farm workers

Testing farmworkers — the group at highest risk of contracting and spreading the virus — has been a problem since the outbreak began.

While some human cases have required hospitalization, most have been mild and often present as eye infections or other symptoms that are easily missed.

In one Paper published Last week, CDC scientists called for “robust data collection” from people with possible asymptomatic infections to better guide the public health response. One small study room last year found evidence of previous bird flu infection in 7% of dairy workers in Michigan and Colorado.

This type of long-term research requires the consent of farmers and their workers, who are often undocumented. And that probably won’t happen now because people are afraid of the Trump administration’s immigration regulations, he says Bethany Boggess Alcaulter with the National Center for Farmworker Health.

“I think it’s definitely more intense than it was, and there was already a lot of reluctance to get tested,” she says.

When they surveyed farmworkers in California this fall about bird flu, she said many were too afraid to leave their homes. Their survey of several hundred workers in three states found that about 20% had symptoms at the same time animals on their farms were sick.

Most of these people said they had never been tested.

Dr. Nirav Shah, who helped lead the avian flu response under President Biden, says it made sense for the CDC to downgrade its avian flu emergency response earlier this year, but that shouldn’t have changed the work to monitor the virus and respond on the ground.

“They assume that maybe there’s nothing, but that’s a dangerous game when you’re dealing with something like a flu pandemic,” he says.