Friday Morning H5N1 in Dairy Cattle News Links
A subset of what is crossing the internet this morning...
Avian Flu Diary: USDA Adds 6 More Herds To HPAI Infected List
(NOTE: I mistakenly posted a report of 1 (not 4) new confirmed infected herds in Michigan last evening and stated that the USDA site had not updated. I subsequently saw this blog, then carefully reviewed the USDA site. Please Note the instructions at the top of the USDA page about refreshing the view. Doing that will bring up the current report, which includes the most recent updates.)
US to post influenza A wastewater data online to assist bird flu probe, official says | Reuters
It will be interesting to see where spikes are occurring “in a handful of sites”. I hope this map will also show negative sites as well.
How to Stop Bird Flu from Becoming the Next Pandemic | TIME
From the article:
“We find ourselves in a situation reminiscent of early 2020, when the U.S. stood on the brink of the COVID-19 pandemic and hesitated to take decisive action, restricting testing to only those with epidemiological links to China. Scientists estimate that by early March 2020, less than 1% of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the U.S. were detected by testing. We effectively flew blind straight through chapters one and two of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Limiting screening early in outbreaks, whether in humans or in livestock will inevitably leave everyone behind the curve in response, whatever that might be.
Dairy farmers resist CDC push for PPE against bird flu virus - STAT (statnews.com)
Interesting piece here - my concern is the futility of utilizing PPE consistently in all dairy operations. Limiting it to only clinically ill herds is not fully effective due to preclinical and asymptomatic herd risks. We’ll need 80-20 solutions versus full PPE - 80% effective in reducing risk for 20% of the hassle on the farms?
New York Times - May 9 - How Poor Tracking of Bird Flu Leaves Dairy Workers at Risk
This piece provides interesting background on mandates and limits to authority each federal agency involved in this outbreak faces. In addition to federal divisions, we also face state-federal authority issues, as old as our form of government.
Finally, here is an interesting quote from Dr. Andrew Bowman of Ohio State related to building surveillance networks in agricultural communities:
To build surveillance networks that include farmworkers and their families, federal, state and local agencies will have to first establish trust, said Dr. Andrew Bowman, a veterinary epidemiologist at Ohio State University.
“If you look at the influenza surveillance we’ve done in swine, that didn’t happen overnight,” Dr. Bowman said. “That took a decade to build.”