Bird flu surges among poultry amid a scaled back federal response : Shots

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

Over the past 30 days, the virus has struck 66 poultry flocksresulting in the death of more than 3.5 million turkeys, chickens and ducks, a sharp increase from the summer months. The virus can spread easily when infected wild birds mix with commercial or backyard flocks.

At the moment, states in the center of the country have been hit the hardest. But scientists expect new outbreaks in other parts of the country, given the birds' migration patterns.

If this is not taken seriously, the consequences could lead to more than high egg prices. Flu researchers fear a repeat of last year, when about 70 human cases, including one death, were reported for the first time in the United States.

“We will certainly see cases of human infection, just like a year ago,” says Semad Lowa virologist at Emory University who studies avian influenza. “Nothing has changed significantly to suggest otherwise.”

And while no human cases have been reported since the beginning of this year, scientists tracking the virus say they don't have a clear idea of ​​what's happening in animals or people. That's because the federal government has cut back on surveillance and communications.

“We're not in the best position to monitor,” says Wendy Puryearvirologist at Tufts University. “I've been deep in the weeds since he arrived here in the US and ended up in a very uncomfortable place.”

Reducing the federal response

Puryear says that flu network Previously, researchers were in constant contact with their colleagues at federal health agencies about H5N1, outlining research priorities and discussing changes in the virus.

But now, she says, “much of that infrastructure was either shut down completely or significantly hampered” under the Trump administration due to staff cuts, early retirements and other measures.

In fact, Puryear recalls a recent meeting in which her colleagues completely announced that they had to stop research related to H5N1 in humans due to funding cuts from the administration.

“It was quite a depressing meeting,” she says. “It was just one person after another closing their doors.”

Another pressing concern: Data coming from the federal lab that genetically sequences the virus from infected animals has slowed to a crawl, and that was true even before the government shutdown, he says. Dr. Keith Poulsenwho directs the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

He says the loss of USDA staff – and the fact that communication with scientists must be “pre-approved” – has created obstacles at a time when the threat of infection from wildlife is growing.

The closure only made the situation worse.

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

“The shutdown simply adds gas to the smoldering fire and leaves us vulnerable,” he says. “This is a matter of national security.”

The USDA did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, a Department of Health and Human Services spokesman said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's staffing cuts did not affect the influenza team and that responding to urgent public health threats can continue during the shutdown.

A virus that is difficult to contain on farms

Reported cases of disease in dairy herds seems relatively rare in recent months. A USDA program Established under the Biden administration to detect avian influenza in dairy milk remain in place, as do rules requiring testing of livestock before moving them across state lines.

But it's unclear how much routine testing of cattle is actually being done – and some, like Lakdawala, have suggested that the reported drop in cases may be due to a lack of testing.

The dairy farming business model is based on the movement of livestock between farms and new research from Lakdawala's team. offers a sobering picture about why it is so difficult to eradicate the virus on the farm.

They found it was widespread – in the milking parlor air, throughout equipment, even in waste streams sometimes used to clean livestock buildings.

Cows “excrete it into their milk in such high quantities,” she said, including animals that may have little or no symptoms. “There is so much virus in the environment that these cows are bombarded with it. Of course they will get infected.”

As far as scientists can tell, the widely circulating H5N1 strain has not undergone such mutations. this would allow it easily infects people.

But Lakdawala says conditions on farms with infected livestock clearly pose a risk to workers, who are essentially inhaling H5N1 particles that become aerosolized 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 exposed people in case they develop symptoms. The department is in contact with key people in the CDC's influenza unit in case they need support.

“What concerns me is that we still have the resources to respond to this. We're keeping it together right now,” she says.

Call for better testing of farm workers

Testing farmworkers, the group most at risk of contracting and spreading the virus, has been a challenge since the start of the outbreak.

While some cases have required people to be hospitalized, most have been mild and often manifest as eye infections or other symptoms that are easy to miss.

IN article published Last week, CDC scientists called for “robust data collection” on people with possible asymptomatic infections to better guide the public health response. One a little research Last year, evidence of past avian influenza infection was found in 7% of dairy workers in Michigan and Colorado.

This kind of long-term research requires support from farmers and their workers, who are often undocumented. And that's unlikely to happen now due to concerns about the Trump administration's immigration enforcement, says Bethany Boggess Alkolter with the National Farm Worker Health Center.

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

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

Most of these people said they had never been tested.

Dr. Nirav Shah, who helped lead the fight against avian flu under President Biden, says it made sense for the CDC to lower its emergency response level for avian flu earlier this year, but it shouldn't have changed the work done to monitor the virus and respond locally.

“They're counting on the fact that maybe nothing will happen, but it's a dangerous game when it comes to something like pandemic flu,” he says.