The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will begin requiring dairy cows traveling across state lines to be tested for avian influenza, which has been circulating in the herd for months. The new policy is part of a growing effort to stamp out the spread of the virus, which federal health officials are trying to reassure the public so far poses little risk to the public.
A new order issued by the Department of Agriculture says lactating cows must test negative for influenza A viruses, a class that includes avian influenza, before being transported. Owners of herds that test positive will be required to provide data on their cattle movements so researchers can track the disease.
Agriculture Department official Mike Watson said at a press conference Wednesday morning that the test will help protect the livestock industry, limit the spread of the virus and “better understand this disease.”
Since the highly contagious bird flu was detected in the United States in 2022, federal officials have said the threat to the public remains low, even though the number of mammals infected by the virus has increased. I've been trying to make people feel safe. Federal regulators announced Tuesday that inactive virus fragments were found in pasteurized milk, suggesting the virus may be much more widespread among cows than previously known. There is.
Dr. Nirav Shah, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters Wednesday that there are no changes in the virus' genetic structure that would make it more easily transmitted between people. Dr. Shah said so far each state has monitored 44 people who have been exposed to the virus and is monitoring the spread of the virus.
As of Wednesday, the outbreak has spread to 33 herds in eight states, but only one human infection has been reported, including one in Texas who had direct contact with infected cattle, according to the USDA. A dairy worker was infected. Symptoms were mild.
The USDA order comes after public health experts and dairy producers criticized the Biden administration for the scope of the investigation into the cattle outbreak and the lack of widespread testing. Some states, concerned about further spread of the virus, have moved to ban dairy cows from states that have recorded their own cases.
The order would also require laboratories and state veterinarians to report positive tests from cattle to the Department of Agriculture, which Watson said could conduct tens of thousands of tests each day. , said results would be reported in one to three days. In the future, the agency plans to compensate dairy farms for testing of asymptomatic cows and cows that have been transferred.
It's not yet clear when the bird flu outbreak began, but farmers in the Texas Panhandle have been reporting sick cattle since at least February. Wild birds carrying the virus may have transmitted the pathogen to cattle by contaminating water sources and feed.
Cattle are not normally thought to be susceptible to avian influenza, and it wasn't until late March that federal officials announced they had detected the virus in sick cattle in Texas and Kansas.
New analysis of genetic data suggests the outbreak could have started as early as December. The virus then spread from cow to cow, and from state to state as the cattle moved across the country.
Watson, the USDA official, said there are a number of factors that motivated federal officials to enact new rules for interstate travel. He noted that the virus was spreading between cows in the same herd and from cows to poultry. Infection was also spreading between dairy farms associated with transported cattle and among asymptomatic cattle that had tested positive for the virus.
So far, among cows, the virus has only affected lactating cows, and that too appears to be temporary. But federal scientists are still working to understand how the virus is spreading. High virus concentrations in milk samples but relatively low virus concentrations in nasal swabs suggest that the virus may be widespread in milking parlors.
In some cases, federal authorities have struggled to get the kind of access they seek from farms where cattle or workers may have been infected. Dr. Shah, the CDC official, said the federal government relies on local health officials and medical workers to communicate with dairy producers and their employees, some of whom are reluctant to open up to strangers. He said this includes veterinarians who have close relationships with people.
“There may be some management reluctance to work with public health, not to mention individual workers who are reluctant to discuss it with someone they somehow identify as a government official,” Dr. Shah said. Stated.
