Extra cattle are getting the hen flu virus, and it seems that individuals are an enormous think about spreading it from herd-to-herd. NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben talks to NPR Well being correspondent Will Stone.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, HOST:
Does the U.S. have hen flu beneath management? It is exhausting to inform, regardless that it has been shut to 3 months because the virus was first noticed in dairy cattle. New circumstances are nonetheless cropping up, most not too long ago in Wyoming and Texas. This week, federal well being businesses launched a number of new assessments of the state of affairs. NPR’s Will Stone is right here to inform us the most recent. Hey, Will.
WILL STONE, BYLINE: Hey there.
KURTZLEBEN: So what did we be taught from these newest stories?
STONE: Effectively, we obtained a greater sense of how hen flu is spreading between completely different dairy farms. The virus has been detected in additional than 90 herds in a dozen states since late March. Many of those circumstances have been in Michigan. The USDA drilled down into what’s occurring there. They discovered it is primarily being transmitted from her to herd in 3 ways. So first, via shared tools and automobiles, second, individuals are carrying the virus inadvertently on their clothes or boots. And eventually, some animals which can be contaminated are transferring between farms.
There had been concern that wild birds might be repeatedly reintroducing the virus into dairy cattle. To this point, federal officers say, the proof doesn’t assist that. Based mostly on genetic sequencing of viral samples, it seems there was a single spillover occasion when a wild hen unfold it into cattle in Texas someday final yr, and that sparked this unprecedented nationwide outbreak in dairy cattle.
KURTZLEBEN: Proper. Effectively, past animals, although, I do know just a few people have contracted this flu, which has some people involved about this sparking a pandemic. Do we’ve got any higher sense of the chance to folks right here?
STONE: So proper now, federal well being officers say the chance to most people stays low. When you work with dairy cattle, clearly, the chance stage is larger. There’s nonetheless have solely been three human circumstances reported. The latest one was in a Michigan dairy employee. That was extra regarding as a result of the individual really had respiratory signs. I requested the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention this week whether or not there have been any alarming mutations within the samples of the virus they collected from that individual. This is what physician Nirav Shah with the CDC advised me.
NIRAV SHAH: We did not see any indicators within the virus’s fingerprints that means that it is extra in a position to transmit between people or from animals to people.
STONE: So clearly, that’s reassuring, however definitely, there are folks in public well being who’re deeply frightened concerning the state of affairs; the truth that we do not have extra visibility round this outbreak.
KURTZLEBEN: Are there unknowns which have public well being officers involved?
STONE: There’s so much. For starters, precisely, what number of cattle are contaminated proper now, we do not know. I requested the CDC if we even have some sense of the trajectory right here. Have we hit the height of circumstances in cattle? The reply was additionally, we do not know. Andrew Pekosz introduced up one other huge concern once I spoke to him, which is best surveillance on the human facet of issues. Pekosz is a virologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Faculty of Public Well being.
ANDREW PEKOSZ: That is actually the important factor that we’re now frightened about, is that if this virus will get into people, then the virus can adapt to people straight. This has been occurring lengthy sufficient in order that there needs to be antibody signatures within the blood of people that have gotten uncovered, and that will actually give us a way of how a lot low-level publicity, maybe delicate illness, has been on this inhabitants.
STONE: So mainly, determining what number of circumstances we’d have missed by searching for proof of a previous an infection, that may assist us gauge the general danger to people. Pekosz says it nonetheless appears that inside a herd, the virus is primarily spreading within the technique of milking. It might be the virus simply retains doing that and would not find yourself adapting to unfold from human to human if we are able to preserve it from infecting different folks. However that is optimistic and never one thing we are able to financial institution on.
KURTZLEBEN: That is NPR well being correspondent Will Stone. Thanks, Will.
STONE: Thanks.
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