H5N1

uk-on-alert-after-h5n1-bird-flu-spills-over-to-sheep-in-world-first

UK on alert after H5N1 bird flu spills over to sheep in world-first

In the UK, officials said further testing of the rest of the sheep’s flock has found no other infections. The one infected ewe has been humanely culled to mitigate further risk and to “enable extensive testing.”

“Strict biosecurity measures have been implemented to prevent the further spread of disease,” UK Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss said in a statement. “While the risk to livestock remains low, I urge all animal owners to ensure scrupulous cleanliness is in place and to report any signs of infection to the Animal Plant Health Agency immediately.”

While UK officials believe that the spillover has been contained and there’s no onward transmission among sheep, the latest spillover to a new mammalian species is a reminder of the virus’s looming threat.

“Globally, we continue to see that mammals can be infected with avian influenza A(H5N1),” Meera Chand, Emerging Infection Lead at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said in a statement. In the US, the Department of Agriculture has documented hundreds of infections in wild and captive mammals, from cats to bears, raccoons, and harbor seals.

Chand noted that, so far, the spillovers into animals have not easily transmitted to humans. For instance, in the US, despite extensive spread through the dairy industry, no human-to-human transmission has yet been documented. But, experts fear that with more spillovers and exposure to humans, the virus will gain more opportunities to adapt to be more infectious in humans.

Chand says that UKHSA and other agencies are monitoring the situation closely in the event the situation takes a turn. “UKHSA has established preparations in place for detections of human cases of avian flu and will respond rapidly with NHS and other partners if needed.”

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Trump admin. fires USDA staff working on bird flu, immediately backpedals

Over the weekend, the Trump administration fired several frontline responders to the ongoing H5N1 bird flu outbreak—then quickly backpedaled, rescinding those terminations and attempting to reinstate the critical staff.

The termination letters went out to employees at the US Department of Agriculture, one of the agencies leading the federal response to the outbreak that continues to plague US dairy farms and ravage poultry operations, affecting over 160 million birds and sending egg prices soaring. As the virus continues to spread, infectious disease experts fear it could evolve to spread among humans and cause more severe disease. So far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented 68 cases in humans, one of which was fatal.

Prior to Trump taking office, health experts had criticized the country’s response to H5N1 for lack of transparency at times, sluggishness, inadequate testing, and its inability to halt transmission among dairy farms, which was once considered containable. To date, 972 herds across 17 states have been infected since last March, including 36 herds in the last 30 days.

In a statement to Ars Technica, a USDA spokesperson said that the agency views the response to the outbreak of H5N1—a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)—as a priority. As such, the agency had protected some positions from staff cuts by granting exemptions, which went to veterinarians, animal health technicians, and others. But not all were exempted, and some were fired.

“Although several positions supporting HPAI were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters,” the spokesperson said.

The USDA did not respond to Ars Technica’s questions regarding how many employees working on the outbreak were fired, how many of those terminations were rescinded, or how many employees have been reinstated since the weekend.

The cuts are part of a larger, brutal effort by the Trump administration to slash federal agencies, and the cuts have imperiled other critical government and public services. In recent days, several agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy, among others, have been gutted. At CDC, cuts devastated the agency’s premier disease detectives program—the Epidemic Intelligence Service—members of which are critical to responding to outbreaks and other health emergencies.

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Bird flu strain that just jumped to cows infects dairy worker in Nevada

However, the new Nevada case is notable because it marks the first time D1.1 is known to have jumped from birds to cows to a person. Moreover, D1.1 has proven dangerous. The genotype is behind the country’s only severe and ultimately fatal case of H5N1 so far in the outbreak. The death in the Louisiana case linked to wild and backyard birds was reported last month. The CDC’s statement added that the person had “prolonged, unprotected” exposure to the birds. The D1.1. genotype was also behind a severe H5N1 infection that put a Canadian teenager in intensive care late last year.

In a February 7 analysis, the USDA reported finding that the D1.1 strain infecting cows in Nevada has a notable mutation known to help the bird-adapted virus replicate in mammals more efficiently (PB2 D701N). To date, this mutation has not been seen in D1.1 strains spreading in wild birds nor has it been seen in the B3.13 genotype circulating in dairy cows. However, it was seen before in a 2023 human case in Chile. The CDC said it has confirmed that the strain of D1.1 infecting the person in Nevada also contains the PB2 D701N mutation.

The USDA and CDC both reported that no other concerning mutations were found, including one that has been consistently identified in the B3.13 strain in cows. The CDC said it does not expect any changes to how the virus will interact with human immune responses or to antivirals.

Most importantly, to date, there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission, which would mark a dangerous turn for the virus’s ability to spark an outbreak. For all these reasons, the CDC considers the risk to the public low, though people with exposure to poultry, dairy cows, and birds are at higher risk and should take precautions.

To date, 967 herds across 16 states have been infected with H5N1 bird flu, and nearly 158 million commercial birds have been affected since 2022.

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h5n1-bird-flu-spills-over-again;-nevada-cows-hit-with-different,-deadly-strain

H5N1 bird flu spills over again; Nevada cows hit with different, deadly strain

The spread of H5N1 bird flu in dairy cows is unprecedented; the US outbreak is the first of its kind in cows. Virologists and infectious disease experts fear that the continued spread of the virus in domestic mammals like cows, which have close interactions with people, will provide the virus countless opportunities to spill over and adapt to humans.

So far, the US has tallied 67 human cases of H5N1 since the start of 2024. Of those, 40 have been in dairy workers, while 23 were in poultry workers, one was the Louisiana case who had contact with wild and backyard birds, and three were cases that had no clear exposure.

Whether the D1.1 genotype will pose a yet greater risk for dairy workers remains unclear for now. Generally, H5N1 infections in humans have been rare but dangerous. According to data collected by the World Health Organization, 954 H5N1 human cases have been documented globally since 2003. Of those, 464 were fatal, for a fatality rate among documented cases of 49 percent. But, so far, nearly all of the human infections in the US have been relatively mild, and experts don’t know why. There are various possible factors, including transmission route, past immunity of workers, use of antivirals, or something about the B3.13 genotype specifically.

For now, the USDA says that the detection of the D1.1 genotype in cows doesn’t change their eradication strategy. It further touted the finding as a “testament to the strength of our National Milk Testing Strategy.”

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As US marks first H5N1 bird flu death, WHO and CDC say risk remains low

The H5N1 bird flu situation in the US seems more fraught than ever this week as the virus continues to spread swiftly in dairy cattle and birds while sporadically jumping to humans.

On Monday, officials in Louisiana announced that the person who had developed the country’s first severe H5N1 infection had died of the infection, marking the country’s first H5N1 death. Meanwhile, with no signs of H5N1 slowing, seasonal flu is skyrocketing, raising anxiety that the different flu viruses could mingle, swap genetic elements, and generate a yet more dangerous virus strain.

But, despite the seemingly fever-pitch of viral activity and fears, a representative for the World Health Organization today noted that risk to the general population remains low—as long as one critical factor remains absent: person-to-person spread.

“We are concerned, of course, but we look at the risk to the general population and, as I said, it still remains low,” WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris told reporters at a Geneva press briefing Tuesday in response to questions related to the US death. In terms of updating risk assessments, you have to look at how the virus behaved in that patient and if it jumped from one person to another person, which it didn’t, Harris explained. “At the moment, we’re not seeing behavior that’s changing our risk assessment,” she added.

In a statement on the death late Monday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasized that no human-to-human transmission has been identified in the US. To date, there have been 66 documented human cases of H5N1 infections since the start of 2024. Of those, 40 were linked to exposure to infected dairy cows, 23 were linked to infected poultry, two had no clear source, and one case—the fatal case in Louisiana—was linked to exposure to infected backyard and wild birds.

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Louisiana resident in critical condition with H5N1 bird flu

The Louisiana resident infected with H5N1 bird flu is hospitalized in critical condition and suffering from severe respiratory symptoms, the Louisiana health department revealed Wednesday.

The health department had reported the presumptive positive case on Friday and noted the person was hospitalized, as Ars reported. But a spokesperson had, at the time, declined to provide Ars with the patient’s condition or further details, citing patient confidentiality and an ongoing public health investigation.

This morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it had confirmed the state’s H5N1 testing and determined that the case “marks the first instance of severe illness linked to the virus in the United States.”

In a follow-up, the health department spokesperson Emma Herrock was able to release more information about the case. In addition to being in critical condition with severe respiratory symptoms, the person is reported to be over the age of 65 and has underlying health conditions.

Further, the CDC collected partial genetic data of the H5N1 strain infecting the patient, finding it to be of D1.1. genotype, which has been detected in wild birds and some poultry in the US. Notably, it is the same genotype seen in a Canadian teenager who was also hospitalized in critical condition from the virus last month. The D1.1. genotype is not the same as the one circulating in US dairy cows, which is the B3.13 genotype.

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bird-flu-jumps-from-birds-to-human-in-louisiana;-patient-hospitalized

Bird flu jumps from birds to human in Louisiana; patient hospitalized

A person in Louisiana is hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu after having contact with sick and dying birds suspected of carrying the virus, state health officials announced Friday.

It is the first human H5N1 case detected in Louisiana. For now, the case is considered a “presumptive” positive until testing is confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health officials say that the risk to the public is low but caution people to stay away from any sick or dead birds.

Although the person has been hospitalized, their condition was not immediately reported. It’s also unclear what kind of birds the person had contact with—wild, backyard, or commercial birds. Ars has reached out to Louisiana’s health department and will update this piece with any additional information.

The case is just the latest amid H5N1’s global and domestic rampage. The virus has been ravaging birds of all sorts in the US since early 2022 and spilling over to a surprisingly wide range of mammals. In March this year, officials detected an unprecedented leap to dairy cows, which has since caused a nationwide outbreak. The virus is currently sweeping through California, the country’s largest dairy producer.

To date, at least 845 herds across 16 states have contracted the virus since March, including 630 in California, which detected its first dairy infections in late August.

Human cases

At least 60 people in the US have been infected amid the viral spread this year. But the new case in Louisiana stands out. To date, nearly all of the human cases have been among poultry and dairy workers—unlike the new case in Louisiana— and almost all have been mild—also unlike the new case. Most of the cases have involved conjunctivitis—pink eye—and/or mild respiratory and flu-like symptoms.

There was a case in a patient in Missouri who was hospitalized. However, that person had underlying health conditions, and it’s unclear if H5N1 was the cause of their hospitalization or merely an incidental finding. It remains unknown how the person contracted the virus. An extensive investigation found no animal or other exposure that could explain the infection.

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avian-flu-cases-are-on-the-upswing-at-big-dairy-farms

Avian flu cases are on the upswing at big dairy farms


Rise in cases amplifies concerns about consolidation in agriculture.

Holstein dairy cows in a freestall barn. Credit: Getty |

A handful of dairy farms sprawl across the valley floor, ringed by the spikey, copper-colored San Jacinto mountains. This is the very edge of California’s dairy country—and so far, the cows here are safe.

But everyone worries that the potentially lethal bird flu is on the way. “I hope not,” says Clemente Jimenez, as he fixes a hose at Pastime Lakes, a 1,500-head dairy farm. “It’s a lot of trouble.”

Further north and west, in the San Joaquin Valley—the heart of the state’s dairy industry—the H5N1 virus, commonly known as bird flu, has rippled through the massive herds that provide most of the country’s milk. Farmworkers have piled carcasses into black and white heaps. This week the state reported 19 new confirmed cases in cows and more than 240,000 in chickens. Another 50,000 cases were confirmed at a chicken breeding facility in Oklahoma.

Most worrying, though, is the spillover from livestock to humans. So far, 58 people in the United States have tested positive for bird flu. Fifty-six of them worked either on dairy or poultry farms where millions of birds had to be culled.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that four of the cases in humans had no known connection to livestock, raising fears that the virus eventually could jump from one human to another, though that hasn’t happened yet. On Thursday, a study published in Science by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute said it would take only a single mutation in the H5N1 virus for it to attach itself to human receptor cells.

Large livestock facilities in states across the country, and especially in California, have become the epicenters of these cases, and some researchers say that’s no surprise: Putting thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of animals together in confined, cramped barns or corrals creates a petri dish for viruses to spread, especially between genetically similar and often stressed animals.

More drought and higher temperatures, fueled by climate change, supercharge those conditions.

“Animal production acts like a connectivity for the virus,” said Paula Ribeiro Prist, a conservation scientist with the EcoHealth Alliance, a not-for-profit group that focuses on research into pandemics. “If you have a lot of cattle being produced in more places, you have a higher chance of the virus spreading. When you have heat stress, they’re more vulnerable.”

So far, this bird flu outbreak has affected more than 112 million chickens, turkeys, and other poultry across the US since it was first detected at a turkey-producing facility in Indiana in February 2022. In March of this year, officials confirmed a case of the virus in a Texas dairy cow—the first evidence that the virus had jumped from one livestock species to another. Since then, 720 cows have been affected, most of them in California, where there have been nearly 500 recorded cases.

In the United States, a trend of consolidation in agriculture, particularly dairies, has seen more animals housed together on ever-larger farms as the number of small farms has rapidly shrunk. In 1987, half of the country’s dairy cows were in herds of 80 or more, and half in herds of 80 or fewer. Twenty years later, half the country’s cows were raised in herds of 1,300 or more. Today, 5,000-head dairies are common, especially in the arid West.

California had just over 21,000 dairy farms in 1950, producing 5.6 billion pounds of milk. Today, it has 1,100 producing around 41 billion pounds. Total US milk production has soared from about 116 billion pounds in 1950 to about 226 billion today.

“The pace of consolidation in dairy far exceeds the pace of consolidation seen in most of US agriculture,” a recent USDA report said.

Initially, researchers thought the virus was spreading through cows’ respiration, but recent research suggests it’s being transmitted through milking equipment and milk itself.

“It’s been the same strain in dairy cows… We don’t necessarily have multiple events of spillover,” said Meghan Davis, an associate professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Now it’s transmission from one cow to the next, often through milking equipment.”

It’s still unclear what caused that initial jump from wild birds, which are the natural reservoirs of the virus, to commercial poultry flocks and then to cows, but some research suggests that changing migration patterns caused by warmer weather are creating conditions conducive to the spreading of viruses. Some wild birds are migrating earlier than usual, hatching juvenile birds in new or different habitats.

“This is leading to a higher number of young that are naive to the virus,” Prist explained. “This makes the young birds more infectious—they have a higher chance of transmitting the virus because they don’t have antibodies protecting them.

“They’re going to different areas and they’re staying longer,” Prist added, “so they have higher contact with other animals, to the other native populations, that they have never had contact [with] before.”

That, researchers believe, could have initiated the spillover from wild birds to poultry, where it has become especially virulent. In wild birds, the virus tends to be a low pathogenic strain that occurs naturally, causing only minor symptoms in some birds.

“But when we introduce the virus to poultry operations where birds live in unsanitary and highly confined conditions, the virus is … able to spread through them like wildfire,” said Ben Rankin, a legal expert with the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group. “There are so many more opportunities for the virus to mutate, to adapt to new kinds of hosts, and eventually, the virus spills back into the wild and this creates this cycle, or this loop, of intensification and increasing pathogenicity.”

Rankin pointed to an analysis that looked at 39 different viral outbreaks in birds from 1959 to 2015, where a low pathogenic avian influenza became a highly pathogenic one. Out of those, 37 were associated with commercial poultry operations. “So it’s a very clear relationship between the increasing pathogenicity of this virus and its relationship with industrial animal raising,” Rankin said.

Some researchers worry that large farms with multiple species are providing the optimal conditions for more species-to-species transfer. In North Carolina, the second-largest hog-producing state after Iowa, some farmers have started raising both chickens and hogs under contracts that require huge numbers of animals.

“So you’ve got co-location at a pretty substantial scale of herd size, on a single property,” said Chris Heaney, an associate professor of environmental health, engineering, epidemiology, and international health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Another concern is seeing it jump into swine. That host, in particular, is uniquely well suited for those influenza viruses to re-assort and acquire properties that are very beneficial for taking up residence in humans.”

In late October, the USDA reported the first case of bird flu in a pig that lived on a small poultry and hog farm in Oregon.

Farmworker advocates say the number of cases in humans is likely underreported, largely because the immigrant and non-English speaking workforce on farms could be reluctant to seek help or may not be informed about taking precautions.

“What we’re dealing with is the lack of information from the top to the workers,” said Ana Schultz, a director with Project Protect Food Systems Workers.

In northern Colorado, home to dozens of large dairies, Schultz started to ask dairy workers in May if they were getting protective gear and whether anyone was falling ill. Many workers told her they were feeling flu-ish but didn’t go to the doctor for fear of losing a day of work or getting fired.

“I feel like there’s a lot more avian flu incidents, but no one knows about it because they don’t go to the doctor and they don’t get tested,” Schultz said. “In all the months that we’ve been doing outreach and taking protective gear and flyers, we haven’t had one single person tell us they’ve been to the doctor.”

This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.

Georgina Gustin covers agriculture for Inside Climate News and has reported on the intersections of farming, food systems, and the environment for much of her journalism career. Her work has won numerous awards, including the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, and she was twice named the Glenn Cunningham Agricultural Journalist of the Year, once with ICN colleagues. She has worked as a reporter for The Day in New London, Conn., the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and CQ Roll Call, and her stories have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, and National Geographic’s The Plate, among others. She is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Photo of Inside Climate News

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us-to-start-nationwide-testing-for-h5n1-flu-virus-in-milk-supply

US to start nationwide testing for H5N1 flu virus in milk supply

So, the ultimate goal of the USDA is to eliminate cattle as a reservoir. When the Agency announced it was planning for this program, it noted that there were two candidate vaccines in trials. Until those are validated, it plans to use the standard playbook for handling emerging infections: contact tracing and isolation. And it has the ability to compel cattle and their owners to be more cooperative than the human population turned out to be.

The five-step plan

The USDA refers to isolation and contact tracing as Stage 3 of a five-stage plan for controlling H5N1 in cattle, with the two earlier stages being the mandatory sampling and testing, meant to be handled on a state-by-state basis. Following the successful containment of the virus in a state, the USDA will move on to batch sampling to ensure each state remains virus-free. This is essential, given that we don’t have a clear picture of how many times the virus has jumped from its normal reservoir in birds into the cattle population.

That makes it possible that reaching Stage 5, which the USDA terms “Demonstrating Freedom from H5 in US Dairy Cattle,” will turn out to be impossible. Dairy cattle are likely to have daily contact with birds, and it may be that the virus will be regularly re-introduced into the population, leaving containment as the only option until the vaccines are ready.

Testing will initially focus primarily on states where cattle-to-human transmission is known to have occurred or the virus is known to be present: California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. If you wish to track the progress of the USDA’s efforts, it will be posting weekly updates.

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Raw milk recalled for containing bird flu virus, California reports

Pasteurization

The milk-related risk of H5N1 is only from raw milk; pasteurized milk does not contain live virus and is safe to drink. Pasteurization, which heats milk to a specific temperature for a specified amount of time, kills a variety of bacteria and viruses, including bird flu. Influenza viruses, generally, are considered susceptible to heat treatments because they have an outer layer called an envelope, which can be destabilized by heat. Studies that have specifically looked at the effectiveness of heat-killing treatments against H5N1 have repeatedly found that pasteurization effectively inactivates the virus.

The advent of pasteurization is considered a public health triumph. Its adoption of a safe milk supply contributed to a dramatic reduction in infant deaths in the early 20th century. Before that, milkborne infections—including human and bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis, salmonellosis, streptococcal infections, diphtheria, and “summer diarrhea”—were common killers of infants.

As such, public health officials have long advised people against consuming raw milk, which has no evidence-based health benefits. Raw milk consumption, meanwhile, is linked to higher rates of outbreaks from pathogens including Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, toxin-producing E. coli, Brucella, Campylobacter, and many other bacteria.

Risky drinking

Since H5N1 was found spreading among dairy cows in March, health experts have warned about the additional risk of consuming raw milk. Still, consumption of raw milk has continued, and surprisingly increased, as supporters of the dangerous practice have accused health officials of “fearmongering.”

When the retail sampling of Raw Farm’s milk came back positive, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) conducted testing at the company’s locations, which were negative for the virus. The CDFA will now begin testing Raw Farm’s milk for bird flu twice a week.

The recalled milk has lot code 20241109 and a “best by” date of November 27, 2024, printed on the packaging.​

“Drinking or accidentally inhaling raw milk containing bird flu virus may lead to illness,” California’s public health department said. “In addition, touching your eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands after touching raw milk with bird flu virus may also lead to infection.”

Some US dairy workers who contracted the virus from infected cows reported having had milk splash in their eyes and face. A common symptom of H5N1 infections in humans during the dairy outbreak has been conjunctivitis, aka eye inflammation.

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Bird flu hit a dead end in Missouri, but it’s running rampant in California

So, in all, Missouri’s case count in the H5N1 outbreak will stay at one for now, and there remains no evidence of human-to-human transmission. Though both the household contact and the index case had evidence of an exposure, their identical blood test results and simultaneous symptom development suggest that they were exposed at the same time by a single source—what that source was, we may never know.

California and Washington

While the virus seems to have hit a dead end in Missouri, it’s still running rampant in California. Since state officials announced the first dairy herd infections at the end of August, the state has now tallied 137 infected herds and at least 13 infected dairy farm workers. California, the country’s largest dairy producer, now has the most herd infections and human cases in the outbreak, which was first confirmed in March.

In the briefing Thursday, officials announced another front in the bird flu fight. A chicken farm in Washington state with about 800,000 birds became infected with a different strain of H5 bird flu than the one circulating among dairy farms. This strain likely came from wild birds. While the chickens on the infected farms were being culled, the virus spread to farmworkers. So far, two workers have been confirmed to be infected, and five others are presumed to be positive.

As of publication time, at least 31 humans have been confirmed infected with H5 bird flu this year.

With the spread of bird flu in dairies and the fall bird migration underway, the virus will continue to have opportunities to jump to mammals and gain access to people. Officials have also expressed anxiety as seasonal flu ramps up, given influenza’s penchant for swapping genetic fragments to generate new viral combinations. The reassortment and exposure to humans increases the risk of the virus adapting to spread from human to human and spark an outbreak.

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human-case-of-h5n1-suspected-in-california-amid-rapid-dairy-spread

Human case of H5N1 suspected in California amid rapid dairy spread

California’s infections bring the country’s total number of affected herds to 255 in 14 states, according to the USDA.

In a new release Thursday, California health officials worked to ease alarm about the human case, emphasizing that the risk to the general public remains low.

“Ongoing health checks of individuals who interact with potentially infected animals helped us quickly detect and respond to this possible human case. Fortunately, as we’ve seen in other states with human infections, the individual has experienced mild symptoms,” Tomás Aragón, director of California’s Department of Public Health, said. “We want to emphasize that the risk to the general public is low, and people who interact with potentially infected animals should take prevention measures.”

The release noted that in the past four months, the health department has distributed more than 340,000 respirators, 1.3 million gloves, 160,000 goggles and face shields, and 168,000 bouffant caps to farm workers. The state has also received 5,000 doses of seasonal flu vaccine earmarked for farm workers and is working to distribute those vaccines to local health departments.

Still, herd infections and human cases continue to tick up. Influenza researchers and other health experts are anxiously following the unusual dairy outbreak—the first time an avian influenza is known to have spilled over to and caused an outbreak in cattle. The more opportunities the virus has to spread and adapt to mammals, the more chances it could begin spreading among humans, potentially sparking an outbreak or even a pandemic.

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