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Bird Flu Triggers Supply Chain Snarls In Dairy Industry As “Farmers Increasingly Culled Cows” 

June 9, 2024

Bird Flu Triggers Supply Chain Snarls In Dairy Industry As “Farmers Increasingly Culled Cows” 

The latest US Department of Agriculture data shows bird flu has infected at least 80 dairy herds across ten states. There are growing concerns about rising cow mortalities from the virus and the risk of farmers culling cows to stop the spread. This could ignite economic stress across the farm belt and unleash a supply shock.

Reuters spoke with a USDA spokesperson who was aware of H5N1 virus-related deaths among cow herds but said that most cows recovered. No official figures have been provided on the number of cow mortalities in South Dakota, Michigan, Texas, Ohio, and Colorado.

Here’s more on the cow deaths:

In South Dakota, a 1,700-cow dairy sent a dozen of the animals to slaughter after they did not recover from the virus, and killed another dozen that contracted secondary infections, said Russ Daly, a professor with South Dakota State University and veterinarian for the state extension office who spoke with the farm.

“You get sick cows from one disease, then that creates a domino effect for other things, like routine pneumonia and digestive issues,” Daly said.

A farm in Michigan killed about 10% of its 200 infected cows after they too failed to recover from the virus, said Phil Durst, an educator with Michigan State University Extension who spoke with that farm.

Michigan has more confirmed infections in cattle than any state as well as two of three confirmed cases of US dairy workers who contracted bird flu.

In Colorado, some dairies reported culling cows with avian flu because they did not return to milk production, said Olga Robak, spokesperson for the state Department of Agriculture.

Ohio Department of Agriculture spokesperson Meghan Harshbarger said infected cows have died in Ohio and other affected states, mostly due to secondary infections.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The WHO’s Pandemic Treaty And A Bird Flu Crisis Are Both Arriving At The Same Time

May 27, 2024

The WHO’s Pandemic Treaty And A Bird Flu Crisis Are Both Arriving At The Same Time

Health officials are issuing very ominous warnings about the potential for an H5N1 pandemic among humans at the same time that the WHO is preparing for a vote on the global pandemic treaty at the 77th World Health Assembly at the end of this month.  The global pandemic treaty will give the World Health Organization far more authority than it had during the last pandemic, and a lot of people are deeply concerned about how that power will be used during the next major health crisis.  As you will see below, two more human cases of the bird flu have just been confirmed.  If the bird flu mutates into a form that can spread easily from human to human, that will create an enormous amount of fear, and the death toll could potentially be catastrophic.  In such an environment, what sort of extreme measures would the World Health Organization decide to institute?

In recent weeks, negotiators have been feverishly working to finalize the global pandemic treaty.  The following comes directly from the official WHO website…

Governments of the world today agreed to continue working on a proposed pandemic agreement, and to further refine the draft, ahead of the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly that starts 27 May 2024.

Governments meeting at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva agreed to resume hybrid and in-person discussions over coming weeks to advance work on critical issues, including around a proposed new global system for pathogen access and benefits sharing (i.e. life-saving vaccines, treatments and diagnostics); pandemic prevention and One Health; and the financial coordination needed to scale up countries’ capacities to prepare for and respond to pandemics.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Escalating Threat Of Avian Influenza H5N1 And The Ethical Quandary Of Gain-of-Function Research

May 11, 2024

The Escalating Threat Of Avian Influenza H5N1 And The Ethical Quandary Of Gain-of-Function Research

Since the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus was first identified in humans in 2003, approximately 600 cases have been reported worldwide, with a laboratory-confirmed case-fatality rate (CFR) of 60%.

The recent death of a woman in southwest China who had no contact with poultry signals a potentially alarming shift in the virus’s transmission dynamics, raising the specter of human-to-human transmission, according to a report by the Federation of American Scientists.

Health authorities in Guiyang, Guizhou province concluded that two patients, including the woman who died, did not have contact with poultry before showing symptoms of the illness. Currently, the public health community remains cautious as H5N1 influenza viruses continue to evolve and potentially gain the ability to be transmitted efficiently to humans.

The evolution of H5N1 over two decades necessitates an urgent and strategic response from the global health community. Scientific efforts are primarily focused on understanding the genetic shifts that facilitate the virus’s leap among species, aiming to forestall a possible pandemic. This has led to the controversial practice of gain-of-function (GoF) research, wherein viruses are deliberately engineered to be more potent or transmissible.

And of course, as we all know – a bunch of over-educated idiots cobbling together chimeric viruses that can better-infect humans may have led to the COVID-19 pandemic – as GoF research is fraught with ethical, biosafety, and biosecurity dilemmas.

The dual-use nature of this research—where scientific advances could potentially be misused to cause harm—places it under intense scrutiny. The debate is not just about managing the risks of accidental release but also about the moral implications of potentially providing a blueprint for bioterrorism…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

FDA Preparing for Possible Bird Flu Spread Among Humans: Commissioner

May 10, 2024

FDA Preparing for Possible Bird Flu Spread Among Humans: Commissioner

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is preparing for a scenario in which the highly pathogenic avian influenza starts spreading among humans, the agency’s commissioner said on May 8.

“This virus, like all viruses, is mutating. We need to continue to prepare for the possibility that it might jump to humans,” Dr. Robert Califf, the commissioner, told senators during a hearing in Washington.

The influenza, also known as the bird flu or H5N1, has recently started spreading among cattle and other species. One person in Texas has had a confirmed case this year.

So far, genetic sequencing and other data indicate that influenza poses little risk to people, and there are no signs that the flu is transmitting from person-to-person, according to U.S. officials. But they are working on getting treatments, tests, and vaccines ready in case that changes.

“We’ve been busy getting prepared for if the virus does mutate in a way that jumps into humans on a larger level,” Dr. Califf told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee.

The patient in Texas primarily experienced one symptom: inflamed eyes. Neither the patient nor many of the cows that have been infected have suffered respiratory symptoms. H5N1 commonly infects the respiratory tracts of birds.

“The real worry is that it will jump to the human lungs, where, when that has happened in other parts of the world for brief outbreaks, the mortality rates have been 25 percent,” Dr. Califf said. The worry is based in part on how viruses typically mutate, such as in the case of COVID-19.

From 2003 to April 1, 2024, 889 cases of H5N1 have been confirmed across the globe, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Of the patients, 52 percent have died.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

1 in 5 samples of pasteurized milk had bird flu virus fragments, FDA says

April 26, 2024

1 in 5 samples of pasteurized milk had bird flu virus fragments, FDA says

Milk sampled from areas with infected herds of dairy cows was more likely to be positive.
Milk at a grocery store in Philadelphia on July 12, 2022.

Matt Rourke / AP file

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that traces of the bird flu virus have been found in 1 in 5 samples of pasteurized milk, providing a more detailed picture of how much of the milk supply has been affected.

The tested milk came from a nationally representative sample, with more of the positive results coming from milk in areas with infected herds of dairy cows, the FDA said. A spokesperson declined to say how many samples were tested.

As of Thursday, bird flu had been detected in 33 herds in eight states: Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, Ohio and Texas.

Richard Webby, an influenza virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, said the number of positive samples is consistent with numbers he’s reviewed from smaller sample sets.

“But the number does seem high if the number of infected farms is indeed only 30-odd,” Webby wrote in an email. “Clearly there are more infected animals out there than being reported.”

The FDA first said Tuesday that it had found viral fragments in commercially sold milk, triggering the Agriculture Department to issue a federal order mandating that all dairy cows be tested for bird flu before they are transported between states.

Health officials maintain — and experts agree — that pasteurized milk is safe to drink. The FDA detected small pieces of the virus in milk, not live, infectious virus.

US Bird Flu Outbreak Officially Becomes Worst On Record

November 26, 2022

US Bird Flu Outbreak Officially Becomes Worst On Record

The US outbreak of avian influenza or bird flu is now the worst on record, with 50.54 million birds culled, US Department of Agriculture data showed on Thursday.

Earlier this week, the outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in South Dakota resulted in tens of thousands of birds being culled to avoid spreading. This was enough to top the previous record of 50.5 million birds that died in the 2015 avian-flu outbreak.

Readers have been well-informed this year about the devastating bird flu outbreak ravaging commercial poultry farms nationwide. Here’s the latest map of the epidemic spreading across the US.

We cautioned at the start of this month of the “possibility of additional outbreaks” and noted ahead of Thanksgiving that supermarket egg prices were hyperinflating because a large swath of the nation’s egg-laying hens was wiped out.

“The virus has mostly impacted turkey and egg operations, sending prices to all-time highs and contributing to soaring food inflation. While the spread slowed during the warmer months, it continued to fester and now risks further spread as cooling temperatures prompt more birds to migrate,” Bloomberg said.

The outbreak began in February and has so far infected flocks of poultry and non-poultry birds across 46 states.

“Wild birds continue to spread HPAI throughout the country as they migrate, so preventing contact between domestic flocks and wild birds is critical to protecting US poultry,” Rosemary Sifford, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer, said. 

Some experts have warned the highly pathogenic bird flu could easily continue spreading into 2023 and devastate even more commercial farms. This may only suggest egg prices are heading higher.

‘DISEASE X’: New Strain Of Bird Flu Kills 40% Of Those Who Contract, 100s Dead In China

June 16, 2018

‘DISEASE X’: New Strain Of Bird Flu Kills 40% Of Those Who Contract, 100s Dead In China

A “new” strain of deadly bird flu dubbed “Disease X” by the World Health Organization (WHO) has killed hundreds of people in China, and is just three mutations away from becoming transmissible between humans, according to experts.

The strain, H7N9, circulates in poultry and has killed 623 people out of 1,625 infected in China – a mortality rate of 38.3%. While first identified in China in 2013, H7N9 has recently emerged as a serious threat seemingly overnight.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for the UK, told The Telegraph that H7N9 could cause a global outbreak.

“[H7N9] is an example of another virus which has proven its ability to transmit from birds to humans,” said Van-Tam, who added “It’s possible that it could be the cause of the next pandemic.”

The WHO says N7N9 is “an unusually dangerous virus for humans,” and “one of the most lethal influenza viruses that we’ve seen so far”

“H7N9 viruses have several features typically associated with human influenza viruses and therefore possess pandemic potential and need to be monitored closely,” said Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Researchers led by James Paulson of the Scripps Research Institute in California have been studying the mutations which could potentially occur in H7N9’s genome to allow for human-to-human infection.

The team’s findings, published in the journal PLoS Pathogens on Thursday, showed that in laboratory tests, mutations in three amino acids made the virus more able to bind to human cells — suggesting these changes are key to making the virus more dangerous to people. –Japan Times

That said, the mutations would need to occur relatively close to each other to become more virulent, which has a low probability of happening according to Fiona Culley, an expert in respiratory immunology at Imperial College London.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Reports Outbreak Of Highly Contagious Bird Flu

March 8, 2018

China Reports Outbreak Of Highly Contagious Bird Flu

A dangerous strain of bird flu that has been circulating in 2013 could be on the verge of snowballing into a global pandemic.

The Paris-based Organization for Animal Health said Wednesday that a farm in Shaanxi province has reported an outbreak of a highly dangerous pathogen, while a separate farm in Guangxi province has reported an outbreak of H5N6, another dangerous strain of bird flu.

The H5N6 virus killed 23,950 ducks out of a flock of 30,462 ducks, according to the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. The remaining birds were all slaughtered..

In Shaanxi, the H7N9 virus killed 810 layers out of a flock of 1,000 birds.

Last year, the number of bird flu cases in China spiked as the annual outbreak was much worse than normal. It also saw the virus split into two distinct strains that are so different, they no longer respond to the same vaccines, according a Reuters report from late last year. H7N9 is becoming increasingly pathogenic, meaning it possesses the capacity to kill infected birds.

According to the South China Morning Post, Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin and a colleagues tested a version of the new H7N9 strain taken from a person who died from their infection last spring. They found that the virus replicated efficiently in mice, ferrets and non-human primates, and that it caused even more severe disease in mice and ferrets than a low pathogenic version of the same virus that does not cause illness in birds.

But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the virus is its ability to spread easily from cage to cage. When placed in cages adjacent to healthy ferrets, the virus will spread easily from infected animals and health animals, suggesting the virus can be transmitted by respiratory droplets such as those produced by coughing and sneezing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bird Flu Has Already Killed More Than 20 MILLION Turkeys And Chickens In The United States

May 7, 2015

Bird Flu Has Already Killed More Than 20 MILLION Turkeys And Chickens In The United States

Are you prepared to go without turkey this Thanksgiving?  Yes, it might actually get that bad.  So far, the worst outbreak of bird flu in U.S. history has claimed the lives of more than 20 million turkeys and chickens, and the pandemic continues to rage wildly out of control.  Once one bird becomes infected, this particular strain of the virus is so virulent that it can virtually wipe out an entire flock in just a matter of days.  At this point, scientists think that this virus is being spread by wild birds, but they have no idea how it is getting inside barns and other enclosed facilities so easily.  Considering how important turkey, chicken and eggs are to our food supply, it is quite alarming that scientists don’t really understand what is going on.  If this bird flu outbreak is not brought under control, how many birds will eventually die?  Right now, it is already in the tens of millions.  Could the total eventually reach into the hundreds of millions?

Minnesota is the top producer of turkeys in the United States, and Iowa is the top producer of eggs, and that is why it is so alarming that both of these states are right at the heart of this current outbreak…

Virulent H5 avian influenza strains have spread to 14 states in five months and affected about 24 million birds so far, mostly egg-laying hens and turkeys, according to USDA.

That tally is expected to grow, as U.S. authorities confirm pending cases. The outbreak, which is also affecting two Canadian provinces, shows little sign of slowing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

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