Some officials and experts express frustration that more livestock herds aren’t being tested for avian flu.
that for the first time is infecting cows in the United States, according to government officials and health and industry experts.
“This work is an urgent priority as we work to ensure the continued effectiveness of the federal-state milk safety system and reinforce current assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the administration official said.Until Wednesday, testing for H5N1 in dairy herds was voluntary and limited to cows with
and where the milk originated. The testing does not indicate whether virus fragments are active or dead. “This isn’t just about protecting U.S. agricultural interests,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health. “This is about protecting human health, protecting farmworkers that may be in harm’s way and preventing another pandemic from happening.”. Epidemiologists fear that indicates cows can pass the virus to birds, and possibly other animals, broadening the potential for spread.
Beth Thompson, South Dakota’s state veterinarian and president of the National Assembly of State Animal Health Officials, said such information needs to be shared quickly.“It’s like if you just rip one page out of a chapter in a book and hand it to the states, that isn’t the whole chapter,” Thompson said. “We need all of the information to be given back to us.”
While H5N1 is typically fatal in poultry, the disease in infected cows has been relatively mild, and animals have recovered inThe biggest challenge so far has been identifying farms willing to share samples, said Rosemary Sifford, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer.
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