Wastewater in several Californian cities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, recently tested positive for bird flu. But understanding disease risk and exposure to humans isn’t so straightforward
the virus’s spotty path as it spreads in dairy cow herds and an unknown number of humans. Infection risk still seems low for most people, but dairy workers and others. To get a better handle on the unsettling situation, scientists are picking up a pathogen-hunting tool that’s been a powerful in the past: wastewater surveillance.
Analyzing trace amounts of viral genetic material, often shed by fecal matter in sewers, can alert scientists and public health experts to a possible increase in community infections. Wastewater sampling becameacross the U.S., for instance. But the way H5N1 affects both animal and human populations complicates identifying sources and understanding disease risk. H5N1 can be. The current cases in humans haven’t caused any known deaths , but past major outbreaks outside of the U.S. have.
Detecting it in the wastewater does not mean there’s a risk to human health. What it does mean is that there are still infected cattle that are around the vicinity, and work still needs to be done to identify those cattle and remove their products from the food chain, which is the goal of the officials that are in charge of that aspect of the outbreak.
It is very difficult because genetically the virus is not different . It’s not like we can say, “Oh, the one in humans is going to be like this, and so let’s look for that.” We’re working really closely with public health departments that are really proactive in sequencing positive influenza cases. If we do start seeing it in people, we will likely know it because we’ll see differences in the wastewater.
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