Extra cattle are getting the chook flu virus, and it seems that persons are an enormous consider 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 chook flu beneath management? It is onerous to inform, despite the fact that it has been shut to a few months because the virus was first noticed in dairy cattle. New circumstances are nonetheless cropping up, most just lately in Wyoming and Texas. This week, federal well being companies 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 study from these newest stories?
STONE: Effectively, we received a greater sense of how chook flu is spreading between totally different dairy farms. The virus has been detected in additional than 90 herds in a dozen states since late March. Many of those circumstances had 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, by way of shared tools and autos, second, persons are carrying the virus inadvertently on their clothes or boots. And at last, some animals which might be contaminated are shifting between farms.
There had been concern that wild birds may very well be repeatedly reintroducing the virus into dairy cattle. Thus far, federal officers say, the proof doesn’t help that. Based mostly on genetic sequencing of viral samples, it seems there was a single spillover occasion when a wild chook unfold it into cattle in Texas someday final 12 months, and that sparked this unprecedented nationwide outbreak in dairy cattle.
KURTZLEBEN: Proper. Effectively, past animals, although, I do know a number of people have contracted this flu, which has some of us involved about this sparking a pandemic. Do we’ve any higher sense of the chance to individuals right here?
STONE: So proper now, federal well being officers say the chance to most people stays low. In the event you work with dairy cattle, clearly, the chance degree is increased. 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 particular person truly 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 particular person. Here is what physician Nirav Shah with the CDC informed 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 undoubtedly, there are individuals in public well being who’re deeply nervous 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 rather a lot. 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 large concern after I spoke to him, which is healthier surveillance on the human aspect of issues. Pekosz is a virologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg College of Public Well being.
ANDREW PEKOSZ: That is actually the essential factor that we’re now nervous 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 may actually give us a way of how a lot low-level publicity, maybe gentle illness, has been on this inhabitants.
STONE: So principally, determining what number of circumstances we’d have missed by on the lookout 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 may very well be the virus simply retains doing that and does not find yourself adapting to unfold from human to human if we will maintain it from infecting different individuals. However that is optimistic and never one thing we will financial institution on.
KURTZLEBEN: That is NPR well being correspondent Will Stone. Thanks, Will.
STONE: Thanks.
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