April 08, 2024
2 min read
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Key takeaways:
- Milk from dairy cows in several states and one person have tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) virus.
- Risk to public remains low, but CDC said encourages states to make response plans.
Although the CDC says the risk of avian influenza to the public remains low, it is encouraging state health officials to prepare response plans anyway.
On Friday, CDC’s Principal Deputy Director Nirav D. Shah, MD, JD, Director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Demetre Daskalakis, MD, MPH, and Director of CDC’s Influenza Division Vivien Dugan, PhD, met with members of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), and the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) to discuss avian influenza planning.
CDC officials are encouraging states to make bird flu response plans after cattle at several U.S. farms and one person in Texas tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1). Image: Adobe Stock.
During the meeting, CDC officials emphasized that the risk to the public remains low, however, it is encouraging state public health officials to be prepared to respond.
The CDC is recommending that state public health officials engage with state veterinarians and agriculture department officials to ensure that they have up-to-date operational plans to respond to avian influenza at the state level. CDC is also encouraging increased communication should states face any challenges handling potential cases.
Members of ASTHO, CSTE, and APHL support these recommendations.
The meeting between these organizations followed a recent report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that unpasteurized milk from sick dairy cows at two farms in Texas and Kansas had tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1), also referred to as “H5N1 bird flu.” The report also noted that cattle in New Mexico were showing similar signs of illness, and several other states have since reported infections in cows.
Shortly after the report was released, a person in Texas — who had exposure to dairy cattle — tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza. This test was then confirmed as positive for influenza A(H5N1) virus, marking only the second time a person in the U.S. has tested positive for avian influenza.
In a recent interview with Richard Webby, PhD, a faculty member in the department of infectious diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds, Healio asked Webby what would increase his level of concern.
“The virus is still very much a bird virus that has spilled over to cows — not a particularly human-adapted virus at all,” he said. “Any evidence that this virus is continuing to circulate in cows, which I don’t think we know yet, would raise some concern levels.”
“This would provide the virus with more chances to evolve,” Webby added.
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