United States: The deadly H5N1 bird flu is galloping through California’s dairy farms, the state, which produces more milk than any other state in the United States.
The overall total of infected cow herds had thus doubled within the last week, worrying state and federal officials, where the infected cow herds count grew from 17 as of last Thursday to 34 cow herds.
More about the news
New with this new count, California is now ranked second among all the affected states in terms of the number of herds affected by avian influenza, arstechnica.com reported.
Of the dairy states, only Colorado, which says it uses bulk milk-tank surveillance, has more, with 64 herds confirmed. California’s high ranking is generally because the state only reported its first three infected herds on August 30, and the dairy outbreak was first confirmed on March 25 and believed to have started late last year.
About 232 herds of birds in 14 states have been affected by the bird flu.
What more have the state officials announced?
California state officials made an announcement last week that the batch of herds tested positive and was “targeted for testing due to elevated risks from their recent connections with the initially affected premises.”
Moreover, they even called the positive results “not unexpected,” and it would lead to the state’s plans to find infections as early as possible.
According to California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross, while speaking about the state’s readiness and preparations level, “Our extensive experience with [highly pathogenic avian influenza] in poultry has given us ample preparation and expertise to address this incident,” arstechnica.com reported.
Ross also added that dairy farmers are approaching the outbreak with the “utmost urgency.”
About concerning transmission
The announcement was made at the time experts were alarmed at a strange case of H5 bird flu in a man in Missouri who had other complications but had contact with birds.
The case is the 14th human infection in relation to the dairy cow outbreak this year. All of the 13 prior infections were in farmworkers known to be exposed to infected animals: Nine were related to poultry workers and four to dairy workers.
However, Missouri intimated that H5N1 in dairy farms and has not recorded a recent epidemic in poultry operations, either.
Therefore, what’s more concerning, as per the experts, is how one person in the Missouri case has recovered from it, while officials are yet concerned about the origin of his/her infection.
During an early October CDC press briefing, CDC staff directed attention to the possibility that the case was perhaps a “one-off.”
However, the CDC has said that another family member in the same house got ill at around the same time as the Missouri case, meaning they could have been infected by the same virus. That household contact was negative for flu testing and has also since healed.