Category: Flu Virus

Bird flu has been behaving very strangely lately. A strain of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) has been spreading in dairy cows in at least nine U.S. states. Infected cows have very high levels of virus in their milk, and early reports indicate that it is being spread by contaminated milking equipment, although other methods of transmission are also possible. Several cats that drank raw milk from infected cows developed neurological symptoms and died. Pasteurizing milk appears to effectively neutralize the H5N1 virus.

In recent weeks, three human infections with the virus have been confirmedall in dairy workers who had contact with sick cows. All three developed symptoms of eye infections known as conjunctivitis. The latest case, reported in Michigan this week, also involved respiratory symptoms more typical of a flu infection. The workers were most likely exposed to the virus in contaminated milkby getting it on their hands and then touching their eyes, for example, or via milk droplets (or even microscopic particles called aerosols) from a cows udder or milking equipment.

It is really surprising how widespread this thing got over a few months time and how this virus seems to be spreading through the milking machines from udder to udder,says Ron Fouchier, deputy head of the viroscience department at Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This is a completely new situation for all of us, and its surprising and a little bit worrying because of the enormous amounts of virus that can be in raw milk.

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But why is H5N1 causing eye infections in humans? And is there a risk the virus could spread more widely and potentially cause a pandemic?

In fact, cases of avian flu causing conjunctivitis are not that rare. There was a large outbreak of H7N7 avian flu in poultry in the Netherlands in 2003, which led to 89 confirmed human cases. Of these, 78 people had conjunctivitis; five had both conjunctivitis and flulike illness and two had only flulike illness. One person developed pneumonia and respiratory distress and died, according to a 2004 study by Fouchier and his colleagues.

Weve seen this [conjunctivitis] also before with ... H7N7 viruses quite a lot and a little bit less with H5 bird flu viruses, Fouchier says. (The latter is the type now spreading in cows.) But we know that these bird flu viruses can cause conjunctivitis rather easily.

In the recent H5N1 outbreak in cows and infections in humans, viruses that got into workers eyes may have bound to receptors in the conjunctiva, the clear membrane that covers the inside of the eyelid and the white of the eye and protects the eye. Influenza viruses bind to what are called sialic acid receptors. The accepted wisdom suggests that avian flu viruses preferentially bind to one type of sialic acid receptor predominant in birds, whereas human seasonal flu viruses bind to another type of sialic acid receptor predominant in the human respiratory tract, says Patrik Ellstrm, an infection medicine researcher at Swedens Uppsala University. But recent research suggests the picture is more complicated; both receptor types have now been found in the respiratory tracts of humans and birds. So its not clear that the virus would need to bind to the human receptor to cause infection, Ellstrm says. In the human eye, however, the bird receptor is the one most frequently found, and this could explain why the virus in cows is causing eye infections in humans.

An H5N1 eye infection could conceivably spread to a persons respiratory system via the sinuses and possibly cause a more severe, systemic infection, Fouchier says. Thats likely what happened with the one person known to have died in the 2003 outbreak in the Netherlands. So far, there is little evidence that the currently circulating strain of H5N1 is spreading person to person, although that could change. The more the virus spreads from cows to people and the more people who become infected, the higher its chances of evolving to become better at infecting and spreading among humans.

Given the amount of virus detected in milk from H5N1 virus-infected cows, I am concerned about its spillover to humans, poultry and other animals,says Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of virology at the University of WisconsinMadisons School of Veterinary Medicine.

Conditions in many milking parlors can be especially conducive to spreading the virus among workers via milk, according to Seema Lakdawala, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine and an expert in influenza virus transmission. Lakdawala says she recently visited a parlor to observe the milking process. It was eye-opening to me, and I, of course, got splattered on my face with milk because thats what happens, she says.

The cows were on a platform that put their udder roughly at eye level so humans could access it easily, she says. The first step in milking was forestripping, in which a worker very briefly milks the animal by hand to start lactation. When Lakdawala was watching this process, these animals were just leaking, she says, comparing the effect to that of water misters in a plant nursery.

Next, the cows udder was disinfected, and the workers attached a tube capped by a cup to each teat with a liner that inflates to exert pressure: basically a breast pump for a cow teat, Lakdawala says. As anyone who has breastfed a child knows, the breast pump gets totally coated with milk, Lakdawala says. And although workers disinfect the udder, they dont always do so to the milking equipment between animals, she says, so its easy to see how an infected cow could transmit the bird flu virus to another cow via the milking pump and how workers could be infected by splashing milk droplets.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends that workers on farms where H5N1 has been detected have access to personal protective equipment, or PPE, such as N95 respirators, face masks, goggles and face shields. But its only a recommendation, Lakdawala says.

In order to prevent bird flu from causing more infections in humans, Lakdawala thinks dairy workers on all farms should have access to and use proper PPEespecially face shields to protect their eyes. Getting workers to wear N95 masks while working all day in hot barns is unlikely, she notes, but a face shield would provide at least some protection. Additionally, all dairy workers and veterinarians visiting those farms should be offered H5N1 vaccines, she says.

Lakdawala says it is crucial to get farm owners, workers and state public health officials to come together and figure out how to stop the spread of this virus. No farm owner wants their working staff out sick, she says, and none of us in public health want those workers to get sick.

Its a daunting problem, she admits. But there is still a chance to act before any potential sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus.

In addition to providing every farmworker with PPE, Lakdawala believes the CDC should issue a stay-at-farm order for all cows to get an assessment of what is happening and the extent of what has happened. Tens of thousands of cows are transported across the country every week, she says. The U.S. Department of Agriculture now requires lactating cows from farms with known H5N1 infections to be tested before they can be transported to other states. But Lakdawala thinks the industry should temporarily stop moving all cows around.

Finally, she says that experts and officials need to talk with farmers about how to reduce contamination of milking equipment and about how to safely dispose of milk from infected animals.

Nobody, no one, absolutely nobody, wants another pandemic, Lakdawala says. We really need to take a moment and do everything we possibly can right now to prevent it.

Read more:

Why Bird Flu Is Causing Eye Infections in Dairy Workers - Scientific American

Topline

Heres the latest news about a global outbreak of H5N1 bird flu that started in 2020, and recently spread among cattle in U.S. states and marine mammals across the world, which has health officials closely monitoring it and experts concerned the virus could mutate and eventually spread to humans, where it has proven rare but deadly.

A sign warns of a outbreak of bird flu.

May 30Another human case of bird flu has been detected in a dairy farm worker in Michiganthough the cases arent connectedand this is the first person in the U.S. to report respiratory symptoms connected to bird flu, though their symptoms are resolving, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

May 23A new study with mice suggests that drinking infected milk can spread the diseaseand that a certain type of pasteurization may not always be effective in killing the virus.

May 22Michigan reported bird flu in a farmworkerthe second U.S. human case tied to transmission from dairy cowsthough the worker had a mild infection and has since recovered.

May 21Australia reported its first human case of bird flu after a child became infected in March after traveling to India, though the child has since recovered after suffering from a severe infection, according to the Victorian Department of Health.

May 16The USDA conducted a study, and discovered that after high levels of the virus was injected into beef, no trace was left after the meat was cooked medium to well done, though the virus was found in meat cooked to lower temperatures.

May 14The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released influenza A waste water data for the weeks ending in April 27 and May 4, and found several states like Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois and Kansas had unusually high levels, though the agency isnt sure if the virus came from humans or animals, and isnt able to differentiate between influenza A subtypes, meaning the H5N1 virus or other subtypes may have been detected.

May 10The Food and Drug Administration announced it will commit an additional $8 million to ensure the commercial milk supply is safe, while the Department of Agriculture said it will pay up to $28,000 per farm to help mitigate the spread of the disease, totaling around $98 million in funds.

May 9Some 70 people in Colorado are being monitored for bird flu due to potential exposure, and will be tested for the virus if they show any symptoms, the Colorado Department of Public Health told Forbesit was not immediately clear how or when the people were potentially exposed.

May 1The Department of Agriculture said it tested 30 grocery store ground beef products for bird flu and they all came back negative, reaffirming the meat supply is safe.

May 1The Food and Drug Administration confirmed dairy products are still safe to consume, announcing it tested grocery store samples of products like infant formula, toddler milk, sour cream and cottage cheese, and no live traces of the bird flu virus were found, although some dead remnants were found in some of the foodthough none in the baby products.

April 30Wenqing Zhang, head of the World Health Organization's Global Influenza Programme, said during a news briefing "there is a risk for cows in other countries to be getting infected," with the bird flu virus, since its commonly spread through the movement of migratory birds.

April 29The Department of Agriculture told Forbes it will begin testing ground beef samples from grocery stores in states with cow outbreaks, and test ground beef cooked at different temperatures and infected with the virus to determine if it's safe to eat.

April 24The USDA said cow-to-cow transmission may be occurring due to the cows coming into contact with raw milkand warned against humans and other animals, including pets, consuming unpasteurized milk to prevent potential infection.

April 18Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist for the World Health Organization, said during a press conference the threat of bird flu spreading between humans was a great concern, since its evolved and has increasingly been infecting mammals (on land and sea), which means it could possibly spread to humans.

April 1The CDC reported the second U.S. human case of bird flu in a Texas dairy farmer who became infected after contracting the virus from infected dairy cows, but said the person was already recovering.

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Bird flu doesnt transmit easily from person-to-person, according to the World Health Organization. Bird flu rarely affects humans, and most previous cases came from close contact with infected poultry, according to the CDC. Because human-to-human spread of bird flu poses pandemic potential, each human case is investigated to rule out this type of infection. Though none have been confirmed, there are a few global casesnone in the U.S.where human-to-human transmission of bird flu was thought to be probable, including in China, Thailand, Indonesia and Pakistan.

It is very deadly. Between January 2003 and March 28, 2024 there have been 888 human cases of bird flu infection in humans, according to a report by the World Health Organization. Of those 888 cases, 463 (52%) died. To date, only two people in the U.S. have contracted H5N1 bird flu, and they both were infected after coming into contact with sick animals. The most recent case was a dairy worker in Texas who became ill in March after interacting with sick dairy cows, though he only experienced pink eye. The first incident happened in 2022 when a person in Colorado contracted the disease from infected poultry, and fully recovered.

Raw, unpasteurized milk is unsafe to drink, but pasteurized milk is fine, according to the FDA. Bird flu has been detected in both unpasteurized and pasteurized milk, but the FDA recommends manufacturers against making and selling unpasteurized milk since theres a possibility consuming it may cause bird flu infection. However, the virus remnants in pasteurized milk have been deactivated by the heat during the pasteurization process, so this type of milk is still believed safe to consume.

The CDC warns against eating raw meat or eggs from animals confirmed or suspected of having bird flu because of the possibility of transmission. However, no human has ever been infected with bird flu from eating properly prepared and cooked meat, according to the agency. The possibility of infected meat entering the food supply is extremely low due to rigorous inspection, so properly handled and cooked meat is safe to eat, according to the USDA. To know when meat is properly cooked, whole beef cuts must be cooked to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit, ground meat must be 160 degrees and poultry must be cooked to 165 degrees. Rare and medium rare steaks fall below this temperature. Properly cooked eggs with an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit kills bacteria and viruses including bird flu, according to the CDC. It doesnt matter if they may or may not have [avian] influenza runny eggs and rare pieces of meat are never recommended, Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, director and professor for the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, told Forbes. To play it safe, consumers should only eat fully cooked eggs and make sure the yolks are firm with no runny parts, Daisy May, veterinary surgeon with U.K.-based company Medivet, said.

Symptoms of bird flu include a fever, cough, headache, chills, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, runny nose, congestion, sore throat, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea, pink eye, muscle aches and headache. However, the CDC advises it cant be diagnosed based on symptoms alone, and laboratory testing is needed. This typically includes swabbing the nose or throat (the upper respiratory tract), or the lower respiratory tract for critically ill patients.

This years egg prices have increased as production decreased due to bird flu outbreaks among poultry, according to the USDA. A dozen large, grade A eggs in the U.S. costed around $2.99 in March, up almost a dollar from the fall. However, this price is down from a record $4.82 in January 2023, which was also spiked by bird flu outbreaks. Earlier this month, Cal-Maine Foodsthe countrys largest egg producertemporarily halted egg production after over one million egg-laying hens and chickens were killed after being infected with bird flu.

Once chickens have been infected with bird flu, farmers quickly kill them to help control the spread of the virus, since bird flu is highly contagious and fatal in poultry. The USDA pays farmers for all birds and eggs that have to be killed because of bird flu, as an incentive to responsibly try and curb the spread of the disease. The USDA has spent over $1 billion in bird flu compensation for farmers since 2022, according to the nonprofit Food & Environment Reporting Network.

The FDA has approved a few bird flu vaccines for humans. The U.S. has a stockpile of vaccines for H5N1 bird flu, but it wouldnt be enough to vaccinate all Americans if an outbreak were to happen among humans. If a human outbreak does occur, the government plans to mass produce vaccines, which can take at least six months to make enough for the entire population. CSL Seqirus, the maker of one of the approved vaccines, expects to have 150 million vaccines ready within six months of an announcement of a human bird flu pandemic. Although there are approved vaccines for other variants designed for birds, there are none for the H5N1 variant circulating. However, the USDA began trials on H5N1 animal-specific vaccines in 2023.

As of May 30, more than 92 million poultry (primarily chickens) in 48 states have been euthanized because of bird flu since 2022, and 57 dairy cow herds across nine states have tested positive, according to data from the CDC (unlike chickens, cows appear to recover from the virus). The USDA believes wild migratory birds are the original source of the cow outbreaks that recently has experts concerned it may mutate and spread more easily in humans, though the CDC said its risk to the public remains low. Farrar called the cattle infections in the U.S. a huge concern, urging public health officials to continue closely monitoring the situation because it may evolve into transmitting in different ways. The increased number of mammal bird flu infections since 2022 could indicate that the virus is looking for new hosts, and of course, moving closer to people, Andrea Garcia, vice president of science, medicine and public health for the American Medical Association, said. The first report of a walrus dying from bird flu was detected in April on one of Norways Arctic Islands, and the first U.S. dolphin infected with bird flu died back in 2022, according to a report published April 18. More than 10 human bird flu cases were reported to the World Health Organization in 2023, and all but one survived. Bird flu has devastated bird populations, and 67 countries reported the deaths of 131 million poultry in 2022 alone. Although bird flu typically infects wild birds and poultry, its spread to other animals during the outbreak, and at least 10 countries have reported outbreaks in mammals since 2022. Around 17,400 elephant seal pups died from bird flu in Argentina in 2023, and at least 24,000 sea lions died in South America the same year. Besides cattle, bird flu has been detected in over 200 other mammalslike seals, raccoons and bearsin the U.S. since 2022. Although rare, even domestic pets like dogs and cats are susceptible to the virus, and the FDA warns against giving unpasteurized milk to cats to avoid possible transmission.

WHO Warns Threat Of Bird Flu Spreading To Humans Is Great Concern (Forbes)

One In Five Milk Samples From Across US Had Traces Of Bird Flu Virus, FDA Says (Forbes)

Can Pets Get Bird Flu? Heres What To Know (Forbes)

Avian H5N1 (Bird) Flu: Why Experts Are WorriedAnd What You Should Know (Forbes)

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Bird Flu (H5N1) Explained: Third U.S. Dairy Farm Worker Infected With Bird FluWith New Symptoms - Forbes

The third human case of H5N1, reported on Thursday in a farmworker in Michigan who was experiencing respiratory symptoms, tells us that the current bird flu situation is at a dangerous inflection point.

The virus is adapting in predictable ways that increase its risk to humans, reflecting our failure to contain it early on. The solutions to this brewing crisis such as comprehensive testing have been there all along, and theyre becoming only more important. If we keep ignoring the warning signs we have only ourselves to blame.

H5N1 has long been more than a bird problem. The virus has found its way into dairy cattle across nine states, affecting 69 herds that we know about. Of the three human cases of H5N1 that have been identified, all involve farmworkers who were in direct contact with infected cows or milk. The first two cases were relatively mild, involving symptoms like eye irritation, or conjunctivitis. However, the most recent case has shown more concerning signs, including coughing.

The emergence of respiratory symptoms is disconcerting because it indicates a potential shift in how the virus affects humans. Coughing can spread viruses more easily than eye irritation can.

New symptoms should be expected as the virus continues to spread and adapt to humans. Yet our response to this looming danger has been woefully inadequate, particularly in the area of testing.

Testing is our first line of defense in identifying and controlling infectious diseases. It allows health responders to understand the extent of an outbreak, identify who is infected and take measures to prevent further spread.

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Opinion | Why the New Human Case of Bird Flu Is So Alarming - The New York Times

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced May 30 that a third person, a Michigan dairy farm worker, was diagnosed with the H5N1 bird flu virus that has been spreading among US dairy herds over the last six to seven months. As of May 31, 2024, 69 herds have beenimpactedacross nine states, according to the USDA. Health authorities are also monitoring 350 people who have been exposed, but only 40 farm workers have consented to testing.

The recently infected individual worked closely with the sickened cows. It was at a different farm from the previous case of H5N1 infection in Michigan, so the investigator attempted to assure the public that the virus was not spreading between people but through separate direct contacts with infected animals.

However, the symptoms exhibited by the most recent infection included respiratory ailments such as a sore throat and cough, which were not present in the first case in Texas and the second case in Michigan. These had only presented with conjunctivitis, also known as pink eye, inflammation of the transparent membranes that line the eyelid and eyeball. Still, the fact that the Texas individual also had a positive nasal swab for H5N1 indicates the respiratory passages remain at risk, as has been confirmed by the recent finding.

Dr. Rick Bright, a virologist and the former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, said in anopinion piecepublished in theNew York Times,The virus is adapting in predictable ways that increase its risk to humans, reflecting our failure to contain it early on. The solutions to this brewing crisissuch as comprehensive testinghave been there all along, and theyre becoming only more important. If we keep ignoring the warning signs, we have only ourselves to blame.

The impetus for this stern warning stems from the continued pernicious laissez-faire attitude that characterizes the federal response to the growing threat posed by H5N1 bird flu. Serological studies to map out the extent of the outbreak both among humans and animal species are completely lacking.

Bright, who opposed the Trump administrations handling of the COVID pandemic, had made these same highly critical observations early on. Precisely because public health had been relegated to the back of the queue in terms of government efforts, the US has seen one of the highest death tolls among leading countries despite its unprecedented access to vaccinations. Many other countries that adopted policies of mass testing and quarantining to drive infections to zero have seen very low fatalities in their population by comparison.

Although the H5N1 virus was spreading among herds since December 2023, it was only in late March that the outbreak was detected. Yet the USDA has been slow to share viral sequences on public databases for researchers to analyze.

Testing and enforcing the appropriate use of PPEs among farm workers continues to lag severely. Given their proximity to these animals, they are not only at risk of infection, but function as a ready host for these viruses to acquire the right combination of genetic mutations to propel them into human populations.

As Bright noted, Undetected cases of H5N1 means that infected people may continue to spread the virus unknowingly. This is especially dangerous in farming communities where close contact with animals and other workers is common. Each missed case is a potential link in a chain of transmission that could lead to a wider outbreak.

Dr. Seema Lakdawala, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University, echoed Brights concerns when she told CNN, Given the high magnitude of interactions between people and dairy cows as well as with contaminated milking equipment, it is unsurprising that there are more human infections [infected cows have high viral concentrations in their milk]. Every time the virus is able to replicate in a person, there is the potential for the virus to adapt to humans and gain molecular features for replication in the respiratory tract and to spread person-to-person.

These developments come on the heels of a recent May 24 report by the CDC that the infection in the first Michigan farm worker revealed genetic changes that were not present in the Texas animal handler, underscoring how rapidly these viruses can shift their genetic makeup to adapt to new hosts.

The CDC wrote, These data indicate viruses detected in both cows and the two human cases maintain primarily avian genetic characteristics and lack changes that would make them better adapted to infect or transmit between humans. The genome of the human virus from Michigan did not have the PB2 E627K change detected in the virus from the Texas case buthad one notable change (PB2 M631L) compared to the Texas case that is known to be associated with viral adaptation to mammalian hosts, and which has been detected in 99 percent of dairy cow sequences but only sporadically in birds [emphasis added]. This change has been identified as resulting in enhancement of virus replication and disease severity in mice during studies with avian influenza H10N7 viruses.

Given these developments, it bears citing the importantworkpublished inSciencein 2012 by famed Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier and colleagues that led to the gain-of-function controversies and unprecedentedpauseson funding such research in the United States. At the time, H5N1 had spread extensively across the globe, devastating the poultry industry in numerous countries. Also, more than 600 people had been infected since 2003, with a case fatality ratio above 60 percent. Although no person-to-person route of transmission had been detected, these concerns remained foremost in the minds of these researchers.

The authors wrote, The viruses that caused the major pandemics of the past century emerged upon reassortment (that is, genetic mixing) of animal and human influenza viruses. However, given that viruses from only four pandemics are available for analyses, we cannot exclude the possibility that a future pandemic may be triggered by a wholly avian virus without the requirement of reassortment.

After they had engineered bird flu strains that were contagious in ferrets, Fouchier said that approximately 10 serial passages of the virus from ferret to ferret led to the accumulation of as few as five mutations that allowed infected animals to transmit through the air to previously uninfected ferrets. He said at the time, We assume also in humans it would only take a low number of transmission events for these mutations to accumulate.

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COVID, Capitalism, and Class War: A Social and Political Chronology of the Pandemic

A compilation of the World Socialist Web Site's coverage of this global crisis, available in epub and print formats.

A prescient reportpublished in October 2019 in theNew York Timesbemoaned the ending of a critical federally funded work called Predict whose aim was to identify dangerous animal viruses that could someday lead to outbreaks among humans. The United Nations had estimated that a new animal disease that could also affect people was being discovered every four months.

TheTimeswrote then:

Ending the program, experts fear, will leave the world more vulnerable to lethal pathogens like Ebola and MERS that emerge from unexpected places, such as bat-filled trees, gorilla carcasses, and camel barns. The program, known as Predict and run by the United States Agency for International Development, was inspired by the 2005 H5N1 bird flu scare. Launched 10 years ago, the project has cost about $207 million. The initiative has collected over 140,000 biological samples from animals and found over 1,000 new viruses, including a new strain of Ebola. Predict also trained about 5,000 people in 30 African and Asian countries, and has built or strengthened 60 medical research laboratories, mostly in poor countries.

However, precisely when a comprehensive international effort was required to stave off a potential outbreak with a novel pathogen that was predictable and preventable, the COVID pandemic was ushered in, producing what the World Socialist Web Site has called a trigger event in history.

Four years later, while the US government is finalizing a lucrative deal with Moderna to develop an mRNA pandemic bird flu vaccine for its stockpiles, the World Health Organization failed to deliver a pandemic preparedness draft accord in time to the 77th World Health Assembly, mainly because of the US political establishmentsobjectionsto the stated agreement.

In aletterto President Joe Biden, a Republican-drafted critique claimed that the proposed WHO amendments would substantially increase the WHOs health emergency powers and constitute intolerable infringement upon US sovereignty.

They also warned that the proposal shredded intellectual property rights. In light of the callous vaccine nationalism that was the hallmark of the global response to COVID, under the complete breakdown of all international norms, these life-saving treatments are being weaponized against the population of the planet.

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Third US farm worker infected with highly pathogenic bird flu virus - WSWS

The seemingly distant-sounding threat of H5N1 avian flu is now a reality here in San Francisco, as two chickens at a local live animal market have tested positive for the virus, and traces of it were detected in SFs wastewater.

You may have heard theres a bird flu outbreak in at least nine states in the US, and you may not have worried about it much, because it largely just affects birds and dairy cows. And livestock is not really much of an industry in San Francisco, so the H5N1 avian flu virus would not seem to be of risk to us in any way here. Right?

It might be time to reevaluate that assessment. The Chronicle reports that two chickens tested positive for bird flu at a live bird market in San Francisco, according to a Monday announcement from the SF Department of Public Health (SFDPH). And on top of that, fragments of H5N1 virus have turned up in San Francisco wastewater samples, making SF the first city in California to have bird flu detected in our wastewater.

But officials are insisting this is no cause for alarm. The most important thing to note is there is no threat to public health at this time, said SFDPH director of Communicable Disease Prevention & Control Dr. George Han told the Chronicle. There have been no human cases.

Well, there have been no human cases in San Francisco. But nationwide, three people who work with dairy cows have been infected with a strain of the virus, and suffered symptoms of an eye infection called conjunctivitis.

And that business of traces of bird flu in the wastewater sure sounds concerning. But its not certain those traces are from human waste, as there may be bird poop or chicken poop in those wastewater samples.

We take in everything that goes into the storm drains, including any animal waste from birds or any other animal, Han said to the Chronicle

There is no risk to eating cooked poultry, as bird flu cannot survive temperatures of greater than 165 Fahrenheit, or 74 Celsius. If you have a pet bird, youre encouraged to practice good hygiene, clean the cage regularly, and monitor your birds health.

Related: Mysterious Surge in Bay Area Sea Lion Pup Deaths Stumps Researchers [SFist]

Image: Finn Mund via Unsplash

Continued here:

Bird Flu Has Arrived In SF; Two Chickens Test Positive, Traces of Virus Found In Wastewater - SFist

A third human case of bird flu has been linked to the ongoing outbreak in cows on U.S. dairy farms and this one came with respiratory symptoms, such as cough, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported May 30.

Officials first became aware of bird flu spreading among U.S. dairy cows in March, and since then, the viral disease has been detected among cattle on farms in nine states. The type of bird flu spreading is known as H5N1, which has sporadically infected individual humans in the past but has never spread widely from person to person. However, these rare human infections can sometimes be fatal, and there's concern about the virus picking up the necessary mutations to spread easily through the populace.

Prior to the outbreak in cows, only one person in the U.S. had ever been infected with H5N1, as far as we know. Now, since the outbreak began, three people have likely been infected via exposure to sick cows. The first person infected by a cow was in Texas, and the second was in Michigan; both are dairy-farm workers and developed only eye infections from the virus before recovering.

The third, newly reported case linked to cow exposure was also in Michigan but on a different farm. The person was given treatment and is now isolating at home as their symptoms resolve. This infection is notable because it is the first human H5N1 case in the U.S. associated with respiratory symptoms.

Related: H5N1: What to know about the bird flu cases in cows, goats and people

"This is the first human case of H5 in the United States to report more typical symptoms of acute respiratory illness associated with influenza virus infection, including A(H5N1) viruses," the CDC reported. "The patient reported upper respiratory tract symptoms, including cough without fever, and eye discomfort with watery discharge."

In humans, bird flu viruses, including H5N1, can cause both mild symptoms including pink eye, cough, sore throat, runny nose and body aches as well as severe ones, such as pneumonia, difficulty breathing and seizures. If severe, the infections can be fatal, but antiviral drugs available for seasonal flu can help treat the disease.

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Finding another case of human H5N1 infection is "not surprising," given the extent of the spread of this virus in dairy cows, the CDC says. H5N1 was also already known to cause respiratory symptoms however, seeing this is still concerning because, generally, symptoms like coughing and sneezing can make it easier for a virus to spread between people, The New York Times reported.

Each time the virus jumps to people, it gains an opportunity to pick up mutations that make it capable of spreading sustainably between humans a chain of events that, in the worst scenario, could precipitate a pandemic.

With that possibility in mind, the CDC continues to closely monitor for unusual flu activity across the country. So far, "there has been no sign of unusual influenza activity in people, including no increase in emergency room visits for influenza and no increase in laboratory detection of human influenza cases," the agency reported.

Scientists are also looking to see if the virus has picked up any mutations that would raise the risk of spread, although thus far, there's no evidence of person-to-person transmission.

Based on the available information, the risk of spread to the general public remains low, the CDC noted. As always, health authorities still recommend against drinking raw milk. Dairy-farm workers currently face the highest risk of exposure, the agency emphasized.

Some experts have argued that federal officials should be screening many more workers for H5N1 and offering optional experimental bird flu vaccines, The New York Times reported. At this point, only about 40 farm workers have consented to being tested for H5N1, while a few hundred are being monitored for possible symptoms, according to news reports.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

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Latest human H5N1 bird flu case in US is 1st to cause respiratory symptoms - Livescience.com

Angle down icon An icon in the shape of an angle pointing down. Dairy farmer Brent Pollard gives cows feed at his cattle farm in Rockford, Illinois. Jim Vondruska/Reuters

The H5N1 bird flu virus has once again infected a human. But this time, the unlucky patient had a cough and a sore throat, which is a new milestone for the virus's spread in the US.

The H5N1 virus has become a pandemic among animals, raging through worldwide bird populations and now through US cattle herds.

This latest human case, which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on Thursday, is the third known human case in the US, following one in Texas and another in Michigan.

All three people are dairy farm workers who were exposed to infected cows, according to the CDC.

The first two cases, however, only involved eye symptoms, including conjunctivitis or pink eye. That means the infection was probably limited to their eyes. Now it has hit someone's lungs.

The risk to the general public is still low, the CDC says, but these new symptoms suggest the virus may have entered a new phase of its flirtation with human infection.

St. Jude virologist Richard Webby is a leading researcher on an H5 group of influenza viruses, which have been circulating in bird populations for about 25 years.

Since 2021, the H5N1 virus has branched out to new frontiers of sustained spread, infecting dolphins and porpoises, migrating to the Americas, culling sea lions and seals, and now spreading through US cattle herds.

"This virus keeps on turning up surprises," Webby, who directs the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds, told Business Insider. "Had you asked me, beginning of the year, what the chances are of H5 turning up in cows, I would have said exceedingly low."

Still, he said, H5N1 is still more of a bird virus than a mammalian virus. That's mainly because of the receptors it binds to in order to enter its hosts' cells and replicate itself.

"Avian viruses bind to one form of this receptor on the host cell. Mammalian viruses bind to a different form," Webby said.

The mucus lining the human eye (where the first farmworker got conjunctivitis) is rich in the receptors that avian viruses grab, he said. There, the H5N1 virus can continue operating as an avian virus grabbing avian receptors, with no need to adapt to human receptors.

But our respiratory tracts are full of both forms of this receptor the form preferred by avian viruses and the one preferred by mammalian viruses. Therefore, being in the lungs gives H5N1 more exposure to the receptors that mammalian viruses use, according to Webby.

That gives H5N1 more opportunity to sustain a mutation that would allow it to bind to those mammalian receptors, adapting better to human bodies.

That's the concern, but it's not clear if that has actually happened inside this patient's lungs. For such a mutation to be significant, it would then have to spread to other people as well. So far, based on all known cases, the virus has been unable to spread from one person to another.

In a New York Times opinion piece on Sunday, virologist Rick Bright argued that the emergence of respiratory symptoms indicates "a dangerous inflection point" for the virus.

After all, he wrote, "Coughing can spread viruses more easily than eye irritation can."

But for Webby, the Michigan patient's cough "doesn't change a whole lot."

Two previous one-off human cases of H5N1 one in Chile and one in Ecuador featured respiratory symptoms.

The virus didn't necessarily have to mutate to infect the Michigan farmworker's respiratory system, according to Webby. The person could have simply encountered a large amount of virus, maybe an especially ill cow.

"That's me sort of looking at the crystal ball a little," he said, adding that it's "the most likely explanation for what we're seeing, rather than the other one, which is of course much more scary, that this virus has already changed."

Either way, scientists won't know if any scary mutations have occurred until they can examine the virus's DNA sequence from this new case. The patient carried such small amounts of the virus, though, that it's possible the CDC won't have enough to get the sequence, Webby said.

DNA sequences are critical. By checking the virus's genes in each new human case, no matter how mild the symptoms, scientists can identify any fresh mutations that help it adapt to humans. If H5N1 becomes a bona fide mammalian virus, they could watch its transformation in real-time.

"The very first signals we're going to get that this virus is changing are probably going to come from human infections," Webby said.

So far, though, the government's monitoring may not be robust enough to spot those mutations early.

The FDA has detected fragments of the virus in commercial milk and beef. Though it's unlikely that food could infect you, public-health experts have told BI, caution-minded people can cook their eggs and meats all the way. Nobody should drink unpasteurized milk, aka raw milk, they say.

The real risk is to people who work directly with sick animals, especially farmworkers like the three who have been infected so far.

Nationwide, the government is monitoring about 350 people who may have been exposed to H5N1, most of them in Michigan, CDC Deputy Director Nirav Shah told the press in a briefing on Thursday. However, only about 40 farmworkers have been tested for the virus, The New York Times reported.

"We would like to be doing more testing," Shah said, according to STAT News.

Bright argues that the government's weak testing regime could be allowing farmworker infections to fly under the radar.

However, undetected cases are not the same thing as undetected spread.

Bright's essay rings alarm bells about unknown human-to-human transmission, but Webby finds that unlikely. Even with its current monitoring, the CDC would probably detect sustained human spread, he said.

Rather, the problem with undetected cases is that nobody can sequence their samples. Those are windows into the virus's DNA (and possible mutations) that nobody is peeking through.

Webby and Bright agree that scientists need more sequences of the virus, more quickly. Despite the ongoing herd spread, for example, the USDA hasn't shared a new sequence from a cow infection sample in weeks, according to Bright.

"Bottom line is we need to have more information from exactly what this virus is doing," Webby said. "The more we can understand about it, I do believe we can properly control it, or at least control it way better than we are."

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New human bird flu case in US features troubling respiratory symptoms - Business Insider

The flu is a viral chameleon, changing shape so fast its hard for vaccines to keep up. Chemical biologist Dennis Wolan said creating a seasonal flu vaccine is a little like viewing a crystal ball to try to decide which flu youll actually be fighting off.

Thats one of the issues with vaccines is that theyre so specific that sometimes they miss the mark if were infected with another strain of the virus, said Wolan, a scientist with Genentech.

Wolan and his partners at Scripps Research, where he used to run a lab, have been trying to come up with a different solution for stopping the flu that can stop many strains of it. Their possible solution is a molecule that binds to and disables that part of the virus that allows the flu to enter our cells.

If the flu had a key to unlock the door to a human cell it would be hemagglutinin, a protein spike thats part of the virus. Disabling that key might be better than targeting the whole virus, as vaccines do, because the key and the lock dont change from one flu strain to the next.

This molecule, what it does is very broadly neutralizing. Meaning it can (potentially) target all the different subtypes of the different flus, Wolan said.

Ian Wilson is a professor of structural biology at Scripps Research. Sitting in a lab conference room, he taps on his laptop to project two pictures on the wall. Both show protein spikes of the flu virus and the place where their molecule has attached to it.

The spikes are highly variable, Wilson said. But the bottom part is highly conserved. And thats the part that we are targeting.

Courtesy of Scripps Research

Another potential advantage to the Scripps approach to therapy is that it could be taken as a pill, not as an injection. Wilson says our history shows the need for better flu protection.

Wed like to have something on the shelf potentially for new pandemics, Wilson said. Were currently worried at the moment for these new H5 ones that are spreading through the world. They started in wild birds but theyve been spreading to mammals."

Wilson said their initial research is focused on the H1N1 virus, which has brought us several pandemics, including the Spanish Flu and the Swine Flu.

Testing of the therapeutic molecule has been successful, but so far only in the lab. Even so, Wolan said he sees a lot of promise in this idea of targeting the key that lets a virus into our cells.

I think it expands, first of all, way beyond just flu. I think this goes into all different types of viruses. This is providing a new pathway to combating viral infections, he said.

The next step in the research is to see how it works in mice.

Read the original here:

New molecular therapy by Scripps Research could stop many strains of flu - KPBS

Another dairy worker in Michigan has been diagnosed with bird flu, U.S. officials said May 30, making it the third confirmed human case related to infected cattle since the virus was first detected in dairy cow herds in late March.

This is the second dairy worker in Michigan to develop the disease in recent weeks. The first case occurred in Texas in early April, also in a person with close contact to dairy cows presumed to be infected.

The risk to the general public remains low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement, although it continues to recommend precautions for people who are exposed to infected or potentially infected animals.

In the latest case, a dairy farm worker presented with cough and eye pain. The patient was given antiviral treatment with oseltamivir and is currently recovering at home. The other people in their household are being monitored but have not developed symptoms.

The CDC told reporters on a call this month that there is no evidence that the virus is spreading from person-to-person, Reuters reported. Since March, the agency has tested close to 40 people who had exposures on a dairy farm or were connected to a farm, Reuters said.

Genetic tests carried out by the CDC on samples from the patient in Texas and infected cattle show that the virus lacks changes that would make it better able to infect mammals. There is also no sign that the virus has developed resistance to antiviral treatments, the CDC said.

In late March, dairy cows in Kansas and Texas tested positive for bird flu. Since then, the outbreak has spread to additional herds in New Mexico and Ohio.

Federal agriculture officials emphasized that the food supply remains safe. Milk from sick cows is diverted or destroyed, and pasteurization kills any viruses or bacteria in milk.

The bird flu cases in Texas and Michigan are the first linked to exposure to cattle, federal health officials said.

The only other human case of bird flu in the United States occurred in Colorado in 2022, in a person who had contact with infected poultry.

Bird flu is a disease caused by an influenza virus that mainly infects birds.

These types of viruses, known as avian influenza A viruses, spread naturally among wild aquatic birds such as ducks and geese. From there, they can pass to chickens and other domesticated poultry.

There are two groups of these viruses: low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).

The second group causes severe disease and high death rates in infected birds. This group includes the highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N1) virus aka H5N1 bird flu detected in cattle and the patient in Texas.

Certain bird flu viruses can spread to and infect mammals, including seals, bears, foxes, skunks, domestic cats and dogs, and humans.

People who are at risk are those who have direct and prolonged exposure with infected, ill or dead animals, or areas contaminated by infected birds or animals, said Dean Blumberg, MD, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Childrens Hospital.

It is rare for bird flu viruses to spread from an infected person to another person, but it has happened. In these cases, the virus has spread to only a few people, and often within a persons household, where there is prolonged, close contact.

Human-to-human transmission is extraordinarily rare, Blumberg told Healthline, and in fact there is no risk of sustained human-to-human transmission, so this [virus] poses no threat to the general public.

The federal government maintains a stockpile of vaccines, including ones that target H5N1 and H7N9 bird flu viruses. These could be mobilized if there are signs of human-to-human spread of the virus.

However, Blumberg said the chance of that happening right now is low.

It would be concerning if avian influenza evolved to be more easily transmitted among people, since [we have] little to no immunity to this virus, he said. However this has not happened since bird flu was first described almost 150 years ago.

Symptoms of bird flu in people range from mild to severe, and may include:

As of December 2023, 902 people have been infected with avian influenza H5N1 virus worldwide in 23 countries, reports the CDC. More than 50% of people died as a result of their infection.

However, the severity of the cases varied depending upon the genetic characteristics of the virus involved, ranging from causing no symptoms to leading to severe illness and death.

With only two human cases in the recent outbreak associated with dairy cattle, it is too soon to know if all cases will be mild. Health officials are closely watching the situation.

To protect yourself and your pets from bird flu, the CDC recommends:

If you find a dead bird, check with your state health department, state veterinary diagnostic laboratory, or state wildlife agency to find out how to report it.

In addition, for those who work in the [animal] industry and do have contact with potentially infectious animals and environments, full personal protective equipment) should be used including goggles, N95 or equivalent, gown, gloves, hair and boot covers, said Blumberg.

The CDC also recommends that you get a seasonal flu vaccine. This wont protect you from bird flu, but will reduce your risk of getting seasonal flu and bird flu at the same time.

Health officials reported that a person in Michigan has been diagnosed with bird flu after close contact with dairy cows presumed to be infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus. This is the second confirmed human case of bird flu in the United States related to infected cattle, following an earlier case in a dairy worker in Texas.

Both patients only symptom is eye inflammation. Tests by the CDC suggest that the infection in the first patient may only involve the eyes, not the upper respiratory tract.

While bird flu virus is known to spread from wild and domesticated birds to mammals, including people, these are the first cases in a person that involves exposure to infected cattle.

More here:

Bird Flu: A Third Person Has Been Diagnosed With the Disease - Healthline

Testing of the latest human case of bird flu has revealed a "notable" mutation in the virus that makes it better adapted to mammals, according to the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Genetic sequencing of the infection in a Michigan dairy farm worker showed that, compared to the infection in a Texan farmhand a month previously, the virus has already evolved to be more likely to jump to humans. Last year, mutations in the H5N1 bird flu virus were already signalling that its potential to jump to humans was increasing, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

Cases of bird flu in people in the US, Australia and South-East Asia are happening alongside the spread of the virus in several mammal species such as cats, mink, cows and alpacas, causing growing concerns among health experts. The World Health Organization's (WHO's) chief scientist, Jeremy Farrar, called the spread of "enormous concern".

The two US patients this year both escaped with mild symptoms such as conjunctivitis, but a Cambodian child who became infected in February this year wasn't so lucky. The nine-year-old died within days after he and his family ate a rooster that had been found dead.

H5N1 has already become "a global zoonotic animal pandemic" according to WHO's Farrar. Since 2022, the virus has killed hundreds of millions of birds, and when it spread to mink farms in Spain, 50,000 mink had to be culled.

Currently, the CDC and WHO deems the risk to human health as low.

But scientists are always on high alert with bird flu because in all four influenza pandemics so far, starting with 1918 'Spanish Flu', the pandemic viruses had at least one genomic segment that was derived from a bird virus.

So far, there have been no cases of human-to-human transmission, and the virus has not yet developed the mutations that would make this more likely. However, the more a virus is transmitted, the faster its evolution. And bird flu has spread at a staggering rate in birds, and increasingly in mammals.

In March 2023, the ECDC were already concerned that they were seeing bird flu viruses "carrying markers for mammalian adaptation in genes such as the PB2 that correlated with increased replication and virulence in mammals".

The worry is that when farmed species such as mink and cattle which have frequent contact with people are infected with bird flu, the risk of the virus jumping to humans is higher.

In July 2023, flu experts Prof Wendy Barclay and Dr Tom Peacock at Imperial College London, UK, warned that, "The establishment of animal reservoirs for viruses that evolve on a separate trajectory from variants in humans sets a potential time bomb for re-emergence of the virus in humans."

For now, scientists are warily watching and waiting to see whether the virus poses any greater threat to people.

The ECDC and the European Food Safety Authority outlined mitigation measures in a report published on 3 April 2024. These measures include "enhancing surveillance and data sharing, careful planning of poultry and fur animal farming (especially in areas with high waterfowl density), and preventive measures such as vaccination of poultry and at-risk people".

Yet, while the virus has been racing through domestic cattle in the US in the past few months, patchy data means it's unclear whether it is being spread between cows easily or whether the cases are mostly from contact between infected birds and cattle.

While scientists don't believe there is a high risk to people just yet, enough lessons were learned from the COVID-19 pandemic that efforts are already underway to develop bird flu vaccines in the event that it learns how to spread between people.

Seasonal flu vaccines are already made every year, and in an emergency, existing production facilities could be switched over to produce pandemic flu vaccines. The first doses could become available as soon as four months after the declaration of a pandemic.

However, current flu vaccines are made using chicken eggs, which is typically slow, and ramping up production also requires enough eggs.

Scientists are exploring other methods of vaccine production to ensure the fastest response possible in the event of a bird flu pandemic. For instance, Moderna has an mRNA pandemic flu vaccine that is hoping to receive US government funding for late-stage clinical trials.

Pandemics rarely emerge fully formed out of nowhere. Scientists had been warning of a coronavirus pandemic for years before it entered the global consciousness in 2020.

Scientists are urging countries to take this threat seriously.

An editorial in The Lancet Infectious Diseases delivers a stronger warning than the CDC or WHO, saying that "the next flu pandemic whether caused by an avian influenza A(H5N1) virus or otherwise seems inevitable. The threat of a pandemic remains high."

This warning was echoed by Dr Michael Mina, expert in the epidemiology, immunology and spread of infectious disease, speaking to CNN: "What we're seeing right now is chapter one of the book that keeps people like me and many infectious disease epidemiologists up at night.

"The genie is not out of the bottle yet, and that's a good thing, but it's a little bit hard to suggest we could be doing too much right now."

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The bird flu virus is mutating to infect mammals more easily, raising concerns of a pandemic threat - Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance