Category: Flu Virus

U.S. health officials on Friday said a new study in Michigan suggested the bird flu virus is not causing asymptomatic infections in people, while also announcing two new human cases in Colorado.

Last month, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services launched a study of workers who were around cows sickened by the bird flu. The researchers drew blood from 35 people.

One goal was to determine if there were people who never had any symptoms but did have evidence of past infections. None of the blood testing showed antibodies that would indicate infections with the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) virus circulating among dairy cattle and poultry, the CDC reported on Friday.

"The lack of antibodies to avian influenza A(H5N1) virus suggests these people were not previously infected with an avian influenza A(H5N1) influenza virus," the agency said. "These data are consistent with other data demonstrating the seroprevalence to HPAI A(H5N1), even among workers with known exposures, is low."

Many of the workers did show antibodies to seasonal flu, which was used as a control virus in the study. Researchers will continue to sample workers, and the data will be analyzed and prepared for a peer-reviewed publication, the CDC said.

Meanwhile, two more infections tied to a Colorado poultry farm were reported, bringing the total to six. It's the largest outbreak of human bird flu infections in U.S. history, and accounts for most of the 11 cases reported to date. Ten of those cases occurred this year, all among farmworkers and all with mild symptoms.

A bird flu virus has been spreading since 2020 among mammals -- including dogs, cats, skunks, bears, and even seals and porpoises -- in scores of countries. Earlier this year the virus, known as H5N1, was detected in U.S. livestock, and is now circulating in cattle in several states.

Health officials continue to characterize the threat to the general public as low, and the virus has not spread between people. But officials are keeping careful watch, because earlier versions of the same virus have been deadly.

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No Asymptomatic Bird Flu Infections in Dairy Farmworkers, Small Study Finds - Medpage Today

The first step in combating any infectious disease outbreak is detection. Without widespread testing, health officials have little sense of who is infected, when to treat patients and how to monitor their close contacts.

In that sense, the bird flu outbreak plaguing the nations dairy farms is spreading virtually unobserved.

As of Monday, the virus had infected 157 herds in 13 states. But while officials have tested thousands of cows and are monitoring hundreds of farmworkers, only about 60 people have been tested for bird flu.

Officials do not have the authority to compel workers to get tested, and there is no way for workers to test themselves. In the current outbreak, just four dairy workers and five poultry workers have tested positive for H5N1, the bird flu virus, but experts believe that many more have been infected.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the mpox (formerly monkeypox) outbreak in 2022 revealed deep fissures in the U.S. approach to testing for emerging pathogens. Those failures prompted federal agencies to move toward policies that would allow rapid scaling of testing during an outbreak.

But progress has been sluggish, interviews with more than a dozen academic and government experts suggest.

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Bird Flu Is Spreading. Why Arent More People Getting Tested? - The New York Times

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has reported five human H5 avian influenza infections in workers who were part of the response to a recent large outbreak at a layer farm, four of which have been confirmed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The patients have mild illness, including conjunctivitis and common respiratory symptoms. None were hospitalized, according to statements from the CDPHE. Though officials haven't said if the virus on the poultry farm is the same as the B3.13 genotype infecting dairy cattle, conjunctivitis has also been reported in four dairy farm workers over the past few months.

Last week, the Colorado Department of Agriculture reported an outbreak at a large layer farm in Weld County, where the virus has also struck several dairy herds. The layer farm had 1.78 million birds, the state's second-largest outbreak since H5N1 first emerged in US birds in 2022. The Weld County poultry outbreak recently prompted an emergency declaration from the state's governor, a step that frees up more resources to help with the response.

Colorado has been one of the states hit hardest by the virus, with at least 36 H5N1 outbreaks in dairy cows,23 of them from Weld County.

On July 12, the CDPHEreported three presumptive positive cases in poultry farm cullers working at a farm in the northeastern part of the state. It also added that state health officials had collected more samples from other symptomatic workers and that the investigation was ongoing with support from the CDC.

'"State epidemiologists suspect the poultry workers cases are a result of working directly with infected poultry," the CDPHE said.

State epidemiologists suspect the poultry workers cases are a result of working directly with infected poultry.

Yesterday, the CDPHEupped its number of avian flu detections in poultry cullers to five, noting that the CDC has confirmed four of the infections and that results are pending for the fifth case, classified as a presumptive positive for now.

On July 3, the CDPHE reported H5 avian influenza in an adult male dairy farm worker exposed to infected cattle. He had mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis.

The CDC yesterday alsoweighed in on the new Colorado cases, adding that it would confirm the fifth case when the samples arrive. Genetic sequencing of the virus is under way to determine the neuraminidase of the virus from the poultry workers.

It said a multidisciplinary, bilingual field team of nine people has been deployed to Colorado to assist state health officials.

The Colorado patients, the first poultry workers to test positive in the United States since 2022, had conjunctivitis, eye tearing, and typical flu symptoms, including fever, chills, cough, and sore throat. "Additional cases may be reported and subsequently confirmed, as monitoring and testing is ongoing," the CDC said.

Additional cases may be reported and subsequently confirmed, as monitoring and testing is ongoing.

Risk to the public is still considered low, but the spurt of new infections underscores the threat of exposure to infected animals, the CDC said.

Since the start of the H5N1 outbreaks in cattle in March, which are occurring alongside sporadic outbreaks in poultry, nine infections have been reported in farm workers, four in dairy workers and five in poultry workers. The most recent human case linked to sick dairy cows was reported from Colorado.

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Colorado reports avian flu infections in 5 people who culled sick poultry - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

On Healthy Living this week, We shed some light on the highly infectious Avian Influenza Bird Flu virus. Nigerian Veterinary Expert, Dr. Lauratu Lawal Halilu, discusses the Impact of Avian Influenza and some prevention steps. Plus, viewers in Rwanda share their knowledge of bird flu and how they stay safe from food borne illnesses. This and other health related updates, on today's Healthy Living!

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Healthy Living: A look at the Avian Influenza Bird Flu virus - VOA Africa

Five people who work at a poultry farm in northeastern Colorado have tested positive for the bird flu, the Colorado public health department reported July 14. This brings the known number of U.S. cases to nine.

The five people were likely infected by chickens, which they had been tasked with killing in response to a bird flu outbreak at the farm.

More than 99 million chickens and turkeys have been infected with a highly pathogenic strain of the bird flu that emerged at U.S. poultry farms in early 2022. Since then, the federal government has compensated poultry farmers more than $1 billion for destroying infected flocks and eggs to keep outbreaks from spreading.

The H5N1 bird flu virus has spread among poultry farms around the world for nearly 30 years. An estimated 900 people have been infected by birds, and roughly half have died from the disease.

The virus made an unprecedented shift this year to dairy cattle in the U.S. This poses a higher threat because it means the virus has adapted to replicate within cows' cells, which are more like human cells. The four other people diagnosed with bird flu this year in the U.S. worked on dairy farms with outbreaks.

Scientists have warned that the virus could mutate to spread from person to person, like the seasonal flu, and spark a pandemic. There's no sign of that, yet.

So far, all nine cases reported this year have been mild, consisting of eye irritation, a runny nose, and other respiratory symptoms. However, numbers remain too low to say anything certain about the disease because, in general, flu symptoms can vary among people with only a minority needing hospitalization.

The number of people who have gotten the virus from poultry or cattle may be higher than nine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tested only about 60 people over the past four months, and powerful diagnostic laboratories that typically detect diseases remain barred from testing. Testing of farmworkers and animals is needed to detect the H5N1 bird flu virus, study it, and stop it before it becomes a fixture on farms.

Researchers have urged a more aggressive response from the CDC and other federal agencies to prevent future infections. Many people exposed regularly to livestock and poultry on farms still lack protective gear and education about the disease. And they don't yet have permission to get a bird flu vaccine.

Nearly a dozen virology and outbreak experts recently interviewed by KFF Health News disagree with the CDC's decision against vaccination, which may help prevent bird flu infection and hospitalization.

"We should be doing everything we can to eliminate the chances of dairy and poultry workers contracting this virus," said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. "If this virus is given enough opportunities to jump from cows or poultry into people, it will eventually get better at infecting them."

To understand whether cases are going undetected, researchers in Michigan have sent the CDC blood samples from workers on dairy farms. If they detect bird flu antibodies, it's likely that people are more easily infected by cattle than previously believed.

"It's possible that folks may have had symptoms that they didn't feel comfortable reporting, or that their symptoms were so mild that they didn't think they were worth mentioning," said Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive for the state of Michigan.

In hopes of thwarting a potential pandemic, the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and about a dozen other countries are stockpiling millions of doses of a bird flu vaccine made by the vaccine company CSL Seqirus.

Seqirus' most recent formulation was greenlighted last year by the European equivalent of the FDA, and an earlier version has the FDA's approval. In June, Finland decided to offer vaccines to people who work on fur farms as a precaution because its mink and fox farms were hit by bird flu last year.

The CDC has controversially decided not to offer at-risk groups bird flu vaccines. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told KFF Health News that the agency is not recommending a vaccine campaign at this point for several reasons, even though millions of doses are available. One is that cases still appear to be limited, and the virus isn't spreading rapidly between people as they sneeze and breathe.

The agency continues to rate the publics risk as low. In a statement posted in response to the new Colorado cases, the CDC said its bird flu recommendations remain the same: "An assessment of these cases will help inform whether this situation warrants a change to the human health risk assessment."

This article was reprinted from khn.org, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF - the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

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5 cases of bird flu reported in Colorado poultry workers, doubling this years US tally - News-Medical.Net

Covid-19 doesn't follow normal seasonal patterns, like other respiratory viruses waves of infection can happen at any time of year.

Every July for the past four years, epidemiologists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have noted a sudden spike in Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations, an annual trend which has been dubbed "the summertime surge".

This summer in the United States, Covid-19 rates are reportedly particularly high in Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada. In these western states, the number of positive tests reached 15.6% on the week ending July 6th, 1% up on the previous week. The CDCs investigations show that viral rates in wastewater are also on the rise once again.

A similar trend has played out on the other side of the Atlantic, where according to the UK's Health Security Agency, positive Covid-19 tests rose from 4% at the end of March to 14% by the end of June.

According to Shan-Lu Liu, who directs the Viruses and Emerging Pathogens Program at The Ohio State University and has studied the FLiRT subvariants , these latest Covid-19 viruses have managed to strike a balance between escaping the immune system and still being able to bind to cells, which is driving many of the new cases.

The elderly and immunosuppressed are particularly vulnerable to new subvariants due to their weakened immune responses to vaccination and natural infection," says Liu. He explains that experts recommend that these groups receive booster shots including the XBB.1.5 monovalent vaccine. This was designed to target the Omicron XBB 1.5 subvariant of Covid-19, which emerged in 2022.

Given the need to protect societys most vulnerable, studying these continually emerging variants remains crucial for updating the worlds Covid-19 vaccines. Based on work done by Liu and others, US regulators and the World Health Organization have been able to make specific recommendations regarding new vaccine targets based on the latest spike protein mutations, in time for the latest Covid vaccine rollout in the autumn.

Yet for the scientists who monitor how SARS-CoV-2 is evolving and changing, it is still almost impossible to predict when the next strains of note will emerge. While most common respiratory infections like influenza or Respiratory Syncytial Virus(RSV) follow seasonal patterns , surging during the autumn or winter months before abating in the spring and summer, Covid-19 is yet to settle into such a distinctive cycle.

In the wake of the latest summer outbreak, it remains to seen whether Covid-19 will ever become a truly seasonal virus, and if so, how long that will take.

According to epidemiologists and medical researchers, there are three main factors which drive cases of infectious disease the virus itself, how many humans are susceptible at a particular time, and the conditions for the virus to spread.

"Seasonality is a characteristic shared by many viruses, most famously the flu's yearly winter endemic," says El Hussain Shamsa, an internal-medicine physician at University Hospitals in Ohio, who published a 2023 study on Covid-19 patterns throughout the year . In this case, it's thought that environmental and behavioural factors could lead to lower immunity and higher transmission of flu viruses in the winter, he says.

However, even influenza never fully goes away. Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology at Yale University, explains that the summer Covid-19 wave is likely to be partially exacerbated by factors such as people gathering in close proximity at festivals and concerts, and the heavy use of air conditioning which dries the air and encourages viral spread.

As an example, infection transmission experts in the UK suggest that an increase in people gathering in crowded pub gardens and bars to follow this summers Euro 2024 football tournament is likely to be behind many of the countrys recent Covid-19 cases. "The latest data suggests that Junes cases peaked around the week of June 17, shortly after Englands first game," says Paul Hunter, a virology consultant and professor at the University of East Anglia. "Cases then began picking up again in July as England progressed through the tournament."

But this still leaves the question of why this year-round effect is mainly being seen with Covid-19 rather than other respiratory infections? Scientists believe that this is because population immunity is far higher with many of the usual seasonal viruses, such as influenza, rhinovirus, and RSV. One reason is that they have simply been around for much longer, meaning they need more ideal conditions to infect us which only come around during the autumn and winter months as temperatures drop, schools return, and people gather more indoors. (Learn more about how diseases spread when we talk and sing .)

Because Covid-19 is still a relatively new virus, our sterilising immunity the bodys ability to eliminate a pathogen before it has the chance to start replicating is considerably lower. Scientists feel this is exacerbated by low vaccination rates, making population immunity dependent on how many people were infected during the most recent wave.

Shamsa points out that the current FLiRT variants share common immune-evading mutations with the Covid-19 variants which drove the previous major surge in infections during the winter of 2023, allowing them to fully capitalise on waning immunity levels. According to the CDC , as of July 7, just 22.7% of over-18s in the US are up to date on their Covid-19 vaccines, compared to 48.2% for influenza. As a result, Hunter says that anyone who didnt catch Covid-19 over the winter, will have very little immunity against the FLiRT variants, driving the current spate of cases.

"With Covid-19, I think many people just dont want or think they need the vaccine, but this means that population immunity waxes and wanes almost in unison based on the frequency and intensity of recent prior waves," says Denis Nash, an epidemiology professor at The City University of New York.

So will Covid-19 ever transition to a more seasonal pattern as human exposure to the virus increases? Some feel that this trend is already emerging, with Hunter pointing out that the summertime surge of cases, hospitalisations and deaths is much milder than that seen during December and January. In the US, 327 people died from Covid-19 during the week of June 15, compared to 2,578 during the week of January 13.

"It may be that we wont ever reach a level of population immunity against SARS-CoV-2 that drives summer cases to zero, or it may take another year or two for us to get there," says Andy Pekosz, professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University.

However, Nash predicts that this process may take decades or even longer, pointing out that humans have been living with and exposed to influenza and other common viruses for hundreds of years.

If Covid-19 does find a stable seasonal pattern, it raises the question of where an annual peak would fit in amongst the spikes we already see from RSV, which peaks during early autumn, and seasonal flu, which reaches its height in mid-winter. Pekosz describes the concept of "virus interference", which means that over time pathogens evolve into cycles which prevent too many viruses circulating simultaneously. "This is because the first one would infect people and cause a period of nonspecific immunity against other viruses," he says.

These are all still questions which could take years or decades to properly answer. Yet some scientists suspect that Covid-19 may never completely disappear during the summer periods, due to the innate properties of coronaviruses which allow them to continue circulating even during warmer weather.

"Weve known for some time that human coronaviruses are not as seasonal as flu, which is certainly helped along by cold temperatures and dry conditions," says Harvard epidemiologist Bill Hanage. "Indeed before 2020, we used to call coronavirus infections summer colds because they were less obviously skewed towards the colder months, so this is not a surprise."

Whatever happens, for now, experts feel that because Covid-19 is still having such a consistent year-round impact, there is a need for more public health messaging to ensure that the most vulnerable people remain fully vaccinated and have access to necessary antivirals on a year-round basis.

"No public health experts who are really paying attention would set expectations around the seasonality of Covid at this point," says Nash. "If messaging was accurate, it would be telling people that they should be up to date all year round, not just in the fall and winter."

For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on FacebookandX.

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Why Covid-19 is spreading this summer - BBC.com

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Posted: July 19, 2024

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday confirmed two additional cases of bird flu in Colorado poultry farm workers.

Last week, Colorado reported four confirmed infections of H5N1 bird flu and was checking on the status of a fifth suspected case.

The two new cases were in poultry workers with exposure to infected poultry during depopulation and disposal activities, the CDC said on Friday.

The cases are part of an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu that has been spreading globally in wild birds, infecting poultry and various species of mammals.

The CDC said on Monday that it deployed a nine-member field team comprising epidemiologists, veterinarians, clinicians and an industrial hygienist to support Colorado's assessment of the outbreak and the human cases.

WATCH | Two decades of bird flu:

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Overall, the genetic analysis of the H5N1 virus in Colorado supports the CDC's conclusion that the human health risk currently remains low, the agency said.

Last month, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Serviceslaunched a study of workers who were around cows sickened by thebird flu. The researchers drew blood from 35 people.

One goal was to determine if there were people who never had any symptoms but did have evidence of past infections. None of the blood testing showed antibodies that would indicate such infections, the CDC reported on Friday.

The CDC added that additional data is necessary to fully understand the occupational risks of exposure to the currently circulating avian influenza viruses.

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2 more poultry workers in Colorado infected with H5N1 bird flu: CDC - CBC News

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Researchers have discovered that certain human flu viruses and avian flu viruses use a second entry pathway to infect cells.

This ability helps the viruses infect different speciesand potentially jump between animals and humans.

The majority of type A influenza viruses circulating in birds and pigs arent normally a health risk for humans. However, the viruses may pose a threat if there is an outbreak like the one currently in dairy cattle in the US or during seasonal epidemics. In rare cases, a virus can jump from animals to humanswith potentially devastating consequences such as a global pandemic.

Most influenza viruses enter host cells by using their envelope proteins, which stand up from the surface like spikes. The so-called hemagglutinin binds to sialic acid, a chemical group on the surface of human cells and the cells of various animal species.

Researchers led by Professor Silke Stertz from the Institute of Medical Virology at the University of Zurich (UZH) have now shown that flu viruses also have a second method to infect host cells.

Human influenza A viruses of subtype H2N2 and related H2N2 avian influenza viruses can enter cells through a second receptor. They use an alternative entry pathway, says Stertz.

The researchers found that hemagglutinin also binds to MHC class II protein complexes. These complexes on the surface of certain immune and respiratory cells are responsible for differentiating between the bodys own cells and foreign cells.

We found that MHC class II complexes in humans, pigs, ducks, swans and chickens allow viruses to enter cells, but not those in bats, says Stertz.

This dual ability to infect cells was observed in lab-grown cell lines and human airway cultures. How well the viral receptor fits onto the cell surface structures plays a crucial part in determining which host species and tissues are infected and ultimately how severe the infection will be. Receptor specificity also influences whether a virus is able to infect different animal species or even humans (zoonosis).

Our finding shows that influenza viruses can adapt to use different entry pathways. This might influence their ability to infect different species and potentially jump between animals and humans, emphasizes the UZH virologist.

The risk that avian, swine, and other animal influenza viruses could trigger a flu pandemic in humans may thus be greater than previously assumed. The ability to use MHC class II proteins for cell entry could have been one of the reasons why H2N2 influenza viruses emerged as a pandemic virus in Asia back in 1957. This is another good reason to step up global influenza surveillance in both animals and humans.

The research appears in Nature Microbiology.

Source: University of Zurich

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Flu viruses have 2 paths to infect cells - Futurity: Research News

For months, fearing that the current version of bird flu had a much higher chance of spreading to humans than previous iterations, experts have pushed for a more aggressive response from U.S. health agencies to reduce human exposure and prevent a potential pandemic. The urgency of those requests is about to rise.

Late on Sunday, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reported that five people have tested positive for bird flu among workers at an egg farm in Weld County, Colorado. Four of those cases have been confirmed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC), and one test is pending confirmation.

The cases emanated from a major flu outbreak at the farm, which affected nearly 1.8 million chickens. The workers were in the process of destroying those chickens, a process known as culling.

Colorados governor has declared a disaster emergency in response to the outbreak, and the announcement by state health officials of the positive cases represents a grim landmark. It denotes the first time a cluster of human infection has been reported on a single farm in the U.S., and it again raises the stakes on the seriousness of this virus.

State health officials said the workers exhibited mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis (pink eye) and respiratory issues, and no one was hospitalized. But the incident marks the kind of turning point that experts have worried over for some time.

I am extremely concerned that we are on the brink of this being really already in humansand once its in humans, it is going to be a real problem to control, says Seema Lakdawala, a microbiologist and immunologist at Emory University who specializes in influenza. I will tell you that what has been driving me the past few months is trying to prevent H5 from becoming a pandemicI have never felt that we were as close as we are now.

In its own way, the CDC echoes that concern, referencing in general terms the pandemic potential of H5N1 and other novel flu viruses once humans are in the mix. But the agency added that it hasnt yet seen genetic changes in the virus that would make human transmission more likely, and it continues to judge the risk to the general public as low.

This basic concerna virus that already has shown the ability to adapt to multiple animal species, now jumping to humansis what prompted experts and researchers to begin clamoring for more testing of both animals and workers on farms, including blood tests, as well as for vaccinations and antivirals at the ready. They also want farmworkers to be educated about the importance of wearing personal protective equipmentand for the CDC, USDA, and other health agencies, especially those at the state level, to step up the urgency.

Farmworkers are considered to be on the front lines of risk because of their proximity to both chickens and dairy cattle, two species in which H5N1 has already been found in alarming numbers in the U.S.and that is with limited testing of both animals and those who work near them. The key, experts say, is to broaden testing practices now, not later. Waiting for more clusters of infection to appear, they say, is an open invitation to mass spread.

Id like to see them swabbing from not just the symptomatic people that theyve talked about, but also asymptomatic people on the same farm in the family circle unit and in the community, says immunologist Rick Bright, a former federal health official. And Id like to see them taking blood samples for serology testing.

Serologic testing could help to identify people who have been infected and had either mild or asymptomatic H5N1 disease that investigators may be missing. If the testing came back positive for a family member of an infected worker, for example, it could be indicative of human-to-human transmission. And, thats really important to see, says Bright.

The CDCs release on the events included the news that the agency was sending a team to assist Colorados investigation at the states request. The wording was noteworthy. Despite the national implications of a virus spreading from animal to human, and potentially from human to human (there is no evidence of that yet), the CDC still has to be invited to participate in any single states investigation of the problem.

Individual farms cannot be forced by the federal agency to test either animals or workers. Such authority resides with state and sometimes county or local agencies, and researchers say past experience suggests that many farms will be reluctant to a testing process that could lead to their shutdown or loss of their workforce.

But there are other issues that cry out for quick resolution. One of them, experts say, is a horrible lag time in reporting the results of testing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA.

We have not seen increased transparency from the USDA, says Bright. Last week they dumped about 80 viruses into the database, and when you look at those 80 viruses, they were a bunch of viruses collected from birds. The samples were collected throughout 2023 and into early 2024. Its ridiculousBy not being transparent and timely with their data, the USDA is really forcing a lot of guesswork.

Bright wants to see the most recent few weeks of virus sequences from cows, cats, mice, and humans, in order to understand if the virus is changing in ways that may make it easier to spread or cause more severe disease in people. And we need them to be uncloaked to be able to determine where and when the blood samples were collected, the immunologist says.

Even given the problems of coordinating federal, state, and local agencies, the lack of testing on humans in the U.S. is glaring. According to the CDC, barely more than 60 people have been tested for the novel bird flu virus since farm outbreaks began this spring. This testing often involves eye, nose or throat swabs to look for active infection, but does not include blood draws which would be needed for serosurveillance.

There are barriers for our public health agencies to achieve this, but it would certainly be valuable to have more widespread testing, says Emory virologist and influenza expert Anice Lowen. Lowen counts farm, dairy, and poultry workers with potential exposure among those in need of testing.

We really do not have a good idea how much spillover is happening, the virologist says. The handful of cases that have been documented are potentially the tip of the iceberg, but we just dont know because theres not enough testing going on.

Bright is among those calling for the CDC to make vaccines available now to farmworkers and others at high risk of contracting bird flu, arguing that it is unethical to do anything less. Though its clear that the U.S. lacks the stockpile to effectively vaccinate the full population in the case of a mass outbreak, there is more than enough to begin with those on the front lines.

Theres no such thing as just a little conjunctivitis. or just a little respiratory (issue) when youre dealing with a deadly virus, Bright says. The virus, he adds, has already demonstrated the ability to mutate very easily, very quickly, and it can cause severe illness and death. So lets stop it in its tracks, not wait and see and let it get worse.

Whether the CDC will follow the experts suggestions remains an open question. The agencys response so far has been muted, with no change in official recommendation.

For those whove been closely tracking this bird flu, though, the signs are ominous, and they warrant a proactive response-including vaccination of frontline farmworkers. Thats why we have these stockpiles, Seema Lackdawala says. Its surprising to me that they havent been leveragedWe always expected this at some point in time.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs ofFortune.

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Bird flu outbreak at Colorado farm as 5 workers reported positive: Experts warn of turning point, call for urgent action - Fortune

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The spread of bird flu among poultry and dairy farms has heightened some health experts' concerns that the process of killing and disposing of poultry infected with the virus may pose a risk to humans and livestock.

Recent instances of farms dumping carcasses in landfills and using methods to kill chickens that put workers in close proximity to the virus show how the process of getting rid of infected birds could further spread the disease, according to data obtained by Reuters and interviews with officials and disease experts.

Extreme heat that made it difficult to keep protective equipment on during the asphyxiation by carbon dioxide of chickens on a Colorado egg farm likely contributed to five bird flu cases among workers, the largest cluster of human cases in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention said this week.

IN A POTENTIAL OUTBREAK, IS BIRD FLU TESTING AVAILABLE FOR HUMANS? WHAT TO KNOW

The situation highlights the need for systematic use of protective gear when killing the sick animals, said the CDC's Principal Deputy Director Nirav Shah on a Tuesday call with reporters about the outbreak.

Workers killing chickens risk inhaling the virus, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, of the process. The workers had mild symptoms including pink eye and respiratory issues.

"Depopulation activities need to clearly focus on protection for these individuals," he said.

The CDC and other health experts emphasized the importance of workers using proactive equipment when dealing with animals infected with avian influenza after five Colorado poultry farm workers tested positive for the virus. (Reuters/Mike Blake)

So far, there have been no human or livestock cases linked directly to disposal of animals with avian flu.

Bird flu has migrated to nearly every U.S. state over the past 2.5 years. There have been nine cases among poultry and dairy workers since March, including the Colorado poultry workers.

Further bird flu spread among livestock could increase the likelihood of human infections, though the risk to the general public is still low, officials from the CDC have said.

About 95 million chickens, turkeys, and other poultry have been killed and disposed of since February 2022, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data obtained by Reuters showing culling and disposal methods through late June.

Bird flu is fatal in birds and the government requires entire flocks to be culled once the virus is on a farm. The deadliest year was 2022, but nearly as many chickens have been disposed of so far in 2024 as in all of 2023, the data shows.

The sick workers in Colorado, for instance, were killing the birds with mobile gas chamber carts, said Julie Gauthier, an official at USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, on the Tuesday call.

The carts can typically accommodate between a dozen and 50 birds and workers asphyxiate them batch by batch, Gauthier said. A USDA spokesperson said the agency had reviewed the farm's use of the method as part of its response to the outbreak.

More than 150 of the workers were exposed to infected poultry, 69 displayed symptoms and were tested, and five were positive, said AnneMarie Harper, communications director at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Most chickens are killed by asphyxiation either with portable chambers like those used in Colorado, or by spraying a firefighting foam on the birds or shutting down ventilation to the chicken barns, the USDA data shows.

A small number are killed with firearms, by cervical dislocation, or other means.

Most of the culled birds are composted, either in chicken houses or on farms, or buried, according to the USDA data. To compost the birds, farmers cover them in material like wood shavings, maintain the compost piles at a high temperature, and stir them occasionally with farm equipment in a process that typically takes several weeks.

Federal and state officials work with farmers to determine the best disposal methods, said John Clifford, a former USDA chief veterinarian, now an advisor for the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council, an industry group.

It is safest to compost on site to avoid moving the carcasses and potentially spreading the virus, said Myah Walker, compliance unit supervisor at the Minnesota Board of Animal Health.

In rarer cases, carcasses are transported to landfills, a process that can meet some federal and state regulations.

Michigan egg producer Herbruck's Poultry Ranch disposed of nearly 2 million chickens between April 15 and June 8 in private landfills, according to USDA data and Michigan state records of the disposal process obtained by Reuters.

Herbruck's declined to comment.

Just 3% of all poultry have been disposed of in landfills since 2022, and the Herbruck's outbreak accounts for about two-thirds of them, the USDA data shows.

Soon after the Herbruck's disposal, a dairy farm near one of the landfills tested positive for bird flu, alarming area farmers. Even so, whole genome sequencing showed the disposed Herbruck's carcasses did not cause the infection, said Adeline Hambley, Ottawa County's health officer.

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Wild birds have helped spread the virus between poultry farms and to other species.

Brian Hoefs, the state veterinarian for Minnesota, said he would not recommend disposing of dead poultry in landfills.

"That's the restaurant for scavengers. It would be a recipe for disaster," he said.

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Health experts raise concern over the disposal of infected poultry birds as avian flu spreads - Fox News