Unexpected H5N1 outbreaks in cattle raises difficult questions about how to protect herds and people
about the first confirmed case of a human infection with a bird influenza virus that has found its ways into dairy cows. The worker developed conjunctivitis, a mild eye infection that frequently occurs when avian influenza viruses jump into humans.
Although cows routinely contract influenza viruses, this is the first time that a “highly pathogenic” bird flu strain has been found in them. USDA says abouthave become ill. Sick cows have a mild illness, and produce less milk, which is thicker than usual, resembling colostrum, the first milk produced after a calf is born.
Texas Health and Human Services said the infected person was tested for flu “late last week” and that CDC confirmed it was the bird flu virus this weekend. The person is being treated with oseltamivir, an antiviral drug. “We need to be advocating for our employees on these farms, providing them support and education in whatever language that it needs to be in,” says Joe Armstrong, a bovine veterinarian who works with University of Minnesota Extension.
Virologist Martin Beer of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute in Germany, who led that study, says “very special circumstances” might explain the spread of the virus in U.S. cattle, including the way the animals are milked or as-yet undetected genomic adaptations in the virus. “We need to wait for much better epidemiological data,” Beer says.
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In world 1st, dairy cows in Texas and Kansas test positive for H5N1 bird fluSascha is a U.K.-based trainee staff writer at Live Science. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Southampton in England and a master’s degree in science communication from Imperial College London. Her work has appeared in The Guardian and the health website Zoe.
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