The U.S. Division of Agriculture kicks off a brand new program searching for extremely pathogenic hen flu within the milk provide. Beginning this week, they’re testing samples of milk supposed for pasteurization.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The hen flu outbreak in U.S. dairy cattle retains getting worse. Greater than 50 human instances have been confirmed, and the variety of contaminated cows retains rising too. That is why this week, the U.S. Division of Agriculture is starting widespread testing of the nation’s milk provide for the virus. NPR’s Pien Huang is right here to assist us perceive what is going on on, Hey, Pien.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Inform us about this new testing program. How does it work?
HUANG: OK. So beginning this week, the USDA is requiring samples of milk to be collected earlier than it will get pasteurized and shared for testing. These milk samples are going to be taken from large storage tanks at dairy processing vegetation the place milk from a number of completely different farms, tens of hundreds of cows, are all combined collectively. And whereas there are some in public well being that say it is not likely the strong testing they had been hoping for, Ted McKinney, head of the Nationwide Affiliation of State Departments of Agriculture, says it is a begin.
TED MCKINNEY: Our sense is that, no, it isn’t going to each single milk tank on each single farm. However boy, it is the subsequent smartest thing. It begins to get you extra info, extra surveillance information than you could have now.
HUANG: Now, if a milk pattern checks constructive for hen flu, it is imagined to set off a farm investigation to determine the place the cows are contaminated. This federal order begins with six states this week, together with some states the place it is spreading quickly and states the place no instances have been discovered. And it’s supposed to succeed in all 50 states sooner or later.
SHAPIRO: We have identified about hen flu in cows for some time now. So why is that this program launching now?
HUANG: Yeah, now we have, Ari. And McKinney says that the concept of testing extra robustly has been kicking round for a few months. State veterinarians, particularly, have been calling for extra surveillance. However he says that it took a while to get everybody concerned to agree on a plan.
The timing additionally does make it clear that this hen flu outbreak will not be dying down. So keep in mind, that is an outbreak that is thought to have began when hen flu jumped from wild birds to dairy cows in Texas someday late final yr. And within the spring, it turned clear that it was spreading with cows which are being moved to completely different farms in numerous states. Since then, it has been detected in nearly 850 herds in 16 states. And previously few weeks particularly, it has been spreading quickly amongst California’s dairy cows. There have been greater than 300 new confirmed instances previously 30 days, and it is also infecting farm staff too.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. So inform us extra in regards to the numbers amongst people. What do we all know?
HUANG: Yeah. So in accordance with CDC, there have been 60 confirmed instances in people since April. Most of those have been in farm staff, although, there have been a number of complicated instances with no identified connection to farms or cattle. Many of those have been gentle. Folks have had flu signs, some eye infections. However there’s some proof that there are instances which are going unnoticed. You realize, the CDC did a research of dairy farm staff and located that 7% had antibodies to hen flu, which indicated that that they had lately recovered from it, possibly with out even figuring out that that they had it. Seema Lakdawala at Emory College research how flus unfold.
SEEMA LAKDAWALA: Each time this virus spills over into people, it has the potential to adapt and acquire the properties crucial for transmission human to human.
SHAPIRO: That sounds ominous, Pien. So how nervous ought to folks be?
HUANG: OK, so on the one hand, Ari, it’s excellent news that the model of the virus that is at present spreading amongst dairy cows has been spreading for nearly a yr now or extra, and it hasn’t been spreading quite a bit amongst people or inflicting extreme sickness. The CDC does say that the danger of an infection to most of the people stays low.
However alternatively, there was this current research from the Scripps Analysis Institute that discovered it might take only one mutation to a viral protein to make it higher infect people. So not a pandemic but. Everybody hopes it can keep that means, however individuals who observe pandemics are nervous.
SHAPIRO: That’s NPR’s Pien Huang with the most recent on the H1N1 hen flu outbreak amongst dairy cattle and people. Thanks, Pien.
HUANG: Thanks, Ari.
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