More work needs to be done by the agricultural sector to get to the bottom of — and put a stop to — transmission of H5N1 bird flu in dairy cattle in the United States, a senior World Health Organization official said over the weekend.
New research into the ongoing bird flu outbreaks on dairy farms describes in unprecedented detail how efficiently the virus has spread among cows, and from cows to other mammals, including cats and a raccoon.
The rapid test is the latest scientific advancement against bird flu and comes from Alveo Technologies Inc. (California), a leader in molecular sensing and diagnostics with a proprietary technology platform.
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 nation’s 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.
