US detects avian flu in milk, says dairy supplies are safe

Samples of milk collected from sick cattle in Kansas and Texas tested positive for avian flu, but the nation's milk supply is safe, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Monday.

The detections in milk and a dairy cow show the wide reach of the virus, known as bird flu, which has been found in poultry flocks and mammals around the world.

The USDA, along with the FDA and CDC, are investigating dairy cows in Kansas, Texas and New Mexico with symptoms including decreased milk production and low appetite, the USDA said.

So far, "unpasteurized, clinical samples of milk" collected from two dairy farms in Kansas and one in Texas tested positive for highly pathogenic avian flu, the government said. A cattle swab test from another dairy in Texas also was positive.

Based on findings from Texas, wild birds, which spread the virus globally, appear to have introduced the virus to cattle, the USDA said. Testing indicates the risk of human infection is low, according to the agency.

The government said milk from sick cows is being diverted or destroyed so it does not enter the food supply. Pasteurization is required for milk entering interstate commerce, a process that kills bacteria and viruses such as flu, the USDA said.

"At this stage, there is no concern about the safety of the commercial milk supply or that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health," the agency said. It added there should be no impact on prices for milk or other dairy products.

U.S. dairy industry groups urged importers not to ban or restrict shipments of U.S. dairy products because of the detections.

Importers have limited purchases of U.S. poultry since the nation's worst-ever outbreak of the disease began in chicken and turkey flocks in 2022.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-detects-avian-flu-milk-221643819.html

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states/h5n1-tracking-af/987593-us-several-samples-taken-from-dairy-cows-test-positive-for-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-in-texas-kansas-potentially-new-mexico-march-24?view=stream[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/united-states/h5n1-tracking-af/987593-us-several-samples-taken-from-dairy-cows-test-positive-for-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-in-texas-kansas-potentially-new-mexico-march-24?view=stream latest;

Treyfish replied

Today, 08:37 PM

......
The illness was first reported in late February and had affected 15 herds in the Texas panhandle area. Most veterinarians working on the problem had said they did not believe it was a novel disease – and that appears to have been confirmed this week. There were rumors blaming bioterrorism or a variant of avian influenza and the current information seems to have borne out the latter rumor. There are reports that some herds in New Mexico are also affected by the same problems.....



The tests come as the USDA, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have worked with state veterinary and public health officials to investigate sick dairy cows in Kansas, Texas and New Mexico.

"Initial testing by the National Veterinary Services Laboratories has not found changes to the virus that would make it more transmissible to humans, which would indicate that the current risk to the public remains low," the USDA news release said.

The veterinary experts are moving quickly to conduct additional testing for HPAI and will do viral genome sequencing to better understand what’s been going on with these dairy cows.

In the affected herds, the disease appears to impact about 10 percent of the animals. The American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP) held a conference call for members on March 22 and said that there are reports of some similar cases on Kansas dairies.

Dr. Fred Gingerich, a cattle vet who is executive director of American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP) told dairyherd.com that the disease appears to peak in about three to four days and lasts 10 days to two weeks. Older dairy cows appear to be more clinically affected and their lactation is more severely affected. “Although it’s not consistent with every herd, it appears that it’s mostly affecting animals that are in mid to late lactation. It’s pretty unusual that we have something going on in older animals and not in fresh cows.”....

He told the publication that there doesn’t appear to be deaths caused by the disease, however, the milk production drop adds up to a huge economic loss on these dairy farms. Cows affected by the virus recovered from the initial illness without any secondary signs and are slowly coming back into production....

 https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news...a/73099355007/

DJ, lots of viewpoints;

-short term; "limited regional economic loss"

-long term; This virus is not supposed to infect cows, goats !!!

-What changes/mutations are happening in the virus ?

-How widespread is this -very likely H5N1- variant ?

-A-symptomatic/mild symptomatic cases missed ?

-Pigs, minks, sheep infected ? If not why not ? (no contact with the virus ?)

-Does this new subvariant cause less symptoms in birds-however still spread via birds ?

-Cow-cow/goat-to-goat infection ? 

-Testing on farm cats/dogs/rats/mice ???? How many species are involved ????

VERY VERY ALARMING !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[url]https://afludiary.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-brief-history-of-influenza-in.html[/url] or https://afludiary.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-brief-history-of-influenza-in.html ;

The report yesterday that dairy cows in Texas, Kansas, (and likely) New Mexico have been infected with HPAI H5N1 - which followed the previous week's report of infected goat kids in Minnesota - is surprising, but not entirely without precedent.  

As noted previously, in 2008 researchers at Germany's FLI successfully infected four calves with an older clade of HPAI H5N1 (see EID Journal Experimental Infection of Cattle with HPAI H5N1), but reports of natural infection have been rare.

Admittedly, cattle are only rarely tested for HPAI, but a 2013 an H5N1 seroprevalence study in Egypt found that - while some horses, donkeys, and swine in the region showed evidence of past infection - cattle, sheep, goats and buffalo did not (see Sero-prevalence of Avian Influenza in Animals and Human in Egypt). 

Although not influenza A - for the past dozen years we've been following research on the newly discovered Influenza D virus - which was first detected in swine, but is now believed to primarily infect cattle (see Viruses: Influenza D in Domestic and Wild Animals).

While we haven't seen any evidence that Influenza D can cause symptomatic illness in humans, in the summer of 2016 - in Serological Evidence Of Influenza D Among Persons With & Without Cattle Exposure - researchers reported finding a high prevalence of antibodies against Influenza D among people with cattle exposure.

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5. Natural Cases of Influenza A in Bovines

First recorded evidence of influenza in cattle occurred in 1949, where 160,000 cattle were infected in the western and middle part of Japan [76]. This incidence of cattle influenza ran for a short course with recovery in 2–3 days and the documented symptoms included high temperature (40–42 °C), blepharitis, nasal discharge, anorexia, tympanites, pneumonia, joint problems, and a decrease in lactation. 

This report also mentioned about some major cattle influenza outbreaks occurred previously in the Fall of 1889 and 1893, and some minor outbreaks in 1914–1916 in Japan [76]. The same study also mentioned an experimental infection of 11 calves, using nasal discharge/defibrinated blood from diseased animals and the successful virus isolation in mice, characterized by few deaths and lung and liver lesions at the 20th serial passage.

The first report on influenza virus isolation from animals was documented by Romvary et al. [88] from Hungary in 1962, which described the isolation of IAV strains similar to human H2 HA glycoprotein from pigs and sheep during 1959–1960. Romvary et al. [46] also isolated porcine IAV strains bearing human H3 HA glycoprotein.

Lopez and Woods reviewed influenza viruses from cattle and the first cattle-origin influenza isolate was reported by Barb et al., 1962, cited in [47]. Furthermore, there were reports on cattle influenza from several countries primarily from the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and the publications were mostly in the Russian language, with the rare occurrence of English abstract and keywords.

Among these, the earliest report was on the seroepidemiological study of influenza in domestic species of animals in 1969 [25]. During the period 1970–80, cattle isolates of influenza A have been reported from different parts of the world, post/around the time 1968 Hong Kong H3N2 pandemic occurred in humans.

In 1973, the isolation and identification of the A/Hong Kong/1/1968 (H3N2) virus from cattle suffering respiratory diseases were reported in Russia [45]. The earliest cattle influenza A strain studied under experimental conditions was A/calf/Duschambe/55/71 (H3N2) from Russia. This strain was derived from a natural case of respiratory illness in a terminally ailing calf and was isolated in embryonated chicken eggs [45].

Both H1N1 and H3N2 strains were isolated from cattle later. Few of these isolated strains reported include Sw/Shope (H1N1) from Hungary and several H3N2 strains from the USSR. The two viruses isolated from Hungary and the USSR possessed type 2 neuraminidase; however, HA glycoproteins were unidentified [47]. The H3N2 strains were similar to the prototypic human H3N2 strain A/Hong Kong/1/1968 (Schild G, C., World Influenza Center, London).

(SNIP)

In 1997, an idiopathic condition manifested in dairy cows in Bristol, southwest England with a sporadic drop in milk production [95]. Brown et al. [96,97] also reported seroconversion against influenza A in cattle from Great Britain, which was markedly associated with reduced milk yield and respiratory disease. However, the virus isolation from these seroconverted animals was unsuccessful. Interestingly, these cattle seroconverted to influenza A virus alone, with no detectable antibodies against BVD, IBR, PI3, and BRSV, suggestive of the etiological role of influenza A in the reduction of milk yield.

Furthermore, in 1999, Gunning et al. [98] also reported that the natural cases of influenza in milking cows increased with an annual incidence rate of 10–20% in some herds of England with a sudden drop in milk yield, mild pyrexia, anorexia, occasional respiratory signs such as nasal discharge and increased respiratory rate. High levels of neutrophils and haptoglobin were present in the blood in most of these cases. Serological screening of paired sera collected from five cattle herds with the same clinical history against IBR, PI3, BRSV, adenovirus, M. bovis, H. somnus, C. psittaci, C. brunetti, P. hemolytica, P. trehalosi, treponemes revealed antibodies against BRSV and PI3 in all herds, while BVD and IBR were detected only in some herds. On the other hand, these cattle sera demonstrated significantly high antibody titer to two human IAVs: 60% for A/England/333/80 (H1N1) and 65% for A/England/427/88 (H3N2) and only 5% of the cows were seronegative against both viruses [98].

These observations clearly indicated the exposure and natural susceptibility of cattle to human influenza A viruses. 

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Cattle-origin IAV strains were isolated during the early 1970s, around the time when Hongkong/1968 human IAV strains (H3N2) were prevalent. Although the relatedness of HA glycoprotein of these cattle IAV strains to human H2 and H3 prototypes was reported, sufficient data/characterization studies were lacking to support the extent of genetic relatedness.

Pigs, which were domesticated by humans 1500 years after cattle, are naturally susceptible to all four influenza types and are excellent mixing vessels of influenza. Hence, the refractory nature of bovines against influenza A could be due to species-specific host-associated interference as discussed before. Compared to IAV and IBV (eight segmented genomes), bovines are naturally susceptible to IDV, and lately to ICV (seven segmented genomes) as indicated by the seroprevalence studies and isolation of complete viral genomes, thus contributing significantly to the bovine respiratory disease along with other bacterial/viral pathogens.

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Exactly why HPAI H5N1 is suddenly turning up in ruminants after 20 years is unknown. Some of it may be due to testing bias; since cattle have long been assumed to be poor hosts for influenza A, they are less likely to be tested, which only helps perpetuate the belief. 

But we've also seen a dramatic shift in HPAI H5N1's ability to infect mammals around the globe over the past 2 or 3 years.  It does appear to be expanding its host range.  A genomic analysis of the viruses isolated from these ruminants will hopefully yield some valuable clues.

An obvious concern now is, if H5N1 has adapted well enough to spillover into cattle and goats, are swine next?  A year ago, the ECDC/EFSA Avian Influenza Overview December 2022 – March 2023 warned:

While we've seen scattered reports of H5N1 in pigs (see here , here, and here), the virus has yet to gain a foothold (see EID Journal: Low Susceptibility of Pigs against Experimental Infection with HPAI Virus H5N1 Clade 2.3.4.4b).

In swine, HPAI would potentially have access to a plethora of other influenza A viruses, which could greatly increase the risk of viral reassortment. 

This is obviously a developing story, with investigations underway in several states.  Right now, we have more questions than answers.

Stay tuned.  

https://www.blogger.com/profile/07982161449334601397

DJ, 

-It is good to see a study on A-flu in cattle in history...in itself it is NOT new-even the 1968 Hong Kong-flu A-H3N2 pandemic spilled over in cattle

-The background is very alarming...even with very limited testing lots of mammals did get infected by eating dead infected birds/droppings...

-So Sea lions also have mammal-to-mammal spread...H5N1 is "on the move"

If you look at how we failed to stop SARS-2/CoViD-19, we stopped SARS-1 in 2003, it gets even worse..."economy=profits first-means only money matters"....

The BIG problem may not be in the virus but in the way we keep ignoring risks...

I agree that this is worrying but there was a sentence in one of the above articles that said

"Cows affected by the virus recovered from the initial illness without any secondary signs and are slowly coming back into production...."

and from that I take a lot of comfort. The sky is not falling in. Maybe all ruminants will fail prey to this virus and then they will be sick for a short while, then recover and then be back to normal. I hope that no one tries to use this virus as an excuse to put even more cows into these awful indoor factory farms. It's animal cruelty in my opinion. 

We'll just have to treat this avian flu as a temporary hiccup like a common cold. It's not killing cows or causing any long term effects. So long as their milk and meat products are kept out of the food chain then all should be well. It will require farmers to be more diligent.

What I noticed is OLD cows are more affected...(a bit unusual)...So there may be an increase of cows being culled-in part the flu brings an end to "productivity" earlier...

Concentration cows indoors will likely result in more cows catching the flu...

There are -by now- lots of mammal species that did see H5N1 infection. However it may all be different subvariants/clades of H5N1...Human cases (Cambodia, Vietnam, Chile a.o.) may not have clear links with mammal spread-often linked with poultry/birds...

"case-case-cluster-cluster-boom" turns out a bit complicated...H5N1 seems to be "crawling towards humans"...But the "cow cases" in the US may have needed another infection to end up vulnerable for H5N1 ?

On the other end of this story...H5N6/H5N8 other new variants could mix -increase risks ?

Feeding pigs dead birds/poultry that may have H5N1 is "asking for problems"-pigs may recombine H5N1 with (more "normal" H1N1/H3N2 etc) human flu types...

So...yes, keeping an eye on, NOT lethal in most cows, may be very limited in spread (two US states ?)...

I was thinking of the "Mexican flu pandemic" -well it did not turn into anything major...we have had false alarms earlier..

[url]https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/987776-cidrap-avian-flu-detections-in-dairy-cows-raise-more-key-questions[/url] or https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/local-regional-communities-and-organizations/cidrap/987776-cidrap-avian-flu-detections-in-dairy-cows-raise-more-key-questions ;

DJ, more testing for H5N1 in both cattle, farm pets and birds in the area would be welcome. 

In general-the reason why we miss 99% of infections is we do not test...It is also not very practical, does have costs...However NOT increasing surveilance, monitoring may increase pandemic risks...One only notices the problem when it already is widespread...

Becoming a vegetarian/vegan may be wise...