Risk of Bird Flu Outbreak spreading to cows outside US, says WHO

World Health Organization (WHO) said there was a risk of H5N1 bird flu virus outbreak spreading to cows in other countries beyond the United States through migratory birds. United States officials are seeking to verify the safety of milk and meat after confirming the H5N1 virus in 34 dairy cattle herds in nine states, and in one person in Texas. With the virus carried around the world by migratory birds, certainly there is a risk for cows in other countries to be getting infected.

The United Nations (UN) agency deems the overall public health risk posed by the virus to be low but urged vigilance. The UN had received regular updates and praised the United States transparency on the outbreak so far to share the bird flu virus genetic sequence early. The collaboration with United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the information the UN has received so far enables the UN to monitor the situation and to update the preparedness measures.

On March 16th 2024, cows on a Texas dairy farm began showing symptoms of a mysterious illness now known to be H5N1 bird flu. Their symptoms were nondescript, but their milk production dramatically dropped and turned thick and creamy yellow. The next day, cats on the farm that had consumed some of the raw milk from the sick cows also became ill. While the cows would go on to largely recover, the cats were not so lucky.

The cats developed depressed mental states, stiff body movements, loss of coordination, circling, copious discharge from their eyes and noses, and blindness.

By March 20th 2024, over half of the farm’s 24 or so cats died from the bird flu. Researchers in Iowa, Texas, and Kansas found that the cats had H5N1 not just in their lungs but also in their brains, hearts, and eyes. The findings are similar to those seen in cats that were experimentally infected with H5N1, aka highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI).

But, on the Texas dairy farm, they present an ominous warning of the potential for transmission of this dangerous and evolving virus. The contaminated milk was the most likely source of the cat’s fatal infections. Although it can not be entirely ruled out that the cats got sick from eating infected wild birds, the milk they drank from the sick cows was brimming with virus particles, and genetic data shows almost exact matches between the cows, their milk, and the cats.

Therefore, the findings suggest cross-species mammal-to-mammal transmission of HPAI H5N1 bird flu virus and raise new concerns regarding the potential for virus spread within mammal populations. The early outbreak data from the Texas farm suggests the bird flu virus is getting better and better at jumping to mammals, and data from elsewhere shows the virus is spreading widely in its newest host. On March 25th 2024, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed the presence of H5N1 in a dairy herd in Texas, marking the first time H5N1 had ever been known to cross over to cows.

Since then, the USDA has tallied infections in at least 34 herds in nine states: Texas, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Idaho, Ohio, South Dakota, North Carolina, and Colorado.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), meanwhile, has detected genetic traces of H5N1 bird flu in roughly 20 percent of commercial milk samples. While commercial milk is still considered safe—pasteurization is expected to destroy the virus and early testing by the FDA and other federal scientists confirms that expectation, the finding suggests yet wider spread of the virus among the country’s milk-producing cows. In January 2024, it is still a pandemic causing far too many reinfections, hospitalizations, deaths, and long covid when tools exist to prevent them.

Another year has passed where covid has been part of our reality. While the United States remains in a federal public-health emergency free zone, a leader at the WHO voiced concerns about where the world stands at this stage in the pandemic. Covid is still a global health threat. Cases and hospitalizations for covid have been on the rise for months.

Hospitals in many countries are burdened and overwhelmed from covid and other pathogens, and deaths are on the rise. The world has gone through something traumatic, governments and individuals can not give in to complacency. Too many think covid is not something to worry about, that they need a new variant with a Greek letter to take this virus seriously.

The message comes as JN.1, a virus variant in the Pirola clan, is now the most dominant strain in the United States, according to recent estimates from the CDC.

Deaths and hospitalizations from covid are also on the rise across United States and other parts of the world. The covid pandemic is still ongoing. People died alone and people are dying now, thousands each week. Hundreds of thousands of people in hospital right now fighting for their lives. Those suffering from long covid struggling each and every day.

The WHO was worried about the current state of the global outbreak heading into the fifth year since the virus’ eruption. However, the JN.1 variant is not believed to cause a more serious infection than other strains. JN.1 made up 44% of cases and is the most widely circulating variant, increasing from 21.3% and overtaking the HV.1 strain. The CDC also reports a 10% increase in deaths caused by the JN.1 variant.

Covid is still a worry as the global fight against the virus enters a new phase. This condition develops for some people infected by the virus, often leading to months of debilitating symptoms. The WHO called on governments to remember the tragedies of the early days of the pandemic, and the ongoing crisis facing many people. The virus is still evolving.

We are entering the fifth year of the pandemic.

The variant JN.1 is becoming dominant and was recently marked as a variant of interest by the WHO. The covid pandemic was not normal. In December 2023, scientists are warning a virus dubbed the “Zombie Deer Disease” could potentially spread to humans after Yellowstone National Park saw its first in November 2023. Zombie Deer Disease, or Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), is caused by prions that leave animals drooling, lethargic and emaciated, stumbling with a telltale blank stare.

The prions, abnormal transmissible pathogens, cause changes in the hosts’ brains and nervous systems. CWD can spread through deer, elk, moose, caribou, and reindeer and is fatal with no known treatments or vaccines. Cases have been detected across dozens of states, including Ohio, where white-tailed deer tested positive for CWD in Marion and Wyandot counties.

CWD can be found all across Wyoming. Park officials estimate 10-15% of the mule deer that migrate to the southeastern section of Yellowstone in the summer have CWD. Despite the widespread nature of CWD, the long-term effects on deer, elk, and moose are unknown. CWD also transmits among other animals, leaving them drooling, lethargic, stumbling, and with a blank stare.

CWD has been found in more than 800 samples of deer, elk, and moose across the state of Wyoming.

Infected animals get this abnormal protein and it causes them, over a year or two, to develop these holes in their brain so they can not feed themselves, eventually they will die. In 2022, officials confirmed cases in 13 Ohio counties. A deer carcass in Yellowstone National Park tested positive for the highly contagious disease, causing some scientists to sound the alarm about possible risks to humans.

The Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak in Britain provided an example of how, overnight, things can get crazy when a spillover event happens from, say, livestock to people. There is a potential of something similar occurring. It is not definitely going to happen, but it is important for people to be prepared. It is worrying that there is no known way to eradicate it, neither from the animals it infects nor the environment it contaminates.

No known case of CWD in humans has ever been recorded. CWD could pose a risk to certain non-human primates, like monkeys, that eat meat from infected animals. These studies raise concerns that there may also be a risk to people. Since 1997, the WHO has recommended that it is important to keep the agents of all known prion diseases from entering the human food chain.

CWD should be viewed against a backdrop of dangerous emerging zoonotic pathogens. But experts have now warned the disease could soon become a slow-moving disaster and have urged governments across the globe to prepare for the possibility of CWD spreading to humans in the future. These pathogens are said to be moving back and forth across species including humans across the entire globe.

As for humans, any potential outbreaks could occur due to settlements and agricultural operations delving deeper into environments where animals carrying CWD. This will particularly become a concern in the United States as hunting season gets underway. As a result, the CDC is recommending that harvested game animals be tested for CWD, while meat from cervids that appear ill should not be consumed. The science of what is needed to help slow the spread of CWD is clear, and has been known for a long time.

Do not feed wildlife in the face of a growing CWD outbreak.

There is a lot at stake for the Yellowstone ecosystem, and a lot at stake for all Americans who enjoy having healthy wildlife on the landscape. Wildlife predators such as wolves, cougars, and bears are able to detect sick animals long before humans do. They tend to prey on them and remove the animals with the CWD from the landscape, and have so far been immune to the disease.

However, as per some studies, monkeys face the threat of getting infected by CWD if they eat infected animal meat or come in contact with the bodily fluids or brains of infected animals. CWD is a fatal and contagious disease illness which affects cervids, which is a group of animals that includes elk, deer, moose, reindeer, and caribou. CWD is caused by a malformed protein, known as prion, which gets accumulated in the tissues and the brain and causes behavioral and physiological changes, emaciation, and ultimately death.

CWD gets transmitted by direct animal-to-animal contact and also indirectly by getting in contact with infectious particles which are present in soil, vegetation, or faeces. Animals can also get an infection if their pasture or feed is contaminated by the prions which are carrying it. It may take more than a year for the development of symptoms in the deer.

It generally starts with the deer losing weight drastically, stumbling around, and eventually losing all the energy.

At present, there is no cure or vaccine with CWD. In September 2020, at a University of Maryland lab, people infected with covid took turns sitting in a chair and putting their faces into the big end of a large cone. These people recited the alphabet and sang or just sat quietly for a half hour. Sometimes these people coughed. The cone sucked up everything that came out of their mouths and noses.

A device called “Gesundheit II” helped scientists study how covid spread from one person to another. Covid hitchhiked on small liquid particles sprayed out by an infected person. People expelled particles while coughing, sneezing, singing, shouting, talking, and even breathing. The drops came in a wide range of sizes, and scientists tried to pin down how risky each kind was.

The recommendation to stay at least 6 feet apart was based on the idea that larger particles fell to the ground before they could travel very far. The particles were like the droplets in a spritz of a window cleaner, and they could infect a person by landing on his nose, mouth, eyes, or maybe being inhaled. Some scientists focused on tinier particles, the ones that spread more like cigarette smoke.

Those tinier particles were carried by wisps of air and even upward drafts caused by the warmth of our bodies.

The tinier particles could linger in the air for minutes to hours, spreading throughout a room and built up if ventilation was poor. The potential risk came from inhaling the tinier particles. Measles could spread this way, but the new covid was far less contagious than that. For these particles, called aerosols, 6 feet was not a magic distance. But it was still important to keep one’s distance from others because aerosols were most concentrated near a source and posed a bigger risk at close range.

Public health agencies had generally focused on the larger particles for covid. That prompted more than 200 other scientists to publish a plea in July 2020 to pay attention to the potential risk from aerosols. The WHO, which had long dismissed a danger from aerosols except in the case of certain medical procedures, later said that aerosol transmission of the covid cannot be ruled out in cases of infection within crowded and poorly ventilated indoor spaces.

The issue drew attention recently when the CDC posted and then deleted statements on its website that highlighted the idea of aerosol spread. CDC said the posting was an error, and that the statements were just a draft of proposed changes to its recommendations. CDC believed larger and heavier droplets that come from coughing or sneezing were the primary means of transmission.

Aerosol spreading of the covid is possible but it did not seem to be the main way that people get infected.

Further research might change that conclusion. Infection by aerosols was happening a lot more than people initially were willing to think. In March 2020, for example, after a choir member with covid symptoms attended a rehearsal in Washington state, 52 others who had been seated throughout the room were found to be infected and two died. In a crowded and poorly ventilated restaurant in China in January 2020, the virus evidently spread from a lunchtime patron to five people at two adjoining tables in a pattern suggesting aerosols were spread by the air conditioner.

Also in January 2020, a passenger on a Chinese bus apparently infected 23 others, many of whom were scattered around the vehicle. Such events raised concern about aerosol spread but did not prove it happened. There could be another way for tiny particles to spread. The spread might not necessarily come directly from somebody’s mouth or nose, if paper tissues were seeded with influenza virus and then crumpled, they give off particles that bear the virus.

So people emptying a wastebasket with tissues discarded by somebody with covid should wear a mask. Scientists who warned about aerosols said current recommendations still make sense. Wearing a mask was still important, and made sure it fitted snugly. Keep washing hands diligently. And again, staying farther apart was better than being closer together. Avoid crowds, especially indoors.

The main addition to recommendations was ventilation to avoid a buildup of aerosol concentration.

So, stayed out of poorly ventilated rooms. Opened windows and doors. One could also use air-purifying devices or virus-inactivating ultraviolet light. Just did as much as you could outdoors, where dilution and the sun’s ultraviolet light worked in your favor.