Reply With Quote
This ain't yet another attempt to turn Texas is it, Winestein?
The jump to mammals is concerning, and other than the new testing requirement for lactating cows moving across state lines, the outbreaks are uncontrolled.
CAFOs and poultry litter spread disease.
The first calls that Dr. Barb Petersen received in early March were from dairy owners worried about crows, pigeons and other birds dying on their Texas farms. Then came word that barn cats — half of them on one farm — had died suddenly.
Texas Veterinarian Helped Crack the Mystery of Bird Flu in Cows | TIMEWithin days, the Amarillo veterinarian was hearing about sick cows with unusual symptoms: high fevers, reluctance to eat and much less milk. Tests for typical illnesses came back negative.
Petersen, who monitors more than 40,000 cattle on a dozen farms in the Texas Panhandle, collected samples from cats and cows and sent them to Dr. Drew Magstadt, a friend from college who now works at the veterinary diagnostic laboratory at Iowa State University.
The samples tested positive for a bird flu virus never before seen in cattle. It was the first proof that the bird flu, known as Type A H5N1, could infect cows. As of Wednesday, 36 U.S. herds had confirmed infections, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
“It was just a surprise,” recalled Petersen. “It was just a little bit of disbelief.”
At the same time, on almost every farm with sick animals, Petersen said she saw sick people, too.
“We were actively checking on humans,” Petersen said. “I had people who never missed work, miss work.”
So far, two people in the U.S. have been confirmed to be infected with H5N1, most recently a Texas dairy worker linked to the cattle outbreak, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About two dozen people have been tested and about 100 people have been monitored since the virus appeared in cows, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a CDC respiratory diseases official, told reporters Wednesday.
Daskalakis said CDC has seen no unusual flu trends in areas with infected cows, but some experts wonder if anecdotal reports of sick workers mean more than one person caught the virus from the animals.
Petersen said some workers had symptoms consistent with flu: fever and body aches, stuffy nose or congestion. Some had conjunctivitis, the eye inflammation detected in the Texas dairy worker diagnosed with bird flu.
Dr. Gregory Gray, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, has been taking samples from livestock and people on two Texas farms. On farms with confirmed cattle infections, there have also been reports of mild illnesses among the workers, he said.
His research has been difficult. Many workers are reluctant to be tested. That may be because they have limited access to health care or fear divulging private health information.
Without confirmation, no one knows if the sick workers were infected with the bird flu virus or something unrelated, Gray said.
“They seem to be linked in time and space, so one would say it’s biologically plausible,” said Gray.
Some of the workers who fell ill sought treatment and were offered oseltamivir, an antiviral drug sold under the brand name Tamiflu, Petersen said.
Some farm workers who were exposed to infected animals or people were offered the medication, CDC spokesman Jason McDonald said. State health officials are responsible for evaluating and providing treatment, according to federal guidelines.
Health officials in Texas provided Tamiflu to the person known to be infected with H5N1 and household members, plus two people on a second dairy farm who tested negative but were exposed to infected animals, said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. He said he wasn't sure if others had been offered the antiviral.
Farmers have been hesitant to allow health officials onto their land, said Dr. Kay Russo, a Colorado veterinarian who consulted about the outbreak with Petersen.
“This particular disease is looked at as a scarlet letter,” Russo said. “It has this stigma associated with it right now.”
Russo called for wider testing of cattle, people and milk.
“We do not know what we do not measure,” she said. “Unfortunately, the horse left the barn and took off a lot faster than we were able to mobilize.”
Gray worries that a recent federal order requiring testing of all lactating dairy cows moving between states could hinder cooperation even further. All labs that conduct tests must report positive results to the Agriculture Department. But many farmers may simply decide against testing, hoping to outlast the outbreak, he said.
This ain't yet another attempt to turn Texas is it, Winestein?
Sucks for a lot of reasons, but we could do with a few less cows.
I've heard they fart
Hogwash.
$5 a gallon milk to buddy up with $5 a gallon gas.
Genocidal Joe indeed.
for what ails your "immunity debt"
Gibberish.
It's been around for 20 years, on and off the news, and literally zero Americans have died of it... in 20 years. A few hundred deaths in a few thousand cases in Asia, mostly in Indonesia... in the mid 2000s.
It was the most massively overhyped "pandemic" of the Bush administration, even over SARS (i.e., "COVID-02")... ABC and others even made movies about it. All the hypotheticals from 2004, 2005, 2006.
H5N1 Bird Flu is the pandemic that never was, and never will be.
Well, I guess no one would listen to virologists if they all said: relax, everything is gonna be cool.
This virus already broke a lot of public health generalizations.Only birds, not on this continent, no danger to mammals, etc..
The danger is clearly nonzero .Waiting until it has population level effects to mount a response is suboptimum.
In a quarter century..... covid, SARS-02, and even 2009 swine flu did that in a quarter year....
we're talking about the same disease that an apocalyptic pandemic movie was made about in 2006... ing 2006. Fatal Contact: Bird Flu In America (2006). Like a super-charged version of COVID-19.
I remember it was showing on ABC the same time as the Spurs Mavericks 2006 WCSF. The one with the Manu foul on Dirk, for time reference. That's the virus we're talking about right now. The one that literally peaked when Manu hit a three then fouled Dirk with the Spurs up three..
Maybe if we ignore it it will go away
linkNewly released wastewater surveillance data suggests Michigan is a national hot spot for the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus that's infecting poultry, dairy cows and other mammals across the US, and has also been identified in three farmworkers — two in Michigan.
Researchers told the Free Press they're still trying to understand exactly why samples from all six of Michigan's wastewater testing sites monitored by Was erSCAN show high levels of the H5 influenza A virus — the most detections of any of the 38 states with sampling sites — even in areas like Jackson and Warren, where there are no known H5N1 outbreaks among dairy cows, poultry or people this year.
"It's clear that there's something going on," said Marisa Eisenberg, an associate professor in the departments of epidemiology, complex systems and mathematics at the University of Michigan. "We have had questions like: Are we having so much activity for H5N1 in general in Michigan because we're looking for it or is it that we are really a hot spot? I think the wastewater is really telling us that we actually are seeing more activity for H5 than other places are.
"Now as for why, that is a fascinating question. I don't feel like we have a handle on it yet."
That's how Biden Jr., ended up a convicted FELON. Trump did that whilst you was ignoring him hoping he'd go away.
tee, hee.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
