A growing concern over bird flu is drawing comparisons to the early response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A highly virulent strain of bird flu has been spreading and, for the first time, infecting cows in the United States. Fragments of the H5N1 flu virus has been detected in the cows’ milk, though experts note that those fragments are simply degraded pieces of the virus and can’t cause disease.
One dairy worker in Texas has fallen ill during the outbreak, but the virus is not spreading person-to-person. But some experts are concerned that failures in communication and sharing of data could be hampering efforts to contain the outbreak and prevent the virus from gaining the ability to spread among people.
Some critics say that a large number of governmental and scientific agencies need to communicate smoothly with each other to prevent another pandemic, and they don’t see that happening. They point to how long it took to require broader testing of dairy herds for H5N1, something that’s not going into effect until Monday.
Health officials note that they want to make sure they have enough information before issuing alerts. Dealing with a virus that spreads primarily through, say, milking equipment, which seems to be the case at this point, is very different than dealing with a virus that spread through the air. Experts say the concern is that if the virus spreads widely enough among different kinds of animals, the odds increase that it will mutate into a form that can easily infect people. A swift, coordinated response is the only way to ensure that happens, they say.
Send any questions or comments to Kirk Enstrom at [email protected].