The disclosure that dairy students in Nevada are infected by a version of the H5N1 bird flu that has not been seen in cows before has put virologists and researchers on a high report. The news of the Nevada Department of Agriculture, among other things, suggests, among other things, that driving the virus from the American cattle population will not be as easy as federal officials ever presented – or perhaps hoped.
On Friday a second and potentially more serious blow came: a technical assignment from the US Department of Agriculture reported that the genotype, known as D1.1, contains a genetic mutation that can help the virus more easily copy itself with mammals – including people .
This D1.1 version of the virus is the same variant that a man in Louisiana killed and has taken a Canadian teenager in a critical condition. It is not the B3.13 genotype that is found a lot in sick cattle until the beginning of last year.
“This can be of great importance if this virus continues to spread among cows and infects more people,” says immunologist and former federal health officer Rick Bright tells Fortune. “This mutation is not associated with improved human transfer, so there are no meaningful signs of improved spread yet. But when this virus comes to humans, it is ready to cause a much more serious illness than the (B3.13) virus that circulated in cows.
“We have never been closer to a pandemic from this virus,” adds Bright. “And we still don't do everything possible to prevent it or reduce the impact if it strikes.”
The D1.1 -Genotype is detected in wild birds in all North -American flyways, as well as mammals and poultry, so it is not surprising that it has made the leap to cows. But the new presence in the Nevada Dairy Kudes is considered by many virologists to mark a kind of bending point in the spread of H5N1, and it can cause more problems for people in the future.
“Given that D1.1 seems to be more viruler in people, this can indicate a major change in terms of risks of public health from the earlier scenario with the B3.13 -Stame,” Veterinary science pioneer Juergen, a former director of the National Institutes of Health, says Fortune.
In response to an e -mail of questions, a spokesperson for the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that the agency still regards the risk of human health for the general public to be low. “However, people with close, long -term or unprotected exposures to infected birds or other animals (including cattle), or for environments contaminated by infected birds or other animals, run a greater risk of infection,” the spokesperson said.
The USDA on Friday noted that although the Nevada cattle did not show clinical signs of infection prior to its detection through tests, such signs have since been reported, along with drops of a large number of wild birds near the affected dairy factories.
Should people take more precautions? What is the scope of the risk? And are there mitigating actions that should already be on the American farms and dairy factories?
The urgency of those questions suggests that an absolute premium must be placed in the coming weeks on the timely distribution of information and test updates of the federal sources on which researchers and health officials often trust. But that flow of information no longer needs to be taken for granted.
On January 21, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) placed a freezing of almost all external communication, including documents and health guidance under orders of the Trump administration, until an officer appointed by Trump could be installed and approval. Such a step is not unprecedented, but when the information freezes past his deadline of 1 February without fully lifting, democratic leaders started crying dirty.
An important victim of that action was the weekly report of the CDC's morbidity and mortality. The MMWR is, as is known, a critical source of information about problems with public health. The MMWR has not published for the first time in more than sixty years on January 23 and again on January 30. Publication resumed on 6 February, but no report was made of bird flu or information about the three H5N1 studies that would be published according to the planned in January according to the Washington Post.
Further, according to the Wall Street JournalThe Trump administration is said to be planning to eliminate the jobs of thousands of US Department and Human Services (HHS). It is said that it is said that public health officials are being told to arrange employees on the basis of how critically their roles are.
Depending on where these cuts land about the different agencies of the department, practices such as the tracing of Vogel-FLU outbreaks and the approval of new medicines can be influenced. And the nominee of Trump to run HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said in 2023 that he would tell that he would tell the federal health scientists: “Thanks for your public service. We are going to give [studying] Infectious diseases a break for about eight years. “
These developments have resulted in the concern of scientists and researchers who follow the distribution of H5N1, who, according to the CDC, has now infected 959 dairy horses in the US and has been responsible for the death of 156 million poultry, which means the price of eggs is sent to Record highlights due to scarce delivery.
Researchers also ask loudly whether dairy workers should be vaccinated using existing supplies from the federal stock vaccine for bird flu vaccine, and whether personal protective equipment should be mandatory at dairy farms and egg-empty facilities for front line employees.
This is all reflected in the timely stream of information and communication and experts say that it is disturbed at a crucial moment.
“This is horrifying, but not surprising at all, given the GAG that scientists attracted and the manipulation of scientific communication in 2020 at the start of the COVID Pandemie,” says Bright, a vaccine researcher who a whistleblower in the Trump administration in 2020 has submitted in 2020 and has been insisting on for months to make health officials to test tests and precautions around bird flu.
“When it happened in 2020,” says Bright, “it delayed the reaction, sowed distrust of science and public health, and therefore many more people died at the time. It is horrible that lessons were not taught, and we are in ourselves in the same or worse situation – not only on H5N1, but on numerous continuous outbreaks in the US “
An Nevada officer tells Fortune That the new cases of D1.1 in cows were reduced to dairy farms in Churchill County, with six herds placed under quarantine. Earlier, the State agricultural director, JJ Goicoechea, said Reuters“We clearly do not do everything we can and everything we should, or the virus would not come in.” Goicoechea said that Nevada farmers had to follow “Good safety practices for animal health and amplifying biosafety measures” for their animals.
Where do this all leave people? According to virologist Angela Rasmussen from the University of Saskatchewan, the development in Nevada does not immediately increase the chance of transfer from human being to human being, but increases the risk of zoomotic human cases-that means cows to farm workers. Furthermore, it is the ability of D1.1 to mutate (perhaps in ways that B3.13 did not mutually) that researchers are concerned. It can be easier to spread from person to person that adaptability is easier to spread.
“This new genotype of the H5N1 virus, D1.1 was associated with more serious illness and death in the few known human infections,” says Bright. “The (the Nevada case) is an important event, because we now know how easily H5N1 viruses can spread under dairy cows, from farm to farm, jump from milk to other mammals, including mice and cats, and even infect.”
Federal Health Bodies have taken “some positive steps” in recent months to increase testing through a national strategy for testing milk, and of testing and subtyping influenza in people, says James Lawler, director of the Global Center for Health Security from the University of Nebraska.
“In order to better control the risk, however, we must aggressively test and insulation of affected dairy students and animals aggressively increase, facilitate more widespread surveillance and testing in people and speeding up vaccine development and production,” says Lawler. Doctors must also know that the virus is circulating, says Bright, and “testing on the flu, not gambling.”
Scott Hensley, a viral immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, agrees. “We have to follow D1.1 -viruses closely because they have demonstrated all the ability to adapt and cause serious illness in people,” says Hensley. “Our H5N1 vaccine stocks are well linked to the D1.1 viruses and would probably offer high protection levels -we must increase the H5N1 vaccine production in the event that these viruses are evolving to spread from human to human.”
In the meantime, says, people must prevent them from drinking raw milk, which can contain a living virus of infected dairy cows, often wash their hands and report flu -like diseases, presumably so that tests can be performed. States can follow the leadership of California, where the Governor stated a bird -flu emergency situations and health officials that it has facilitated the distribution of millions of documents of personal protective equipment for agricultural workers.
Everything to limit the virus, however, ultimately depends to a great deal on the distribution of accurate and timely information – and a government and health community that undertakes to combat bird flu and his unions.
“There is a lot that we don't know about D1.1. Viruses, and we will all work overtime to learn more in the coming days and weeks, ”says Hensley. It is the massive parts of what experts learn that it will be the most critical in the fight.
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This story was originally visible on Fortune.com
