During the weekend, the Trump administration fired various front line response to the current H5N1 outbreak of bird flu -then he quickly deteriorated, who withdraw these endelos and try to restore the critical staff.
The termination letters went to employees of the US Department of Agriculture, one of the agencies that leads the federal reaction to the outbreak that continues to bully American dairy farms and affects the activities of poultry poultry, which affects more than 160 million birds and the prices for Egg prices rise. While the virus continues to spread, the experts fear that it could evolve to spread among people and cause more serious illness. So far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have documented 68 cases in people, one of which was fatal.
Before Trump was in his place, health experts had criticized that the reaction of the country to H5N1 sometimes at times of transparency, slowness, insufficient testing and the inability to stop the transfer between dairy farms, which was once considered intent, to stop. To date, 972 herds in 17 states have been infected since last March, including 36 herds in the last 30 days.
In a statement to Ars Technica, a USDA spokesperson said that the agency regards the reaction to the outbreak of H5N1 – a very pathogenic Aviaire Influenza (HPAI) – as a priority. As such, the Agency had protected some positions against cuts on staff by granting exemptions that went to veterinarians, technicians of animals and others. But not all were exempt and some were fired.
“Although different positions in support of HPAI have been informed of their terminations at the weekend, we are working to quickly rectify the situation and use those letters,” said the spokesperson.
The USDA did not respond to the questions of Ars Technica about how many employees who worked on the outbreak were dismissed, how many of those endings were withdrawn or how many employees have been recovered since the weekend.
The cutbacks are part of a larger, brutal effort of the Trump government to lower federal agencies, and the cutbacks have endangered other critical government and public services. In recent days, various agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, have been stripped. At CDC, the program of the Agency destroyed the most important disease detective program – the epidemic intelligence service – whose members are crucial to respond to outbreaks and other emergency situations on health care.
