Faced with a surge in the number of California cows infected with H5N1 bird flu, state officials have quarantined 34 dairies and are urging other farms to take protective biosecurity measures. The milk supply is safe and the human risk is low, state health officials say. Although 14 cases have been reported among farmworkers nationwide, none have spread from person to person.
And none are in California. But the leap in the number of infected herds—tripling from 10 to 34 in the past week at California's 1,000 dairies—is troubling to the state's vibrant dairy industry, a major part of the state's agricultural industry and the nation's top milk producer. "This is a tough moment," because the state has worked to stay virus-free for nine months, said Anja Raudabaugh, executive director of Western United Dairies in Turlock.
"All it took was a single breach, and it's been a disaster." Climbing case counts also worry epidemiologists and health experts, who are monitoring farm workers on infected farms. The genetic mutation that enabled the virus to jump from birds to cows and other mammals brings it one step closer to a human outbreak, they say.
The flu pandemic of 1918, which killed more than 50 million people and sickened 500 million others worldwide, was caused by a virus that began with infected birds. "I'm extremely concerned," said John Korslund, a retired U.S.
Department of Agriculture veterinarian epidemiologist, who studies livestock diseases. "The virus seems highly inf.