USDA says it will start testing milk for H5N1 nationwide

Practically a yr after a wild chook contaminated with H5N1 avian flu presumably handed it’s viral baggage to a dairy cow within the Texas panhandle — which has subsequently led to the an infection of greater than 700 herds nationwide, and sickened a minimum of 32 dairy staff — the nation’s agriculture division introduced Friday that it’ll pattern the nation’s milk provide to check for the virus.

The federal order requires dairy farmers to gather and share uncooked milk samples for testing — if requested — by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It additionally lays out a staged testing technique that can enable the federal company to trace and monitor the illness.

The Nationwide Milk Testing Technique, which the brand new milk testing routine is known as, “is a essential a part of our ongoing efforts to guard the well being and security of people and communities nationwide,” in response to a ready assertion from Xavier Becerra, the Secretary of Human Well being Companies.

Initially, the order will solely apply to 6 states — California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Mississippi and Oregon.

Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the California Division of Meals and Agriculture stated, the order is incidental, bringing “no modifications for California. We’re already doing this.”

Whereas California, Colorado and Michigan have all reported optimistic herds, the three others haven’t. Testing regimens and investigations have already been underway within the contaminated states — in addition to in Pennsylvania, which in late November, started it’s personal “Precautionary Bulk Milk Testing at Processing Crops” program.

Whereas Oregon has not had a H5N1 outbreak in dairy cows, it has reported the illness in business poultry, wild birds, and final month, two pigs.

Mississippi has roughly 50 herds statewide, with every farm averaging 149 cows.

The brand new milking plan is designed as a step-by-step plan, with the top objective of eradicating the illness from the nation’s herds — a objective few epidemiologists or virologists assume, at this level, is feasible.

In stage one, testing will happen in any respect dairy processing amenities inside a given state, permitting the federal company to find out if and the place the virus is residing. The following stage permits the federal company to drill down deeper by transferring the testing to bulk tanks.

If the virus is discovered, stage three goes into motion, which can set off an much more granular investigation, figuring out farms and herds which are optimistic — permitting for “fast response measures,” together with biosecurity packages equivalent to motion controls and get in touch with tracing.

If, nonetheless, no virus is present in a state, bulk tank testing frequency will progressively lower — going from weekly, to month-to-month, and ultimately quarterly testing, assuming the state’s exams stay adverse.

Lastly, there’s stage 5, referred to as the “Demonstrating Freedom from H5 in U.S. Dairy Cattle.”

That’s when, in response to the assertion, states can start extra periodic sampling and testing “as an instance long-term absence from the nationwide herd.”