According to a release by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development the State will offer eligible dairy farmers up to $28,000 to participate in field epidemiologic studies on bovine influenza-H5N1.  The State in collaboration with USDA-APHIS will obtain environmental samples and swabs from workers and herds.  The objective will be to determine how the virus was introduced onto farms and factors contributing to intra-herd spread. To date eleven farms have enrolled in the program and will participate in conducting regular tests on milk and herds.

As reported previously in EGG-NEWS scientists at the German Federal Veterinary Research Institute have initiated studies using available BL-3 level isolators to determine routes of infection. A similar program is presumed to be in progress at the National Bio and Agri Defense Facility in Kansas.

The approach to diagnosis and investigation of bovine influenza-H5N1 in Michigan contrasts with the negative response advocated by the Commissioner of Agriculture of Texas who considered that obtaining samples from herds and workers by the CDC for assay was an “overreach”.

It is evident that  H5N1 virus is inactivated in milk by pasteurization and in meat by cooking there is limited concern over risk to consumers. Virologists are monitoring field isolates for potential genetic changes that could predict the virus from becoming zoonotic.  The greater the number of herds and flocks infected, the greater possibility of mutations occurring. It is apparent that practical structural and operational biosecurity is inadequate to absolutely prevent infection of poultry farms and probably less so for dairy herds. This is due to dissemination by free-living birds with the possibility of airborne infection.

The world population has no antibody protection against the H5 strain of avian influenza emphasizing the need for proactive planning for local epidemics or multinational pandemics. This includes stockpiling of vaccine and immunization of farm and plant workers, their families and health care providers. Mutation of the current circulating H5N1 virus to become infectious for humans will create problems for food supply and the economy. In a worst-case situation emergence of human-to-human transition would revisit past influenza pandemics and our recent experience with COVID.