TITLE: 4 bird flu cases confirmed in Colorado poultry workers, with 5th awaiting confirmation
https://www.kktv.com/2024/07/15/4-bird-flu-cases-confirmed-colorado-poultry-workers-with-5th-awaiting-confirmation/
EXCERPT: Five bird flu cases in Colorado have now been confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month, with a sixth confirmation pending.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) first announced a human case on July 3, a dairy farm worker in northeast Colorado who, according to CDPHE, had been directly exposed to cattle infected with the avian flu.
Friday, CDPHE announced three more cases, this time in poultry workers at a commercial egg layer operation. None of the patients’ symptoms were considered serious.
In an update Sunday, CDPHE stated that the CDC verified lab samples from the infected workers were indeed bird flu, and that it had discovered two more cases linked to what was becoming a growing outbreak at that egg laying facility.
“The fourth case was an additional presumptive detected by the state lab late Friday evening and has been confirmed by CDC. Samples for a fifth worker were presumptive positive at the state lab on Saturday, July 13 and will be sent to CDC for confirmation,” CDPHE said in a news release Sunday.
“The workers were culling poultry at a farm in northeast Colorado and exhibited mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis (pink eye) and common respiratory infection symptoms,” the news release continued. “None were hospitalized. State epidemiologists suspect the poultry workers’ cases are a result of working directly with infected poultry. The investigation is ongoing with support from CDC.”
Prior to July 2024, the last time a human bird flu case had been confirmed in Colorado was spring of 2022. Nationally, starting with that case in 2022, there have been nine cases in humans confirmed, soon to be 10 if the CDC confirms the sample from the fifth poultry worker. The cases are all in Colorado, Texas and Michigan.
TITLE: Bird flu snapshot: As the number of infected dairy herds mount, so too does pessimism about driving H5N1 out of cows
https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/15/bird-flu-snapshot-h5n1-infected-herds/
EXCERPT: While the count of affected herds has risen steadily in a few of the reporting states — think Michigan, Colorado, Idaho — the number of states with dairy industries that haven’t reported a single outbreak puzzles experts monitoring this situation. (Some are downright dubious.) California, Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington are on the top 10 list of dairy-producing states by revenue. Not one of those five has reported an affected herd.
Are they luckier? More vigilant? Do cows move around less frequently in those states? We don’t yet have those answers. But a news report from Missouri last week may help explain a possible difference between reporting and non-reporting states. (Missouri is one of the latter.)
Reporter Mary McCue Bell in the Columbia Missourian quoted a veterinarian with the Missouri Department of Agriculture’s animal health division saying that to date only 17 dairy cows — in a state that boasts 60,000 — have been tested for H5N1.
There’s a maxim in epidemiology: Seek and ye shall find. It would seem some states are not seeking.
The lack of a clear picture of how widespread the outbreak is in cattle continues to hamper efforts to assess whether this outbreak can be stopped and how best to do it if that end is within reach.
Asked Thursday if they thought the virus can be driven out of dairy cattle at this point, senior World Health Organization outbreak response leaders hedged their bets. Maria Van Kerkhove, acting director of WHO’s division of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, said at this point too little is known about the outbreak to make a prediction one way or the other.
“I think that’s a complicated question,” Van Kerkhove said during a WHO press briefing. “It doesn’t mean that it couldn’t happen. But I think that before we can get to an answer of when or if that could be possible, we need to understand the extent [of spread].”
And Mike Ryan, who heads the global health agency’s health emergencies program, said the ongoing presence of the virus in wild birds will continue to complicate efforts to control H5N1’s spread in domestic animals. It’s not just a question of driving it out, the goal needs to be keeping it out of an animal population — whether that’s poultry or dairy cattle. And that takes resources, surveillance, and long-term commitment from the veterinary, wildlife, and public health sectors, he said.
TITLE: A Dutch laser bird deterrent helps minimise bird flu outbreaks
https://www.vetpracticemag.com.au/a-dutch-laser-bird-deterrent-helps-minimise-bird-flu-outbreaks/
EXCERPT: The AVIX Autonomic laser bird deterrents, developed by the Dutch company Bird Control Group companies, emit laser beams that create a hostile environment for wild birds, effectively deterring them from entering poultry areas and reducing the risk of avian influenza transmission. These deterrents are non-lethal, humane, and require minimal maintenance, making them a valuable addition to existing biosecurity protocols.
A recent research study conducted at Wageningen University investigated whether the Bird Control Group laser system could be a successful biosecurity measure to prevent avian influenza viruses from spreading from wild birds to domestic animals. The results were promising, indicating an overall 98.2 per cent efficacy in reducing the rate of wild birds visiting the farm.
The AVIX Autonomic laser system continuously moves a laser beam that leverages a bird’s innate fight or flight response to scare away both pests and migratory birds. As a result, the area looks uninhabitable, pushing the birds elsewhere and reducing contamination and the risk of avian flu transmission across poultry farms.
SEE ALSO:
Black swans in ‘significant peril’ from bird flu
https://www.thepress.co.nz/world-news/350340672/black-swans-significant-peril-bird-flu
Bird flu threatens Philip Island’s penguin colony
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/health/2024/07/13/bird-flu-threatens-philip-islands-penguin-colony
Bird flu has been invading the brains of mammals. Here’s why
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bird-mammal-brain-outbreak-influenza