U.S. health and agriculture officials on Friday pledged nearly $200 million in new spending and other efforts to help track and contain an outbreak of bird flu in the the country’s dairy cows which has spread to more than 40 herds in nine states.
The new funds include $101 million to continue work to prevent, test, track and treat animals and humans potentially affected by the virus known as type A H5N1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said. Social services. And they include about $98 million to provide up to $28,000 each to help individual farms test livestock and strengthen biosecurity efforts to stop the spread of the virus, according to the Agriculture Department.
Additionally, dairy farmers will be compensated for lost milk production from infected cattle, whose supply drops significantly when they become ill, officials said. And dairy farmers and farmworkers would be paid to participate in a workplace study conducted by the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Until now, farmers have been reluctant to allow health officials onto their farms to test livestock because of uncertainty about the impact it would have on their businesses, researchers said. Additionally, agricultural workers, including many migrant workers, are reluctant to get tested for fear of missing work or because they do not want to be tracked by the government.
The National Milk Producers Federation, a trade group representing dairy farmers, said it welcomed the new resources. “Caring for farmworkers and animals is essential for milk producers, as is protecting against potential risks to human health and reassuring the public,” the group said in a statement.
The incentives should help increase farmers’ willingness to test their herds, said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which is monitoring the outbreak.
“It gives the latitude and the ability to start moving in the right direction,” he said.
These new expenses come more than six weeks after the first-ever detection of the avian flu virus in dairy cattle – and a confirmed infection in a Texas dairy worker exposed to infected cows who developed a mild eye infection and then recovered. About 33 people have been tested and another 260 are under surveillance, according to the CDC.
As of Friday, 42 herds in nine states had confirmed infections in dairy cows. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the outbreak had not spread more widely.
“We’re still in the same nine states and that’s the most positive thing about where we are,” he told reporters.
Grocery store milk samples tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, showed remnants of the virus in about 1 in 5 retail milk samples nationwide, suggesting the outbreak could be more widespread, scientists said.
Under a federal order issued last month, farmers are required to test lactating dairy cattle for H5N1 before the animals are moved interstate. So far, 80 cows have been tested, Vilsack said. Around 50,000 animals cross borders every week, Poulsen estimates.
The FDA found that pasteurization, or heat treatment, killed the virus in grocery store samples of milk, cottage cheese and sour cream. The agency reiterated its warnings that people should not consume raw or unpasteurized milk, due to the possible risk from the virus. Officials on Friday also said they were soon awaiting test results from pooled raw milk samples sent to commercial processors to “determine potential levels of viruses that pasteurization should eliminate.” The USDA found no evidence of the virus in a small sample of retail ground beef.
“The risk to the public from this outbreak remains low,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said.
