Health officials pitch anonymous bird flu testing
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Public health officials seeking a better view of how bird flu is spreading in cows have a new pitch for resistant dairy farmers: anonymized testing.
Why it matters: Many farmers are refusing to test their herds, fearing the economic consequences, while concern builds that the relatively benign virus could morph into a much bigger risk to humans.
- "We have to find ways of getting more data in a way that protects farmers and, of course, farm workers," former White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha told Axios.
What we're hearing: Jha is part of a small group of public health officials who believe universities with established relationships with agriculture should facilitate the testing.
- Results from individual farms would be anonymized and sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to offer snapshots about disease spread and how the virus is mutating, Jha said.
- A similar idea was also recently suggested by former Trump administration coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx to Politico.
Yes, but: The idea has limitations, starting with the difficulty of zeroing in and addressing transmission at the source, experts said.
- "That's a very rough surveillance tool. Better than what we have right now, but not sufficient," Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told Axios, adding it would be on a par with improved wastewater surveillance.
State of play: USDA data shows 140 herds across 12 states have been affected with H5N1 since the start of the outbreak in March.
- But prevalence is thought to be higher because many farmers are refusing to test.
- Positive tests could be "financially ruinous" for farms and individual workers, while the consequences of not testing so far appear to be limited to mild illness that can be treated with antivirals, Jha said.
- "It's not really clear for them what's why they should engage in this. And I'm very sympathetic to that," said Jha, who is dean of Brown University's School of Public Health.
USDA says it's partnering with states on mostly voluntary testing of farms and a federal order requires testing of dairy cows before they can cross state lines.
- The names of farms where the virus is detected is not disclosed to the public.
- The federal government has also rolled out programs to compensate farmers for losses and expenses tied to bird flu surveillance.
- USDA is encouraging testing in every way possible which has been leading to an increase in "producer confidence" and the testing of more herds, a department spokesperson told Axios in an email.
The intrigue: Another way of getting a better picture of bird flu activity in an anonymized way would be through the use of what's known as market basket surveys, Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota told Axios.
- The surveys, which have been used in Europe and Canada during this outbreak, are routine scans of pasteurized milk samples for traces of inactivated virus.
- "The movement of milk is very very closely monitored," he said. While a sample couldn't necessarily be traced back to a specific farm, it could get close. "It could give us a sense if there are certain areas of activity."
Yes, but: Osterholm said he's not sure what it would take to convince farmers to be more cooperative, even with the offers of compensation to protect against losses.
- No other industry requires the required level of human intervention — cows must be milked twice a day every single day — and losing workers could quickly become catastrophic for them, he said.
- "Farmers are wanting to hunker down and get through this," he said.
