Health officials are making a renewed call for vigilance against bird flu, but some experts are puzzling over why reports of new human cases have stopped.
Are government cuts affecting bird flu monitoring?
Earlier this month, an agency assessment said there is a “moderate risk” that currently circulating strains of bird flu could cause a future pandemic, but the CDC stressed that other emerging forms of bird flu has been similarly labeled in the past.
She recently released a paper reviewing bird flu in infections in cats between 2004 and 2024.
Less is known about milder infections, whether cats can recover from bird flu—or whether the virus can spill over into people.
While health officials are urging people to be more vigilant against bird flu, some experts are wondering why there are no longer any new cases reported in humans.
If government cuts have weakened the search for cases, are immigrant farm workers—who have been responsible for many of the U.S. S. . cases, more reluctant to come forward for testing in the midst of the Trump administration’s push for deportations? Is this merely a normal decline in infections?
“We just don’t know why there haven’t been cases,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, who manages Brown University’s Pandemic Center. I believe it is reasonable to assume that farmworkers are suffering from infections that are simply not being identified. “,”.
For many years, the H5N1 bird flu has been spreading widely among wild birds, poultry, and other animals worldwide. It started to affect people and cows in the United States early last year. S. .
Seventy individuals have been reported infected in the United States in the past 14 months. A. —the majority of whom work on poultry and dairy farms. The majority of those infected experienced mild illnesses, but one person passed away.
Early February saw the most recent infections in Nevada, Ohio, and Wyoming, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Three-quarters of all infections in the country have been in dairy cattle, making California a hotspot. However, the number of human testing and cases has decreased. In late 2024, at least 50 people were tested every month; however, according to state records, only three people were tested in March, one in April, and none in May thus far. 38 people have had confirmed H5N1 infections in the state overall, none of whom were infected after January. 14. .
why there may be fewer cases of bird flu naturally.
On the phone with U. S. According to a CDC official this month, there is a seasonality to bird flu: it is most common in the fall and early winter, perhaps as a result of the migration patterns of wild birds, which are the virus’s main carriers.
That might refer to the U.S. A. is undergoing a natural, possibly brief, decline.
A serious human infection that necessitates hospitalization is unlikely to go unnoticed, according to infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota.
Furthermore, there has been little activity recently indicated by a patchwork system that tracks viruses in sewage and wastewater.
Although not as frequently as a few months ago, new infections are still being found in cattle and birds.
“It is not surprising that human cases have decreased as well, considering that USDA data indicates a decrease in animal detections,” the CDC said in a statement.
Does bird flu monitoring get affected by government cuts?
Doctor. Gregory Gray stated that he wasn’t worried about the CDC failing to report any new cases for months.
Gray, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, stated, “I don’t think that anybody’s hiding anything.”.
Osterholm and a few other experts, however, believe that at least some less serious infections are probably going unnoticed. They also fear that the search for them has been losing ground.
departures from the U.S. S. According to Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine may slow government bird flu surveillance.
He said that three out of fourteen specialists accepted offers of deferred resignation at the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, which provides vital diagnostic data in response to disease outbreaks. More than 15,000 USDA employees accepted the offers, according to a USDA spokesperson.
At the FDA’s Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network, which looks into animal illnesses brought on by issues like tainted pet food, dozens of employees were also let go. Several states have reported cases of cats becoming ill and dying after consuming raw pet food contaminated with H5N1-infected poultry.
Virologist Angela Rasmussen of the University of Saskatchewan in Canada stated that “since Trump took office, targeted surveillance has really dropped off precipitously.”. “,”.
She questions whether farmworkers who are immigrants are too afraid to come forward.
She declared, “I can’t argue with anyone who would be risking being shipped to a Salvadoran gulag for reporting an exposure or seeking testing.”.
According to the CDC, there is still little risk to the public.
The risk to the general public is low, according to the CDC, but it is higher for those who handle cattle and poultry or come into contact with wild birds.
Although the CDC emphasized that other emerging forms of bird flu have previously been given similar labels, an agency assessment earlier this month stated that there is a “moderate risk” that currently circulating strains of the virus could trigger a future pandemic.
However, research is still in progress.
David Douphrate, a workplace health and safety specialist spearheading the project, said researchers from Texas A&M University have drawn blood samples from dairy workers across several states to check for indications of prior H5N1 exposure. With a nearly $4 million grant from the CDC, the year-long study is anticipated to end in July.
Douphrate claimed that in order to obtain access to the farms, he took advantage of his twenty years of connections with dairy farmers and employees.
According to Douphrate, “participation has been excellent.”. “They’ve been really cooperative. “.”.
“Urgently needed” is similar surveillance among domestic cats, according to Kristen Coleman, a researcher studying emerging animal diseases at the University of Maryland at College Park. In a recent paper, she reviewed the incidence of bird flu infections in cats from 2004 to 2024.
In 2024, one of the first indications that dairy cows were contracting bird flu was the death of barn cats after consuming raw milk. Since then, the Agriculture Department has verified that over 120 domestic cats nationwide are infected with the virus. S.
Most infections were discovered in deceased cats. Fewer things are known, such as whether cats can recover from bird flu or whether the virus can spread to humans.
Across the United States, Coleman has been drawing blood samples from cats. S. . to determine whether they possess proof of prior virus exposure. However, research funding is uncertain and the process is slow.
“It’s easy to downplay something because that’s usually what humans do,” she stated. Ramping up is what we actually need to be doing, though. “,”.
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