US pledges money and other aid to help track and contain bird flu on dairy farms

U.S. health and agriculture officials on Friday pledged new spending and other efforts to track and contain an outbreak of bird flu in the nation’s dairy cows that has spread to more than 40 herds in nine states.

The new funds include $101 million to continue work to prevent, test, monitor and treat animals and people potentially affected by the virus known as Type A H5N1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said. And they include up to $28,000 each to help individual farms test livestock and support biosecurity efforts to stop the spread of the virus, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.

In addition, dairy farmers will be compensated for the loss of milk production from infected cattle, whose supply drops dramatically when they become sick, officials said. And dairy farmers and farm workers would be paid to participate in a workplace study conducted by the USDA and the CDC.

Until now, farmers have been reluctant to allow health officials onto their farms to test livestock because they were unsure about the impact on their business, researchers say. Farm workers, including many migrant workers, have also been reluctant to get tested for fear of missing work or because they did not want to be tracked by the government.

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 provides the wiggle room and the ability to move in the right direction,” he said.

The new releases come more than six weeks after the first-ever detection of an avian flu virus in dairy cattle – and one confirmed infection in a Texas dairy worker who was exposed to infected cows and suffered a mild eye infection and subsequently recovered. About 30 people have been tested, with negative results, and another 220 are being monitored, according to the CDC.

As of Friday, 42 herds in nine states have confirmed infections in dairy cows. But Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the outbreak has not spread further.

“It’s still in the same nine states and that’s the most positive thing about where we are now,” he told reporters.

Remnants of the virus have been found in samples of dairy products from supermarkets, but tests by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration confirmed that pasteurization, or heat treatment, killed the virus. 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.

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