April 5, 2024 – What’s the buzz about the bird flu?
By now, you’ve likely heard that the bird flu has been detected in some herds of dairy cows across six states – the first time the virus has infected cattle. And with Texas health officials confirming this week that a farm worker contracted the virus – only the second known case of the H5N1 virus infecting a person in the U.S. – you may be wondering: Should I be worried?
While the outbreak has raised concerns about possible risks to humans – one food expert cautioned against eating runny eggs for the time being – the current risk to the public is low, said William Schaffner, MD, an Infectious Diseases Society of America expert and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University.
Human-to-human bird flu transmission is extremely rare, he said.
“This virus still does not have the genetic capacity to spread readily from person to person,” Schaffner said. “There's no evidence of person-to-person spread here. This individual's [Texas dairy farmer's] contacts have all been tested and found to be negative.”
And if you’re not near sick livestock or poultry, you shouldn’t be quick to link an illness to bird flu, said Louise Ivers, MD, a doctor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“It's a very specific group of people who have been working closely with animals, and certainly people should not work unprotected with sick animals or be in contact with them, if at all possible,” she said.
If a person contracts bird flu, it can start with standard flu symptoms, such as a cough or fever. For some, the illness could get worse, causing symptoms like nausea, vomiting, respiratory failure, and nervous system changes. But bird flu symptoms can vary greatly. For example, the Texas dairy farmer who recently caught the virus only had conjunctivitis (pink eye) and is now insolating and being treated with antiviral medication, according to the CDC.
Human cases of bird flu have been rare, but it does happen sometimes and is more common in certain areas of the world like Southeast Asia, Schaffner said. Human cases largely happen where people live near infected chickens, among other animals.
“People have such close contact with those animals, they get a big dose of virus that goes down deep into their chest, and those are the rare people who get infected,” he said.
Public health officials are keeping a watchful eye out for any new bird flu developments. This includes monitoring any changes to the virus that could affect poultry globally, which is a “very important source of protein for both underdeveloped and developed countries,” noted Schaffner.
But the fact that bird flu is circulating globally among wild birds, domestic poultry, and now U.S. cattle is one cause of concern, especially coming off the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Ivers.
“Every time we have a large amount of virus spreading, it has a chance to have errors in its replication, and errors in its replication means that it's shifting and changing,” she said.
As for dairy milk, Schaffner suggested making sure your milk is pasteurized – like all milk sold in grocery stores – and not raw. pasteurization kills any germs found in milk. Going dairy-free is another option.
You can read more about bird flu here.