In early December, Sonoma County, California, declared an agricultural disaster when two poultry farms had to kill their entire flocks to try to stop “highly pathogenic avian influenza” — or bird flu — from spreading. This particular strain of bird flu, H5N1, had first been reported in the United States in early 2022 when escalating avian horror stories began popping up in headlines: Two zoos reported bird flu among their flocks, prompting zoos across the country to pull their birds off-display; three bald eagles were infected in Georgia and died; hundreds of infected birds were found dead at a lake in the Chicago suburbs.
Tens of millions of turkey and chickens at commercial farms have since been killed to try to suppress the outbreak.
During a time of already sustained inflation, as avian influenza cases rose, so did the cost of eggs. As reported by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, bird flu was blamed for higher egg prices in 2023, which peaked at $4.82 per dozen in January (last month, they hovered around $2.99 per dozen, for reference).
Then, late Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration announced that one in five commercial milk samples tested in a nationwide survey contained particles of the H5N1 virus, a discovery that has led some experts to voice concern that “the virus is more widespread among dairies than we had previously thought,” as reported by Reuters.
But how concerned should home cooks be about the impact of bird flu on the safety of their egg and dairy products? Let’s dive into what we know.
What is bird flu?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), avian influenza, or bird flu, is a virus naturally spread among wild aquatic birds worldwide. The disease was first identified in Italy in the late 19th century and was initially referred to as “fowl plague,” as it was confused with a form of fowl cholera. The term “bird flu” gained more popularity through the 20th and 21st century, following outbreaks of highly pathogenic strains such as H5N1 and H7N9 (and the first International Symposium on Avian Influenza held in Paris, France, in 1981).
The CDC maintains that bird flu viruses do not normally infect humans, however, in a current situation summary, the organization says that, “sporadic human infections with bird flu viruses have occurred.” Such is the case with the current strain, H5N1.
On April 1, a Texas dairy farm worker who had been exposed to cattle tested positive for H5N1 bird flu. According to a release from the CDC, “the patient reported eye redness — consistent with conjunctivitis — as their only symptom, and is recovering.”
“The patient was told to isolate and is being treated with an antiviral drug for flu,” they write. “This infection does not change the H5N1 bird flu human health risk assessment for the U.S. general public, which CDC considers to be low.”
This is the second human in the United States to have reported being infected under the current wave of the disease; the first was a 2022 case in Colorado involving a “person who had direct exposure to poultry and was involved in the culling (depopulating) of poultry with presumptive H5N1 bird flu.”
While the transmission of bird flu to other mammals is rare, it is possible. Currently, nine states — North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, South Dakota and Idaho — have reported outbreaks of bird flu among cattle, with an estimated 34 herds being impacted as of Friday. There are several ways the cows could have become infected, including coming into direct contact with infected birds, living in a contaminated environment, or consuming feed containing contaminated poultry by-products or droppings.
Are supermarket eggs and milk safe to consume?
On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration said that samples of pasteurized milk had tested positive for remnants of the bird flu. At the time, they stressed that the materials were inactivated and that they “do not represent actual virus that may be a risk to consumers.”
According to Dr. Scott Roberts, a Yale New Haven Hospital Infectious Disease specialist and assistant professor in infectious diseases at Yale School of Medicine, there’s little risk of transmission in supermarket eggs and milk because one needs to have direct contact with the infected animal.
“But more than that, the pasteurization process would kill any viable virus in there,” Roberts said.
The FDA issued a statement communicating a similar message on Friday after the agency had received additional results from “an initial limited set of geographically targeted samples as part of its national commercial milk sampling study underway in coordination with USDA.”
“The FDA continues to analyze this information; however, preliminary results of egg inoculation tests on quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)-positive retail milk samples show that pasteurization is effective in inactivating HPAI [avian influenza],” they wrote. “This additional testing did not detect any live, infectious virus. These results reaffirm our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe.”
As a result, experts recommend avoiding unpasteurized or raw milk and egg products.
What’s next?
Until now, farmers only had to test their dairy cows for bird flu voluntarily or if their herd showed symptoms of infection, but the USDA announced last week that every lactating cow must now be tested and post a negative result before moving to a new state. This will help officials track the disease and understand how it is spreading, according to Michael Watson, an administrator with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
“We believe we can do tens of thousands of tests a day,” Watson told the Associated Press.
Then, according to the FDA’s Friday statement, the agency will continue further assessing retail samples from its study of 297 samples of retail dairy products from 38 states.
“All samples with a PCR positive result are going through egg inoculation tests, a gold-standard for determining if infectious virus is present,” they wrote. “These important efforts are ongoing, and we are committed to sharing additional testing results as soon as possible. Subsequent results will help us to further review our assessment that pasteurization is effective against this virus and the commercial milk supply is safe.”
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
