New information has surfaced shedding light on how H5N1 avian flu outbreaks spread on farms. CIDRAP has the news.
Currently, H5N1 outbreaks are at very low levels in dairy cattle and commercial poultry in the U.S., likely part of a “largely seasonal drop in cases.” New outbreaks in wild birds, however, are on the rise, especially in Europe.
Raj Rajnarayanan, a computational biologist at Arkansas State University, recently wrote that he determined that house flies can “mechanically move virus around farms” after studying H5N1 sequence samples. Mike Coston, who has written a blog on avian flu for decades, mentioned a report from 2006 that showed “blow flies found in the vicinity of a poultry outbreak could carry the virus and spread it by their feet or body following contact with infected material.” This information all combines to show that “contaminated flies may be one of many contributors to the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza.”
A research team in China also found that “mouth-to-teat transmission” in cows “may be how the H5N1 virus initially infects mammary glands.” Researchers have also tested “two vaccines in lactating cattle,” finding that “both conferred complete protection against H5N1, even after high-dose virus challenge through direct mammary gland inoculation.”
Matt MacKenzie | Associate Editor
Matt is Associate Editor for Healthcare Purchasing News.
