Avian 'Flu Flying In?

People get zoonotic diseases from other animals. There are, consequently, concerns, when a virus increases its range of hosts. This is especially the case when they move into animals closer to humans. This is what happened with Covid19. The highly-virulent H5N1 strain of bird 'flu has been found in Peru's Sea lions and Russia's Caspian seals. Devi Sridhar (University of Edinburgh) has now noted that H5N1 is currently spreading in the USA's cattle populations (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/26/us-cows-bird-flu-covid-pandemic-global-governments). The H5N1 strain of bird 'flu has been found across 8 US states, in 33 herds of cattle. It seems very likely that cow-to-cow transmission is occurring. Infected cows are relatively unsymptomatic. The scale of cattle viral transmission may consequently be a gross underestimate. This virus has clearly also spread to dairy cattle. Twenty percent of recently tested US milk samples, have traces of H5N1 (https://time.com/6971400/bird-flu-virus-milk/). Pasteurisation seems to effectively kill the agent but not all milk gets this treatment. At least one US farm worker has contracted the disease, suggesting that a jump of this virus to humans, is almost inevitable. In the US, plans for dealing with a new human pandemic are being finalised. Sridhar is concerned, however, as folk in other parts of the world appear to be largely ignoring this potential threat. The UK is not even testing its cattle.