ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The fowl flu outbreak in U.S. dairy cattle retains getting worse. Greater than 50 human circumstances have been confirmed, and the variety of contaminated cows retains rising too. That is why this week, the U.S. Division of Agriculture is starting widespread testing of the nation’s milk provide for the virus. NPR’s Pien Huang is right here to assist us perceive what is going on on, Hey, Pien.

PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.

SHAPIRO: Inform us about this new testing program. How does it work?

HUANG: OK. So beginning this week, the USDA is requiring samples of milk to be collected earlier than it will get pasteurized and shared for testing. These milk samples are going to be taken from huge storage tanks at dairy processing crops the place milk from a number of totally different farms, tens of hundreds of cows, are all combined collectively. And whereas there are some in public well being that say it is probably not the sturdy testing they had been hoping for, Ted McKinney, head of the Nationwide Affiliation of State Departments of Agriculture, says it is a begin.

TED MCKINNEY: Our sense is that, no, it isn’t going to each single milk tank on each single farm. However boy, it is the subsequent smartest thing. It begins to get you extra info, extra surveillance information than you’ve got now.

HUANG: Now, if a milk pattern assessments optimistic for fowl flu, it is presupposed to set off a farm investigation to determine the place the cows are contaminated. This federal order begins with six states this week, together with some states the place it is spreading quickly and states the place no circumstances have been discovered. And it’s meant to achieve all 50 states sooner or later.

SHAPIRO: We have recognized about fowl flu in cows for some time now. So why is that this program launching now?

HUANG: Yeah, we now have, Ari. And McKinney says that the thought of testing extra robustly has been kicking round for a few months. State veterinarians, particularly, have been calling for extra surveillance. However he says that it took a while to get everybody concerned to agree on a plan.

The timing additionally does make it clear that this fowl flu outbreak is just not dying down. So bear in mind, that is an outbreak that is thought to have began when fowl flu jumped from wild birds to dairy cows in Texas someday late final 12 months. And within the spring, it grew to become clear that it was spreading with cows which can be being moved to totally different farms in numerous states. Since then, it has been detected in virtually 850 herds in 16 states. And up to now few weeks particularly, it has been spreading quickly amongst California’s dairy cows. There have been greater than 300 new confirmed circumstances up to now 30 days, and it is also infecting farm employees too.

SHAPIRO: Yeah. So inform us extra concerning the numbers amongst people. What do we all know?

HUANG: Yeah. So in accordance with CDC, there have been 60 confirmed circumstances in people since April. Most of those have been in farm employees, although, there have been a number of complicated circumstances with no recognized connection to farms or livestock. Many of those have been delicate. Individuals have had flu signs, some eye infections. However there may be some proof that there are circumstances which can be going unnoticed. , the CDC did a research of dairy farm employees and located that 7% had antibodies to fowl flu, which indicated that they’d lately recovered from it, perhaps with out even realizing that they’d it. Seema Lakdawala at Emory College research how flus unfold.

SEEMA LAKDAWALA: Each time this virus spills over into people, it has the potential to adapt and acquire the properties needed for transmission human to human.

SHAPIRO: That sounds ominous, Pien. So how fearful ought to folks be?

HUANG: OK, so on the one hand, Ari, it’s excellent news that the model of the virus that is at the moment spreading amongst dairy cows has been spreading for nearly a 12 months now or extra, and it hasn’t been spreading rather a lot amongst people or inflicting extreme sickness. The CDC does say that the chance of an infection to most people stays low.

However alternatively, there was this latest research from the Scripps Analysis Institute that discovered it might take only one mutation to a viral protein to make it higher infect people. So not a pandemic but. Everybody hopes it can keep that means, however individuals who monitor pandemics are fearful.

SHAPIRO: That’s NPR’s Pien Huang with the newest on the H1N1 fowl flu outbreak amongst dairy cattle and people. Thanks, Pien.

HUANG: Thanks, Ari.

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