Opinion | The Point: Conversations and insights about the moment. - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/02/opinion/thepoint#avian-flu-cows-outbreak
The discovery of the country’s second human case of H5N1 avian flu, found in a Texas dairy farm worker following an outbreak among cows, is worrying and requires prompt and vigorous action.
While officials have so far said the possibility of cow-to-cow transmission “cannot be ruled out,” I think we can go further than that.
The geography of the outbreak — sick cows in Texas, Idaho, Michigan, Ohio and New Mexico — strongly suggests cows are infecting each other as they move around various farms. The most likely scenario seems to be that a new strain of H5N1 is spreading among cows, rather than the cows being individually infected by sick birds.
Avian flu is not known to transmit well among mammals, including humans, and until now, almost all known cases of H5N1 in humans were people in extended close contact with sick birds. But a cow outbreak — something unexpected, as cows aren’t highly prone to get this — along with likely transmission between cows, means we need to quickly require testing of all dairy workers on affected farms as well as their close contacts, and sample cows in all the dairy farms around the country.
It is possible — and much easier — to contain an early outbreak when an emergent virus isn’t yet adapted to a new host and perhaps not as transmissible. If it gets out and establishes a foothold, then all bets are off. With fatality rates estimated up to 50 percent among humans, H5N1 is not something to gamble with.
Additionally, H5N1 was found in the unpasteurized milk of sick cows. Unpasteurized milk, already a bad idea, would be additionally dangerous to consume right now.
Public officials need to get on top of this quickly, and transparently, telling us the uncertainties as well as their actions.
The government needs to gear up to potentially mass-produce vaccines quickly (which we have against H5N1, though they take time to produce) and ensure early supplies for frontline and health care workers.
It’s possible that worst-case scenarios aren’t going to come true — yet. But evolution is exactly how viruses get to do things they couldn’t do before, and letting this deadly one have time to explore the landscape in a potential new host is a disastrously bad idea.
