The current fragmented approach to establishing the epidemiology of bovine influenza-H5N1 is clearly inhibiting progress in gaining an understanding of the disease in order to implement preventive action. Federal regulators, state departments of agriculture, public health agencies and the dairy industry evidently have divergent objectives. There is clearly no central authority to coordinate surveillance and allocate resources to develop and implement a common response plan.
Surveillance of herds and workers should be intensified, to determine the extent of infection that may be far broader than currently recognized. Whole genome sequencing of isolates should be implemented in cooperation with international WHO reference laboratories to monitor for changes that may predict the emergence of a zoonotic strain. Parallels between the USDA response to bovine influenza-H5N1 is eerily reminiscent of the situation in China regarding COVID in 2019 or the emergence of SARS two decades earlier. Time is critical in developing a response to an emerging livestock and potentially zoonotic infection.
Appropriate action taken now will potentially save herds, flocks and lives and the cost of a response should there be changes in the virus that enhance the capacity for human infection and contagion. Wishful thinking expressed as “If we can stop the movement of cattle and improve biosecurity we can eliminate the virus” appears to characterize the current USDA position. This represents an attitude of institutional self-denial that could have dire consequences for the U.S. milk industry, public health and the economy of the U.S.