Public health officials and the dairy industry are on high alert after a record number of cows were found to be infected with bird flu.
The discovery was made by an animal vet in Texas, who couldn’t figure out the reason behind a dramatic increase in cows with mastitis. An infection of the udder, mastitis is usually caused by forceful trauma or an infection – leading to an abnormal milk production.
The vet, Dr. Barb Peterson, found that the cows’ milk was thickened and discoloured. She began to feel concerned after farmers reported that the remainder of their livestock seemed to be dying of the same disease.
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Mastitis is common in all dairy cows, not just those testing positive for H521. The udder infection causes pus to leak into milk, which is then pooled into large tanks.
A litre of milk in supermarkets can contain up to 400,000,000 pus cells before being considered unfit to drink. But the infected Texan cows seemed to be suffering from more than mastitis.
An agitated Petersen sent samples to a Texas veterinary lab and Iowa State University. She was shocked to find the cattle all tested positive for bird flu. Now she had to figure out how the cows had even been infected with the virus.
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The bird flu was identified as H521 influenza virus – a strain that has caused concern for its lethal infection. Since 2003, H521 has caused 463 worldwide.
Medical experts fear that the infected cows could soon pass on the disease to humans, and lead to another pandemic. After identifying the virus in the Texan cows, researchers in the US and Denmark found that cows have the same virus receptors as humans and birds.
Studies suggest the growing number of mammals infected by bird flu, means the virus could be mutating closer to a human pathogen. So far, only one person has reported an infection of H521 after coming into contact with the infected cows.
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Dr Lars Larsen, a veterinary clinical microbiology professor, has explained the virus is difficult to understand because of its changing nature. Larsen said: “The finding in cattle has been so different. In mammals, influenza typically infects the lungs.
“In cats, it can also infect the brain. Here we see an enormous amount of virus in the mammary and in the milk.” Larsen also explained that the virus concentration in the milk of infected cows is 1,000 times higher than that of infected birds.
Experts have suggested the bird flu could be passed on through infected cows’ milk. The NHS have advised that the best way to avoid bird flu is to carefully wash hands and cook food thoroughly, avoid live animals in infected areas, and not to eat raw meat and eggs.
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