“I wish I had paid a lot more attention in genetics when I was in college,” said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler

(State Affairs Pro, Clifton Dowell) — The threat of a deadly new pandemic jumping from animals to humans is scary, but agriculture officials on Tuesday agreed that until a vaccine is developed to protect cows from bird flu, the best defense is simply to keep the number of infections as low as possible.

“I wish I had paid a lot more attention in genetics when I was in college,” Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said. “But in my mind it’s a numbers game. The more virus that’s out there, the more likely it is to be mutating and spread to other species.”

The virus under discussion by a panel of experts convened by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services was highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), also referred to by its strain name of H5N1. It was detected in North Carolina in April after infected cows from Texas were added to a dairy herd here. The herd was quarantined and declared virus-free a month later.

Testing by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory has detected 192 infected herds in 13 states, said Dr. Eric Deeble, deputy under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Before detecting a new infected herd in Michigan yesterday, he said, the lab had gone two months without a detection. “I know at some point there will be another state,” he said.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said H5N1 for 20 years has been the No. 1 virus of concern for global pandemics. Historically around the world, when the virus has reached humans the death rate has exceeded 50%, he said. “When we got the message from USDA that there had been this infection of cows in Texas and then that spread, it just set off alarms all across the federal government because it’s been a big concern all along.”

Viruses are tricky, Califf said, because of their constant mutations. Farmworkers in the U.S. who have gotten the virus aren’t becoming seriously ill because the current version attaches to tissue around the eye, causing conjunctivitis. “If it mutates to attach to the lining of the lung like COVID did, we’re going to have a big problem,” he said.

Potential illnesses among humans may be the most worrisome threat, but it isn’t the only threat that H5N1 poses. The panel discussed the importance of protecting the nation’s food supply as well as safeguarding the economics of farming in the state.

“What we know is that high path AI is not going away and we are particularly vulnerable because of the size of our poultry industry,” Troxler said. In addition to the potential loss of valuable livestock, farming revenue is also endangered when the public changes its buying habits based on news reports of disease.

Califf said one of the first FDA studies was to make sure milk and cheese were virus-free. “Pasteurization works,” he said.

Deeble said the USDA has programs to offset the costs that dairy farmers incur for testing their herds, buying personal protective equipment and veterinary care. For dairies where infection is found, the government will pay farmers 90% of lost revenue, he said.

The aim of such programs is to make farmers feel secure about testing cows by reducing the financial risk. Another panelist, dairy farmer and veterinarian Dr. Ben Shelton, said that dairymen are generally dubious of government interventions but that he has only positive things to say about his dealings with agriculture officials in the state.

A number of candidate vaccines are being looked at by the private sector, Deeble said. Until then, identifying sick herds and isolating them is the best practice, he noted.

Biosecurity — working to make sure viruses and other pathogens aren’t spread from farm to farm — is already part of agriculture, Shelton said. With cows being moved from herd to herd, however, some spread is inevitable. “I think it’s going to become a standard part of the industry that we just have to deal with,” he said.

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