At the Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, spoke with NCBA Chief Veterinarian Dr. Kathy Simmons about the appearance of avian bird flu in dairy cattle in March of 2024. Herds have been affected in Texas, Kansas, and in one herd in Oklahoma.
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“With any emerging disease [like avian bird flu], we don’t know exactly what we are dealing with when we first see it,” Simmons said. “It was found by PCR testing in a dairy cattle herd in mid to late lactating cows. It has a strong affinity with the mammary gland. We feel that it was a one-time pass from a wild bird to a dairy cow and it may have been in the United States for some time before we identified it.”
Simmons, along with the NCBA, had several concerns when the virus was found, the most prevalent being the safety of the food supply to consumers. Through a number of milk pasteurization studies, the FDA determined that the virus can’t live in pasteurized milk.
NCBA conducted several studies of their own through USDA, FSIS, and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). “The first was a study of random retail ground beef samples taken from affected states. PCR tests were all negative, so that reaffirmed the safety of the supply.”
Additionally, cooking studies on virus-inoculated 80/20 ground beef determined that cooking ground beef to 145 – 160 degrees Fahrenheit also killed the virus.
Simmons warned that viruses can mutate to survive. She said, “We are constantly being vigilant for such a change. Now, even more so with influenza, we know it can infect multiple species. This virus has already affected dairy cattle, cats, llamas, racoons, and, of course, birds.”
USDA is currently doing epidemiology studies on all affected premises to look into both the wildlife component and para-domestic animals such as cats and dogs.
Avian Bird Flu has yet to appear in beef cattle herds, and Simmons explained that phenomenon by saying, “What we are seeing with this virus is that just as the virus in poultry had an affinity for lung tissue cells, the virus mutated to infect cattle seems to have an affinity for cells within the mammary gland. That helps us in feedyards because there are no lactating animals, and most cow/calf operations are on very large acreage so that helps us there.”
She advised producers to continue surveying their herds for sick animals and calling their veterinarians if they find one. “We have had no reports of any beef cattle who have clinical signs of the H5N1 virus, nor have we had any positive laboratory tests in beef cattle.”
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