Therefore, the USDA’s ultimate goal is to eliminate cattle as storage. When the agency announced that Planning this programpointed out that there are two vaccine candidates in clinical trials. Until these are verified, we plan to use the standard playbook for dealing with emerging infectious diseases: contact tracing and isolation. And it turns out it has the ability to force cows and their owners to be more cooperative than humans.
5 step plan
The USDA calls isolation and contact tracing the third phase of its five-phase plan for cattle H5N1 infection control, with the previous two phases being mandatory sampling and testing, which are intended to be addressed on a state-by-state basis. I am doing it. After successfully containing the virus in a state, the USDA will move to batch sampling to ensure each state remains virus-free. This is essential given that there is no clear picture of how many times the virus has jumped from its usual reservoir in birds to the cattle population.
This may make it impossible to reach Stage 5, which the USDA calls “demonstration of freedom from H5 in U.S. dairy cattle.” Dairy cows are likely to come into contact with birds on a daily basis, meaning the virus could be reintroduced into the population on a regular basis, making containment the only option until a vaccine is available.
Testing will initially focus primarily on states with confirmed cattle-to-human transmission or presence of the virus: California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, Oregon and Pennsylvania. Want to track the progress of USDA efforts? Post weekly updates.
