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By
Citizen Frank
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Officials and experts said the lack of clear and timely updates by some federal agencies responding to the outbreak recall similar communication missteps at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. They point, in particular, to a failure to provide more details publicly about how the H5N1 virus is spreading in cows and about the safety of the milk supply.
“This requires multiple agencies to coordinate and communicate internally, but most importantly externally, which doesn’t seem to be happening due to different cultures, priorities, legal responsibilities, scientific expertise, and agility,” said Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist who writes a weekly infectious-diseases newsletter and has closely tracked the avian flu outbreak. “Mix that in with the usual challenges of scientific uncertainty, complexity and, quite frankly global pressure, and you got yourself an utterly, unacceptable mess.”
.....“This work is an urgent priority as we work to ensure the continued effectiveness of the federal-state milk safety system and reinforce [the Food and Drug Administration’s] current assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the administration official said....
Responsibility for monitoring and containing the outbreak is divided among three agencies. USDA leads the investigation into the virus in cows, the FDA oversees food safety, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is monitoring risks to people.
Agencies have given individual updates on their parts of the outbreak investigation, but Wednesday marked the first time since bird flu was detected in cows four weeks ago that CDC, FDA and USDA, along with other agencies, held a news briefing jointly.
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Officials are seeking answers to other key questions: They want to know whether the virus is spreading among cows through mechanical means, such as milking equipment, as evidence suggests, or through the air, which would be more dangerous and lead to more sustained spread. They are also interested in knowing how long livestock will shed virus in their milk once they have recovered from an infection. And, crucially, they will seek to ascertain the risks for human exposure and whether protocols are in place at the state level if additional people test positive....
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“Given this is a novel outbreak, testing needs to be done widely and rapidly, investigators need to be on affected farms, and scientists and policymakers need to be bringing it all together to set a coordinated plan of action,” Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
...Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona virologist who led a team of scientists who analyzed 239 genetic sequences released Sunday by the USDA, said the evolutionary tree of the virus “resoundingly indicates that this outbreak had a single origin and that it had been circulating under our noses for months before it was noticed.”...
....Public health and veterinary experts say they also want more epidemiological data — including information on the movement of animals, their feed sources and how many workers are on-site — to understand how and where the virus is circulating.
Beth Thompson, South Dakota’s state veterinarian and president of the National Assembly of State Animal Health Officials, said such information needs to be shared quickly.
“It’s like if you just rip one page out of a chapter in a book and hand it to the states, that isn’t the whole chapter,” Thompson said. “We need all of the information to be given back to us.”
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