Bird flu is increasing the cost of what’s on people’s table this Thanksgiving, as deaths of millions of poultry in recent weeks have driven up egg prices and dropped turkey populations to the lowest level in nearly 40 years.
More than 90 million poultry – mostly chickens and turkeys – have been euthanized or infected with avian influenza in the United States. The deaths sharply drove up prices of poultry meat in 2022, which have only slightly abated this year.
Much of California, including some of the country’s largest egg layers, has seen increased infections from the migration of wild birds.Egg prices in California have nearly doubled in a month, as flocks get smaller and can’t keep up with demand.
New Mexico health and veterinary officials said avian influenza has not been detected in state dairy herds or poultry farms since August. Nor has anyone in the state tested positive, even as cases and concerns rise amid the ongoing outbreak elsewhere.
New Mexico was among the first of 15 states currently experiencing the avian flu crossover infections in dairy cows. Infections have spread to nearly 500 dairy herds this year, including top milk producers in California, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But national experts said the U.S. is failing to keep track of the spread of the disease, because it has a less robust effort to track public health compared to other developed countries.
Instead, the U.S. relies on a patchwork of local health systems that don’t always have the funding for tracking emerging diseases, said Amira Roess, a professor of global health at George Mason University.
“It is hard to comment on whether or not (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) infections are truly rare, given that we do not have active surveillance programs,” Roess said.
What is avian influenza?
Avian influenza is a family of viruses that usually impacts wild and domestic birds. Previously, people and other animals would only be sickened by coming into direct contact with sickened birds or carcasses.
In recent years, the H5N1 variant has “spilled” over into other species and has been devastating for marine mammal populations. Infectious disease researchers said the virus’ ability to adapt to different hosts and change its genetic code increases its pandemic potential.
Currently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that person-to-person transmission of avian flu is not occurring, and that the risk to the general population is low but much higher for people in contact with poultry or other animals.
Dr. Samantha Holeck, the state veterinarian, said there have been no presumptive cases in New Mexico cows since August, keeping the number of infected New Mexico herds to 9.
Avian flu infections have been limited to Curry and Roosevelt counties, and include a poultry facility in addition to the dairies. There’s no further information about the number of animals impacted, state officials said.
In an emailed statement, Holeck said no deaths in New Mexico dairy herds have been “directly attributed to H5N1.”
It’s a different story for dairy herds in California. Instead of about a 2% mortality rate seen in other states from avian influenza, infected California herds had death rates of 15-20% preventing farmers’ ability to remove the carcasses and fueling further infection concerns.
Infections in humans are increasing
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 55 people have been infected, including 28 cases in California. People experiencing avian flu reported eye infections – officially called conjunctivitis – and others had flu-like symptoms including chills, coughing, fever, sore throat and runny nose.
Here’s what to watch for avian flu symptoms in backyard flocks and other domestic animals
In New Mexico, only seven people have been tested for avian flu though November. All were negative, said David Morgan, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Health.
New Mexico health officials have only tested symptomatic people, following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines released in April when the outbreak started. Only in early November did the CDC update its policies to test all farmworkers who come into contact with animals with bird flu, regardless if they’re showing symptoms or not.
Roess said one of the concerns of testing only symptomatic workers is that it can give health experts an inaccurate picture of infection rates. That testing strategy can miss people who carry the disease and quietly transmit it.
Without tests of symptomatic and asymptomatic people, it’s hard to assess how big the risk of an outbreak is or if enough preventative measures are in place.
She also said testing workers in dairies and poultry farms has specific challenges.
“A lot of food production workers are low-wage workers who do not have meaningful healthcare access,” Roess said. “It is extremely difficult to convince someone to take time away from work to go get tested when they are sick if that means they will lose income.”
Federal health officials are publishing data from wastewater monitoring, but independent public health experts have asked states and cities to do more testing for avian flu.
State officials not planning to test wastewater in New Mexico for avian flu
New Mexico officials are submitting results from H5 influenza tests in Santa Fe and Albuquerque to the national dashboard, but are not testing in Curry and Roosevelt counties – where the outbreaks in dairies and a poultry facility have been located.
Morgan didn’t say what would trigger increased surveillance, only saying the department “would pursue wastewater testing if the results would inform public health actions.”
State health officials previously gave sets of masks and gloves to two dairies for their employees and distributed 3,000 sets of personal protective equipment to community groups.
Morgan urged dairy workers and their families to get the seasonal flu vaccine, saying that, while it will not protect against the avian flu H5N1 strain, it will reduce infection from a common flu strain at the same time.
“Being vaccinated against flu also gives the H5N1 virus fewer chances to combine with seasonal influenza strains, which could enable it to transmit person-to-person,” Morgan said.
There is no vaccine widely available for H5N1. TheU.S. has only 5 million of the vaccines against the strain spreading right now.
Migration season sees a spike in cases in other states
As billions of birds are migrating, health officials in other states are raising the alarm about increased cases of bird flu in wild populations.
Contact with infected wild birds caused recent backyard farm animal infections in Washington including pigs.
Pigs plus avian influenza has been a deadly combination before. In 2009, the H1N1 variant (nicknamed the “swine flu”) was a new combination of genes from influenza viruses that infected pigs, people and birds. It infected 20% of the global population.
New Mexico has recorded only 41 cases of avian influenza in wild birds, which pales in comparison to the several hundred cases detected in surrounding states such as Colorado and Utah, according to the USDA’s tracker.
The last date of a wild bird with H5N1 was recorded May 24 in Roosevelt county, according to the USDA data.
Darren Vaughn, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, said he could not provide answers by deadline to questions about the agency’s efforts to catalog avian influenza cases, or make anyone available for comment.
