Federal officials said this week that the H5N1 outbreak in dairy cattle can be eliminated.
Stat News Dot Com says officials face increasing doubts from experts because the virus is still spreading to new herds. “All signs that we have are, with good biosecurity, with good farmer participation, we will be able to eliminate this,” says Eric Deeble, acting senior adviser for H5N1 response at USDA. He says the reason for the confidence is that investigations are showing that it’s the transportation of the cattle, as well as the shared use of equipment and vehicles, spreading the virus. Deeble says that means cutting off virus access to the cattle at those points in the delivery chain can contain it. “We understand this moves with the cattle and the people that work closely with them, so improving biosecurity should get us to a point where we can arrest the spread,” Deeble adds.
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