As bird flu spreads in cows, here are 4 big questions scientists are trying to answerIt's been a month since the surprising discovery of bird flu in dairy cattle, and each week seems to bring more surprises.
Take the latest revelation: viral fragments in retail milk.
Scientists don't view this as an immediate threat to human health.
Genetic material is not the same as infectious virus and pasteurization is expected to inactivate the virus in milk, but the findings speak to the broader uncertainty about the extent of the spread.
"There's so many critical things that we still need to know to get a better perspective on how bad this is, or maybe it's not so bad," says Dr. Rick Bright, a virologist and the former head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Federal health agencies started sharing more details publicly this week, but Bright says there's still not enough transparency.
"It's the void that just leaves everyone nervous," he says
Other scientists say the reality is that there are still many unresolved questions about this outbreak, given how novel it is.
"There's a couple big unknowns at this point," says Louise Moncla, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
Here's what scientists who are tracking the virus still want to know:
How widespread is the virus in dairy cattle?
That's still far from clear.
While the official tally shows it's been detected in eight states and just over 30 herds, the actual number could be much larger.
First of all, there hasn't been widespread testing in cattle.
The fact that viral material is now being found in retail milk suggests "this virus is probably spread around quite a bit," says Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee.
On Thursday, the FDA said that preliminary results from nationwide samples of retail milk indicate about one in five samples are positive for viral traces. A survey of retail milk in the Midwest found 58 out of 150 samples were positive, according to Andrew Bowman at the Ohio State University. ....................
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/04/26/1247479100/bird-avian-flu-cows-cattle-milk-virus-unanswered-questions
