Do Kansans and Missourians need to be worried about a bird flu outbreak? What to know

A highly contagious bird flu recently made an inter-species jump to infect dairy cattle in Kansas and other states, federal health officials reported.

The disease, officially known as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza or HPAI, has been circulating in the U.S. since early 2022. However, it wasn’t detected in other livestock until this month, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed cases in Texas and Kansas dairy cows.

“This jump into the bovine was unexpected. It’s a novel event,” said Kansas Animal Health Commissioner Justin Smith. “It frankly caught a lot of us off guard.”

Smith told The Star that while he hasn’t visited the dairy farms in southwestern Kansas where cows are getting sick, his department is in constant communication with them as they work to contain the virus and care for affected animals.

According to data collected by the USDA, the bird flu was last detected in Kansas birds on Jan. 22. It has infected 11 commercial flocks and 20 backyard flocks in the state, with a total of over 1.86 million birds, since the outbreak began in 2022.

The flu was last detected in Missouri birds on Feb. 23. It has infected 13 commercial flocks and 16 backyard flocks in the state, with a total of over 600,000 birds, since the outbreak began.

Here’s what to know about the avian flu’s impact on livestock and how it could affect life beyond the farm.

How are experts handling the bird flu outbreak in poultry and dairy cows?

The protocol for handling avian flu is different for egg-laying chickens than for dairy cows, Smith told The Star. That’s because the virus impacts the two species very differently.

If a bird gets sick in a poultry facility, the virus is basically a death sentence — and its “highly pathogenic” nature means that it quickly infects other birds in the flock.

“Those birds continually propagate the virus and spew it out into the environment. So we go in and eradicate those birds humanely,” Smith said. “If we find that (a) facility is positive, any of those eggs that are on site will be destroyed.”

Dairy cows, on the other hand, don’t easily pass the virus to one another — and with the right care, they can recover fully from their illness.

“The typical process is, those (sick) cows are pulled off the line, and they’re put into a hospital situation and that milk is discarded,” Smith said. “It’s not a lethal disease in the dairy cow. There’s a lack of evidence of how, or if, they have the potential to spread it between themselves.”

Once the impacted cows have fully recovered, Smith said, they rejoin the milk production line.

Do humans need to be worried about catching bird flu?

One dairy farm worker in Texas recently contracted a mild case of the flu, marking its first confirmed human infection in two years. The worker has since recovered and didn’t pass the virus to anyone else, according to the CDC.

Smith added that the only previous human infection — seen in a poultry industry worker in 2022 — was never fully confirmed. At this time, he said, health experts don’t think the bird flu poses a danger to humans.

“There is no sign of person-to-person spread of this virus at this time,” the agency wrote on its website. “At this time, CDC believes that the overall risk to the general public posed by this virus remains low.”

How will the bird flu outbreak impact milk and egg production?

Three dairy farms in Kansas are seeing decreased milk production due to the recent bird flu outbreak, along with around a dozen more dairies in Texas, Michigan, New Mexico, Idaho and Ohio.

But Smith says that these few farms are not enough to impact the nationwide milk supply, or drive up the price of dairy products .

Of more concern is the impact a widespread surge in bird flu could have on egg-laying chickens. While infection numbers have been low in recent months, Smith noted that wild bird migration in the spring and fall can spread the virus between commercial poultry flocks, potentially leading to spikes in the flu.

If the disease reaches the significant levels seen early last year, the price of eggs could once again rise around the country.

“We don’t know what’s going on with it right now,” Smith said. “But there’s the opportunity that, one, it either goes away or two, it comes back with a vengeance.”

Do you have more questions about livestock or agriculture in Kansas or Missouri? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.

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