The bird flu is not in the news but still surrounds

For months, Bird Flu It seems to be anywhere in the US: News headlines reported more pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus rapidly through hundreds herds of cattle in the milk and lead many culls of crowds of chickensabout infections with people and The grocery store aisles where one can find an egg.

But almost as quick as Bird Flu holds daily conversations, it’s gone from them and most of the minds of the people – which can easily think about avian influenza. Far from it, experts say. “The flu is still there, and we never know about it,” said Angela Rasmussen, a vonologist at the University of Saskatchewan.

What makes the virus apparently disappear – and what does it mean to Future of Bird Flu?

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An expert in the scenario that is certainly ruled is that the current bird flu virus – a member of the influenza called H5NYa – an epidemiologist of himself, said that Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist of Brown University. “It has a sudden thinking that it will only go and lose, and we don’t just see it, and that is not what the flu viruses do.” It doesn’t go. “

Experts still watch for H5N1 avian influenza in different animals: wild birdsCommercial chicken animals, wild mammals, dairy cows and people – and find it, even lower rates. But the virus is deceptive, which is different from behaving every host. Here’s what we know about the current situation of the virus.

The most reliable bird flu spread data comes from the operation of chickens. That is because the virus is very severe in chickens and turkeys that should be done Cull flocks when they find an infection to reduce spread. They can also report the federal government explosions to receive part of the fee. There is no way to ignore a sick flock or any incentive to keep one.

And now the chicken tolls at Avian Influenza are relatively low. Farmers reported only three million chicken birds killed by virus or culled to prevent it in March and April and 12 million in January and February. May see more than five million birds die after the virus saves several large-scale facilities in Maricopa County, Arizona. But June rates fall below a million birds, and the cases in July to remain very low, with only one commercial facility that is very affected.

These lower rate of bird flu is not even more awesome, given the past virus behavior in the chickens so far, says Mike Persia, a specialist in Birginia. “We usually see a reduction in summer infections,” he said. Since the current outbreak began in early 2022, US Department of Agriculture Data Show that, each year, the monthly count of affected poultry birds has tended to dip to under five million in June, July and August.

Two factors caused a period of a waste of time, Persia said. The virus appears weak at higher ambient temperatures, and migratory wild birds often identify the virus of chicks do not travel today that the time to shrink the whole time period.

But the history of caution tells a taking care: every autumn, the number of affected birds affected again – so it’s not yet fulfilled H5N1. “I hope this is the last one, and it goes forever. I don’t take the more,” said Jada Thompson, an agricultural economist at the University of Arkansas. “We need to keep watch.”

Evaluate the The draining of US cattle cows is harder. Cows who are sick with bird flu don’t eat and produce thick and discovered milk. But infection is not nearly a deadly cattle as it is in chickens, lightening the virus to see before. And there is no charge for lost milk to encourage farmers to report to hit.

In addition, the virus leaps of the milk cows in the late 2023 unexpectedly and Not confirmed by the public through March 2024that gives farmers to milk and virologists a little time to find the tendencies in the bird flu in the species. Last year’s cases continue all over summer, especially in difficult color of Colorado. Spread proves difficult to contain, in part because of the action of animals needed in the Dairy industry. And although the virus can be monitored by milk, officials only began to rule such a test in December, after one year circulation.

This year reporting infections acts, with only two herds of animals confirmed with a virus in all June. But it is unclear how the farmers interpret the fashion with farmers, left without caution and optimism.

In the whole blow, the risk of bird flu to humans low, even if milk workers and chicken with exposure to infected animals are more vulnerable. the First found human infection in 2024 arrived shortly after confirming the milk cows were sick with H5N1. Further human cases come to arrivals in the intervening months, confirming 70 confirmed infections, including a death, in the middle of February. Since then, high infections in centers for preventing illness and prevention are shocked.

Experts doubt a good thing. “I cannot work with about why we find no infection: we are not just looking for them,” Muzzo said.

In the whole blow, the CDC keeps a running tally to try it performsand those figures paint a clear picture. Up to July 1, the CDC says more than 880 people are covered by referred to attempt after exposure to infected animals. In March 1 that number was over 840; In contrast, the February 1 number is more than 660. CDC has tried over four people in many people in February, April, June together. Another way to conduct experts in Bird Fluut on the previously influential flu monitoring – but because normal influenza infection is in a seasonal lull, so are the tests through the network.

The result is a large question marks. “We’re a perfectly a perfect storm without trying,” Rasmussen said.

Even monitoring waste water, proved to help understand the level of virus that causes the test rates fall, limited help. The procedure searched for the presence of viruses in community water processing plants, but H5N1 is very spread of species It is almost impossible to use these detections Surely tracking sources.

“There is no news in my world.” -The Selaela Rasmussen, Viridish, University of Saskatchewan

“You don’t know how it is,” as a nimzzo on the wastewater virus. “You don’t know if people are infected; you don’t know if (the virus is in) because birds hang in Wernetwater.” In some cases, spikes at H5nd’s wastewater levels are linked even to farmers who dump milk from their infected cattle.

The Nuzzo suspects that there are more human lawsuits at Avian Influenza than 70 certified so far but the virus does not spread the most. “I don’t think there are some big iceberg in infections lost,” says Nuzzo.

Nuzzo and Rasmussen find cold comfort, however. However they explain how important it is to have as much intellus as possible what H5N1 does. The choice that does not seek virus behavior evidence means passing through the opportunity to catch any first signs of a creation.

“There is no news in my world bad news,” says Rasmussen. “We just don’t collect any data, and that’s two, very different things.”

The current US method is simply repairs in a situation that is difficult to conform to the complexity of a multikpecies of rapidly changing flu viruses.

“This is the kind of thing to be a pandemic tomorrow, (or) it can’t be a pandemic. And I don’t know who happens,” Rasmussen said.

“It was a great danger, but it was also a risk of never ending,” he said. “But we don’t know if we just stop finding it.”