As bird flu hits cows and at least two humans, migrant farm workers are at risk | Farm animals

On an American dairy farm, working in the milking parlor can mean seven-day weeks, 12-hour shifts and intimate contact with the cows and whatever they expel.

“When you disconnect the machine from the udder, it can throw milk in your face,” said José Martínez, a former dairy worker and United Farm Workers advocate based in Washington state. “And there is no time or place to eat. So we ate our tacos in our free time with cow shit on our hands.

The situation on American dairy farms has been in the spotlight since the H5N1 flu virus, which decimated bird populations worldwide, jumped from one species to another and adapted to spread between cows. This puts dairy farm workers on the front line of infections that can be transmitted to humans.

As of May 24, there were 58 known infected herds in the United States. Two human infections have been documented among dairy farm workers in Texas and Michigan. But there are anecdotal reports of other farmworkers experiencing mild symptoms.

Single-species infections alone are not enough to cause a pandemic. This would require the virus to adapt to spread easily between humans, as it must spread between cows.

The likelihood that the virus will accumulate the right combination of mutations to achieve this is low. But the flu is known for its ability to evolve, and the slow public health response gives this H5N1 the opportunity to take hold in cows – a species that has many close contacts with humans.

“Just because we had a coronavirus pandemic doesn’t mean we’re done,” said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota. “The pandemic clock is ticking. We just don’t know what time it is.

Since the H5N1 virus was discovered in American cows, scientists have worked to define the situation.

Still, many unknowns remain, such as how many states and herds are affected, how the virus spreads between cows, how the two human cases became infected — and whether they are the only ones.

Genome sequence data from infected cows suggests the virus jumped from a bird to a cow probably late last year, meaning it circulated among cows for months before being detected .

One theory is that a dead infected bird got into the cows’ feed, then it began to spread from cow to cow through the milking machines, and the dairy farm workers became infected because milk that got into their eyes, as Martínez described.

Wastewater testing has reported several sites in the United States where levels of influenza — but not specifically H5N1 — are unusually high for this time of year, although the source remains unclear.

Meanwhile, a national survey of retail milk by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found noninfectious remnants of the H5N1 virus in one of five samples tested. even if these samples were still drinkable.

But to really understand what’s going on, we need better access to dairy farms, experts say.

“Right now, I feel like we have both hands tied behind our backs,” Osterholm said. “For the most part, American agricultural interests don’t want to know what’s going on. And they made it difficult for public health workers to access farms.

Part of the problem is that producers have little incentive to cooperate with authorities.

Infected cows only show mild symptoms before recovering, meaning there is only a transient effect on milk production.

But if authorities found a positive cow on their farm, it could mean shutting down operations. And cows would still have to be milked, so producers would have to pay for labor while getting rid of the product.

“If you find positive cows on your farm, your reward is potentially financial ruin,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

On May 10, the USDA announced a package of financial incentives – up to $28,000 per farm over the next four months – to encourage testing and biosecurity on dairy farms.

But he neglected perhaps the most important element: the workers.

“In my opinion, the focus should be on dairy farm workers,” said Amy Liebman of the Migrant Clinicians Network, a nonprofit organization. “And this worker – this immigrant worker – gets lost in this approach. »

There are perhaps 150,000 workers on dairy farms in the United States, according to Elizabeth Strater of the United Farm Workers union. The vast majority are probably undocumented.

These workers are the people most exposed to H5N1 – and the least protected.

“Dairy cattle are handled in a pretty intimate way,” Strater said. “Parlour workers can spend 12 hours a day with their faces about 6 inches from the udders.”

It varies from farm to farm, but in some cases workers live in collective housing, making self-isolation difficult and making it easier for infectious diseases to spread.

Experts agree there was likely more than just the two human infections.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relies on passive surveillance: people come to the emergency room on their own and are tested for the flu.

But the barriers that prevent a dairy farm worker from seeing a doctor are immense.

“Very few people have health insurance,” said Bethany Alcauter of the National Center for Farmworker Health. “They earn very low salaries. Dairies are usually found in fairly remote locations. And then they work very long days.

“They’re unlikely to go to the emergency room for something that’s not life-threatening,” Strater said. “In fact, they avoid testing because they know they will not receive any compensation if they are ordered to stop working.”

In its financial incentive program, the USDA offered $75 to workers who get tested. “That’s not even a day of work lost,” Strater said. “And that’s a really bad bet for someone who might miss weeks.”

So far, no dairy workers have died from H5N1 and no clusters of sick people have appeared in emergency departments, implying that the virus has not adapted to spread between humans.

“If there were large outbreaks of a serious respiratory illness, we would detect it even without surveillance,” Osterholm said. “But all that could change overnight.”

In the short term, experts are calling for more protective equipment, such as face shields, fully paid sick leave for workers and widespread drug testing on dairy farms.

All of this must be accompanied by a multilingual communications strategy to help agricultural workers understand how they can protect themselves.

Currently, many dairy workers are not even aware that there is an outbreak of the H5N1 virus among cattle.

“Here in Sunnyside, Washington, I haven’t heard any workers talk about it,” Martínez said.

In Vermont, another dairy farm worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said he had not heard anything about H5N1. “(Management) didn’t even talk about it,” they said. “Now that I find out, I think I’m worried. But I have no idea what that means.

“During Covid, government agencies have supported the infrastructure needed to raise awareness (to these groups),” Liebman said. “You just need money. And that requires support from community groups, (including) faith-based organizations, that have connections to workers.

Putting such measures and awareness in place could be the difference between controlling a potentially dangerous virus like H5N1 and giving it the chance to turn into a pandemic.

“Farmworkers are the canaries in the coal mine (in a pandemic),” Alcauter said. “But I think it’s important not to present them as victims or vectors. Because they could be trained to become front-line public health advocates.