Westend farmers attend biosecurity talk to protect against disease

Westend farmers attend biosecurity talk to protect against disease

By Jen Milliren

Farmers gathered at the Grays River Grange last week for a biosecurity information session in response to the growing concerns about the H5N1 virus. Earlier this year, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1), commonly referred to as "bird flu", made headlines after jumping from animals to farmworkers in Michigan, Colorado, Texas, and Missouri.

Organized by Wahkiakum County Health & Human Services and Washington State Department of Agriculture the information session included a dinner catered by the new owners of the Spar in Cathlamet, Department of Health Care-a-Van services, personal protective equipment for farmers, and a presentation by Dr. Zachary Turner, who is the Western Regional Field Veterinarian for the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

Dr. Turner began his presentation with an overview of animal disease transmission, and how various diseases in animals, like tuberculosis or rabies, can pose a risk to people.

"When we have this interface of animals and people," Dr. Turner explained, "diseases can be spread and it can go the other way."

Dr. Turner emphasized prevention as key, being cost-effective compared to treatment, and easily practiced with biosecurity. Biosecurity practices can be subject to risks associated with various locations and climate but there are some general practices that can greatly protect farms against any zoonotic disease including H5N1.

"One plan doesn't fit for everyone, but there are some basic things that you want to take into account. One of those is distance. If you can create a barrier between your animals and somebody else, you have more control over possible spread of disease. It's a respiratory disease – all it takes is rubbing some noses between your cattle and somebody else's. And so having some distance or barriers in place gives you more control over that risk."

"Cleanliness is certainly a factor," Turner continued. "A lot of the diseases that we're concerned about are spread in secretions, or fecal production ,or urine from a lot of these animals, so cleanliness is playing a role here. If there's a situation where feces or dirty debris are built up, especially on surfaces that are used frequently – tools, or holding pens, those kinds of things – that represents an opportunity for a virus or bacteria or some type of disease to spread to a new animal... The first step to prevent disease spread is to emphasize cleanliness. Even if you don't have the time to do a full disinfection, if you can at least reduce the coverage of manure and obvious dirt, that goes a long way towards preventing the spread of disease."

Dr. Turner spotlighted biosecurity measures for equipment and tools, pointing out that working between animals without cleaning tools is one way to inadvertently spread disease. "It can get even worse when we're talking about sharing equipment between multiple farms or multiple locations. If you have to share you could think about cleaning and disinfecting. But the best-case scenario is not sharing between farms at all. Certainly if you have a sick or infected animal."

Dr. Turner also recommended separating animals by use and age. "Working alot with dairies, with calves, and there's a lot of consideration for maybe not putting 8-month-old calves with the 4-month-old calves, because they're just sharing the diseases with the younger ones who don't have the immunity to respond to it."

His presentation shifted focus to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1) specifically, where he gave historical context of avian influenzas in the U.S. and clarified how the H5N1 strain was being transmitted to farms from the wild bird population. While it is a bigger problem throughout the country as well as internationally, there are no current human cases of H5N1 in Washington State.

"Fortunately," Dr. Turner stated, "when we're dealing with bird flu-right now we're not seeing a lot of impact on the zoonotic side or human health impact that's not to say that there are none. And we are certainly concerned if there is new information or if this virus is to do something that we're not anticipating which has happened in the past with other viruses. But, fortunately, not a lot of people are getting affected by this on a daily basis, but it is something that we're monitoring."

While the disease is categorized for chicken the spillover of H5N1 has affected cattle farms in the U.S. as well. "What we are seeing with cattle that are affected, they are primarily dairy cattle, there's not any current evidence that shows that beef cattle are affected, although I will tell you that there's not a lot of testing going on with that group, so we may be underestimating if it's impacting those animals. But with dairy cattle, what we see is if they're exposed to that virus, they don't milk as well, they may have a low-grade fever, and have abnormalities in the udder and the milk, but generally, they will recover from it after several weeks. The problem is, in the dairy industry where we have a lot of cows, if they all go off of milk at the same time, that could really heavily impact somebody's production. And what we're seeing is that some farms that are affected by this disease might go out of business because they're not able to milk to the quota that they were used to milking because so many animals are affected for an extended period of time. Furthermore, there is also a human-exposure element here for milkers, or people that are in high-contact with those dairy cattle."

Following the presentation, Dr. Turner opened the floor to questions. Farmers posed questions around evidence of mosquitos or other insects helping to spread this disease, movement restrictions with states more heavily effected by H5N1, and whether the milk from affected dairy cows could transfer the virus to humans. Dr. Turner explained that pasteurization of milk makes it safe for consumption, and that consuming raw milk was not recommended.

For more information about biosecurity, symptoms, and personal protective equipment (PPE) for farmers, please visit https://agr.wa.gov/departments/animals-livestock-and-pets/avian-health/avian-influenza.