(Geneva) The World Health Organization is frequently informed about the avian flu outbreak in the United States, the only country so far where dairy cows have been infected, an official from the organization explained on Tuesday.
“We receive information and we actually receive almost daily updates” from the US centers with which WHO collaborates, said Dr. Wenqing Zhang, who leads the global influenza program at WHO, during the regular UN briefing in Geneva.
She was pressed with questions by reporters, criticism having been made in recent days about the lack of transparency of the American authorities.
Dr Zhang stressed that serological studies are ongoing “but may take time” and she insisted that data from genetic sequencing “is available, with some having been made available very early”.
What’s more, “the genetic sequencing data from the human case was immediately made available,” she insisted.
“The fact that this has been detected, that we are informed of an individual case somewhere on a farm, this demonstrates that surveillance is working,” added Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the WHO.
She confirmed the conclusions of American authorities, who believe that milk sold in stores is “safe” and that pasteurization kills the virus present in milk.
An outbreak of avian flu has spread for several weeks in dairy cow herds in the United States, the only one affected for the moment. One person working on an affected dairy farm was infected but had only mild symptoms.
Experts are concerned about the growing number of mammals infected with the disease, although cases in humans remain very rare.
There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission at this time, but scientists fear that high circulation could facilitate a mutation of the virus that would allow it to pass from one human to another.
As the virus is transported in particular by migratory birds, “there is certainly a risk that cows in other countries will be infected,” said the WHO official.
Currently, it is believed that the original infection came from birds, but in the United States they are still trying to determine whether or not there was cow-to-cow transmission.