, Columnist
Lock Down the Cows to Prevent Further Bird Flu Spread
The H5N1 outbreak in dairy herds demands a more aggressive posture from US public health agencies.
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The bird flu may be entering a dangerous new phase. The risk that any given person will be sickened or die remains low, but the risk of this virus mutating into the next human pandemic is high enough to warrant action. That starts with much more aggressive measures to test and contain infected dairy herds.
“If we really don't want this to come into people, we need to do something about the cows,” says Seema Lakdawala, an immunologist at the Emory University School of Medicine. And she’s right.
