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Bald eagle euthanized in Mass. after bird flu diagnosis
State and health officials announced that bird flu has become “widespread” in Massachusetts.
Authorities euthanized a bald eagle found in Townsend, Mass. on Sunday that tested positive for the virus. The bird flu outbreak is causing an egg shortage across the country. AP Photo/Andres Kudacki
Amid an uptick in reported bird flu cases across the state, officials euthanized a bald eagle found in Townsend, Mass. on Sunday that tested positive for the virus.
According to Raptor Tales Rescue of Shrewsbury, the bald eagle was showing “neurological deficits” with “sudden and frequent head movements.” The bird was euthanized in an effort to prevent the spread of the infectious disease.
The eagle is one of many birds across Massachusetts that have tested positive for bird flu in recent weeks.
“It is very concerning to me as a raptor rehabilitator, to see the numbers that we’re seeing,” Raptor Tales Rescue of Shrewsbury President Jess Zorge told Boston.com. “It’s been around for several years within the state…but nothing to this extent that I’ve seen before.”
Zorge said Raptor Tales Rescue of Shrewsbury has been “flying through” its personal protective equipment. Over the past 10 days, Zorge said the organization alone has confirmed three positive cases of bird flu.
What is bird flu?
Bird flu is widespread in wild birds around the world, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Raptors, waterfowl, and other aquatic birds are most at risk for infection, according to MassWildlife, and wild mammals can also become infected.
Birds can carry the virus — which can be transmitted through droppings, fluids, secretions, and consuming contaminated carcasses — without showing symptoms, Zorge said.
Common signs of infection in birds that show symptoms include sudden death, purple discoloration, and lack of coordination, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
To prevent birds from congregating in large numbers and further spreading the virus, Zorge urged people to refrain from feeding birds in the wild. Zorge also advised pet owners to keep their cats, which are highly susceptible to the illness, away from wild birds.
While the CDC says the current public health risk is low, there have been 68 confirmed total reported human cases in the United States.
However, state health officials say the bird flu “rarely” infects humans. Most human cases seen so far in the U.S. have been mild, according to the CDC, and have mostly been limited to people who had known exposure to sick animals.
The bird flu outbreak is also causing an egg shortage, the AP reported, prompting grocers to limit the number of eggs that customers can purchase.
Where has bird flu been identified?
Massachusetts has seen recurring incidents of bird flu among wild birds since 2022. But last month, state and health officials announced that bird flu had become “widespread” in the state and is “likely present even in places where there has not been a confirmed positive.”
In January, health officials said bird flu was the likely cause of death for more than 60 Canada geese, swans, and ducks in Plymouth.
Just days after, D.W. Field Park in Brockton and Avon was forced to close after officials warned of a potential avian flu outbreak. Several swans and Canada geese were reportedly found dead.
Between Feb. 5 and 11, the Town of Plymouth removed 16 birds, according to officials.
State health officials are asking the public to report observations of five or more deceased birds found at a single location to MassWildlife using this form, and to report sick or dead poultry and other domestic birds using this form.
Why is bird flu highly lethal to some animals, but not others? Scientists are trying to find out
NEW YORK (AP) — In the last two years, bird flu has been blamed for the deaths of millions of wild and domestic birds worldwide. It’s killed legions of seals and sea lions, wiped out mink farms, and dispatched cats, dogs, skunks, foxes and even a polar bear.
But it seems to have hardly touched people.
That’s “a little bit of a head scratcher,” although there are some likely explanations, said Richard Webby, a flu researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. It could have to do with how infection occurs or because species have differences in the microscopic docking points that flu viruses need to take root and multiply in cells, experts say.
But what keeps scientists awake at night is whether that situation will change.
WATCH: Why scientists are concerned about the latest transmission of bird flu to cows
“There’s a lot we don’t understand,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director who currently heads Resolve to Save Lives, a not-for-profit that works to prevent epidemics. “I think we have to get over the ‘hope for the best and bury our head in the sand’ approach. Because it could be really bad.”
Some researchers theorize that flu viruses that originated in birds were the precursors to terrible scourges in humans, including pandemics in 1918 and 1957. Those viruses became deadly human contagions and spread in animals and people.
A number of experts think it’s unlikely this virus will become a deadly global contagion, based on current evidence. But that’s not a sure bet.
Just in case, U.S. health officials are readying vaccines and making other preparations. But they are holding off on bolder steps because the virus isn’t causing severe disease in people and they have no strong evidence it’s spreading from person to person.
The flu that’s currently spreading — known as H5N1 — was first identified in birds in 1959. It didn’t really begin to worry health officials until a Hong Kong outbreak in 1997 that involved severe human illnesses and deaths.
It has caused hundreds of deaths around the world, the vast majority of them involving direct contact between people and infected birds. When there was apparent spread between people, it involved very close and extended contact within households.
Like other viruses, however, the H5N1 virus has mutated over time. In the last few years, one particular strain has spread alarmingly quickly and widely.
In the United States, animal outbreaks have been reported at dozens of dairy cow farms and more than 1,000 poultry flocks, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Four human infections have been reported among the hundreds of thousands of people who work at U.S. poultry and dairy farms, though that may be an undercount.
WATCH: Bird flu outbreak at dairy farms continue to raise concerns about virus spreading
Worldwide, doctors have detected 15 human infections caused by the widely circulating bird flu strain. The count includes one death — a 38-year-old woman in southern China in 2022 — but most people had either no symptoms or only mild ones, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There’s no way to know how many animals have been infected, but certain creatures seem to be getting more severe illnesses.
Take cats, for example. Flu is commonly thought of as a disease of the lungs, but the virus can attack and multiply in other parts of the body too. In cats, scientists have found the virus attacking the brain, damaging and clotting blood vessels and causing seizures and death.
Similarly gruesome deaths have been reported in other animals, including foxes that ate dead, infected birds.
The flu strain’s ability to lodge in the brain and nervous system is one possible reason for “higher mortality rate in some species,” said Amy Baker, an Iowa-based U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist who studies bird flu in animals. But scientists “just don’t know what the properties of the virus or the properties of the host are that are leading to these differences,” Baker said.
Unlike cats, cows have been largely spared. Illnesses have been reported in less than 10 percent of the cows in affected dairy herds, according to the USDA. Those that did develop symptoms experienced fever, lethargy, decreased appetite and increased respiratory secretions.
Cow infections largely have been concentrated in the udders of lactating animals. Researchers investigating cat deaths at dairy farms with infected cows concluded the felines caught the virus from drinking raw milk.
Researchers are still sorting out how the virus has been spreading from cow to cow, but studies suggest the main route of exposure is not the kind of airborne droplets associated with coughing and sneezing. Instead it’s thought to be direct contact, perhaps through shared milking equipment or spread by the workers who milk them.
Then there’s the issue of susceptibility. Flu virus need to be able to latch onto cells before they can invade them.
“If it doesn’t get into a cell, nothing happens. … The virus just swims around,” explained Juergen Richt, a researcher at Kansas State University.
But those docking spots — sialic acid receptors — aren’t found uniformly throughout the body, and differ among species. One recent study documented the presence of bird flu-friendly receptors in dairy cattle mammary glands.
Eye redness has been a common symptom among people infected by the current bird flu strain. People who milk cows are eye level with the udders, and splashes are common. Some scientists also note that the human eye has receptors that the virus can bind to.
A study published this month found ferrets infected in the eyes ended up dying, as the researchers demonstrated that the virus could be as deadly entering through the eyes as through the respiratory tract.
Why didn’t the same happen in the U.S. farmworkers?
That’s a hard one to answer, experts said. Perhaps people have some level of immunity, due to past exposure to other forms of flu or to vaccinations, Richt suggested.
A more menacing question: What happens if the virus mutates in a way that makes it more lethal to people or allows it to spread more easily?
READ MORE: How bird flu puts workers on farms and in food processing plants at higher risk
Pigs are a concern because they are considered ideal mixing vessels for bird flu to potentially combine with other flu viruses to create something more dangerous. Baker has been studying the current strain in pigs and found it can replicate in the lungs, but the disease is very mild.
But that could all change, which is why there’s a push in the scientific community to ramp up animal testing.
Frieden, of Resolve to Save Lives, noted public health experts have been worried about a deadly new flu pandemic for a long time.
“The only thing predictable about influenza is it’s unpredictable,” he said.
Bird flu kills over 900 seals, sea lions in south Brazil
SAO JOSE DO NORTE, Brazil : Nearly 1,000 seals and sea lions in southern Brazil have died from bird flu outbreaks, say authorities, who are scrambling to isolate the deadly virus from commercial poultry flocks.
The southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul has confirmed an unprecedented 942 sea mammal deaths following infection by the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), which was reported for the first time ever in the South American country this year.
Oceanographer Silvina Botta, at the Rio Grande Federal University (FURG), said the carcasses have to be buried or incinerated as soon as possible to reduce the risk of contaminating humans or other animals.
Scientists have also found some sea mammals convulsing along local beaches, as the virus attacks their nervous system. Under government health regulations, animals have to be euthanized to spare "a very painful death," Botta said.
Since Brazil's first report of HPAI in wild birds in May, the Agriculture Ministry says preventive measures have avoided an outbreak on commercial poultry farms, which could trigger export bans against Brazil, the world's top chicken exporter.
But the virus has run rampant in other animal populations. In addition to the outbreaks among seabirds, seals and sea lions, authorities have collected samples of dead porpoises and penguins found on beaches, with no confirmed results yet.
Botta said the first diagnosis of HPAI-related sea mammal deaths in Rio Grande do Sul came in September, when unusual mortality rates caught scientists' attention. Three towns in the state still have active outbreaks.
She said the contagion among sea mammals appears to have started in Peru and then circled the South American continent, hitting wildlife in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and now Brazil.
Brazil's Agriculture Ministry reported 148 HPAI outbreaks in the country, mostly along the coast, declaring a health emergency to contain the disease, which it says "is not yet considered endemic in Brazil."
Avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, has led to the culling of hundreds of millions of farm animals in Europe and the United States.
(Reporting by Diego Vara in Sao Jose do Norte and Ana Mano in Sao Paulo; Editing by Brad Haynes and Susan Fenton)
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