A bird flu outbreak is spreading among cows in the US. These scientists are hunting for answers
https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-usda-iowa-research-8506a7cd0ab1e58cf776aba67b0f97f8
(video, photos, more, at source)
A bird flu outbreak is spreading among cows in the US. These scientists are hunting for answers
BY MARY CONLON AND MIKE STOBBE
Updated 12:47 AM EDT, August 23, 2024
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Welcome to the National Animal Disease Center, a government research facility in Iowa where 43 scientists work with pigs, cows and other animals, pushing to solve the bird flu outbreak currently spreading through U.S. animals and develop ways to stop it.
Particularly important is the testing of a cow vaccine designed to stop the continued spread of the virus thereby, hopefully, reducing the risk that it will someday become a widespread disease in people.
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The campus has 93 buildings, including a high-containment laboratory building whose exterior is reminiscent of a modern megachurch but inside features a series of compartmentalized corridors and rooms, some containing infected animals. Thats where scientists work with more dangerous germs, including the H5N1 bird flu. Theres also a building with three floors of offices that houses animal disease researchers as well as a testing center that is a for animals version of the CDC labs in Atlanta that identify rare (and sometimes scary) new human infections.
About 660 people work at the campus roughly a third of them assigned to the animal disease center, which has a $38 million annual budget. They were already busy with a wide range of projects but grew even busier this year after the H5N1 bird flu unexpectedly jumped into U.S. dairy cows.
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