Global health leader critiques ‘ineptitude’ of U.S. response to bird flu outbreak among cows

LONDON — Seth Berkley, a longtime and widely respected global health leader, said Thursday that it has been “shocking to watch the ineptitude” of the U.S. response to the avian influenza outbreak among dairy cattle, adding his voice to a chorus of critics.

In a presentation in London about vaccine development, Berkley, the former CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, raised the issue of H5N1 bird flu when discussing whether the world was ready for another pandemic following its experience with Covid-19.

“Are we better prepared?” he said. “We could have a long discussion about this, but I would make an argument that H5N1 has suggested that we’re not. I live in Switzerland, but in my home country of the United States, it’s been shocking to watch the ineptitude of just doing the surveillance, being able to talk about it, tracking the infections, understanding where we are. Do we have vaccines? Are they the right vaccines? It is really a challenge. So I’m not sure we have learned anything.”

Berkley, who stepped down from Gavi last year after more than a decade leading the organization, made his remarks at an event about the future of vaccines, organized by the venture firm Flagship Pioneering.

“This does make me scared,” Berkley added about H5N1. “It’s one of the things that keeps me up at night.”

Berkley’s critiques echo those of other scientists, which largely center on how poorly the virus is being tracked. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released limited information about the genomic sequences of flu samples taken from herds and where exactly infected herds have been identified. Efforts to expand testing of herds have run into logistical problems and resistance from farmers. Testing is voluntary except when cows are moved across state lines.

As a result, the official count of 94 herds with infected cows in a dozen states is thought to be an undercount.

States have similarly reported few tests of people, in part because people who work on farms may not be eager to volunteer for a test. There have been three confirmed human infections tied to the outbreak, all mild and all in farmworkers.

As of now, the virus does not seem adept at infecting people or, more importantly, spreading among them. But the fear is that as the flu strain spreads in mammals and as more people are exposed to it, the virus could evolve in ways that make it better at infecting people.

Berkley acknowledged that the USDA has limited authority to compel private farmers to test herds, and that farmworkers — some of whom are likely undocumented migrants — may not want to cooperate with government health officials. But he argued that countries need to have systems in place that can monitor pathogens and inform preparations for the possibility that they start spreading among people.

“This is not an isolated little problem,” Berkley said, pointing to the fact that researchers weeks ago found genetic traces of H5N1 in 1 in 5 samples of milk. “We’ve seen it get worse and worse. Why do we not have a surveillance system that can do this?”

It’s not a technical problem, either, Berkley added.

“The challenge is getting the political will and the money behind it to make this happen,” he said. “But we must if we want to get ahead of these things.”