Aid pledged to help track, contain bird flu on dairy farms

U.S. health and agriculture officials pledged nearly $200 million in new spending and other efforts Friday to help track and contain an outbreak of bird flu in the nation’s dairy cows that has spread to more than 40 herds in nine states.

The funds include $101 million to continue work to prevent, test, track and treat animals and humans affected by the virus known as Type A H5N1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said. And they include about $98 million to provide up to $28,000 each to help individual farms test cattle and bolster biosecurity efforts to halt the spread of the virus, according to the Agriculture Department.

Dairy farmers will be compensated for the loss of production from infected cattle, whose supply drops dramatically when they become sick, officials said. And dairy farmers and farm workers would be paid to participate in a workplace study conducted by the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Farmers have been reluctant to allow health officials onto their farms to test cattle because of uncertainty about how it would affect their businesses, researchers said. Also, farm workers, including many migrant workers, have been reluctant to be tested for fear of missing work or because they didn’t want to be tracked by the government.