The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced it is taking several additional actions to ensure the health and viability of the nation’s livestock and poultry. In the two months since the initial detection of H5N1 in dairy cattle, USDA has worked quickly and in concert with its federal and state partners to better understand the virus and contain the disease and remains committed to seeking additional ways to collect the data needed to better understand and mitigate the risk created by this outbreak.
USDA is adding an additional $824 million in emergency funding from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) to bolster these efforts and is launching a new Voluntary H5N1 Dairy Herd Status Pilot Program to give dairy producers more options to monitor the health of their herds and move cows more quickly while providing on-going testing and expanding USDA’s understanding of the disease.
Dairy producers from States enrolled in the first phase of this program who choose to enroll their herds and who test negative for H5N1 for three consecutive weeks using on-farm bulk tank milk samples or similar representative milk samples tested at a National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) laboratory will be able to move animals without additional pre-movement testing currently required under the Federal Order. Producers must also comply with continued regular weekly monitoring and testing of the herd for H5N1.
APHIS is currently working with state animal health officials to identify states to participate in a pilot phase of the program.
The main benefit for farmers who choose to enroll in the Voluntary H5N1 Dairy Herd Status Pilot Program is that once they can demonstrate their herds are free of H5N1 with results from a NAHLN facility, they will then need to conduct weekly tests on bulk milk from that herd to confirm that status and will be able to ship their cows at the time they prefer and without testing individual animals.
USDA news release
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