#18,408
Since Friday's update the USDA has added 18 additional H5 infected herds - all from California (n=279) -bringing the nation's total to 491. This is, undoubtedly, an undercount as many states are still not proactively testing for the virus.
While the USDA has announced plans to expand bulk milk testing, no timetable or scope for this project has been released.
In addition to dairy cows, goats, alpacas, and most recently pigs have been infected with HPAI H5 in the United States. While the USDA's list of poultry outbreaks has not been updated since last Friday, they show 21 outbreaks in the past 30 days.
Meanwhile, Canada's CFIA updated their list of poultry outbreaks - which resumed after a 6 month break three weeks ago - adding 5 more outbreaks since Friday. Four of these are in British Columbia, which has been particularly hard hit, and which is currently reporting a presumed positive human case.
The fifth case is from Alberta, and is the second reported since outbreaks resumed in October.
Since the Bovine B3.13 genotype has yet to be detected in Canada, the assumption is these recent Canadian cases are due to a different genotype - possibly the D1.1 or D1.2 variants recently reported in Washington State and Oregon.
Hopefully we'll get sequences deposited at GISAID in the next few days that will clarify the genotype.
In the meantime, increased biosecurity on farms (large and small) are needed to reduce the spread of these viruses.
