{"id":25059,"date":"2024-11-02T11:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-02T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-last-of-colorados-dairy-cows-infected-with-bird-flu-have-been-released-from-quarantine\/"},"modified":"2024-11-02T17:45:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-02T17:45:00","slug":"the-last-of-colorados-dairy-cows-infected-with-bird-flu-have-been-released-from-quarantine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-last-of-colorados-dairy-cows-infected-with-bird-flu-have-been-released-from-quarantine\/","title":{"rendered":"The last of Colorado\u2019s dairy cows infected with bird flu have been released from quarantine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"All
All the herds of dairy cows in Colorado infected with bird flu have been released from quarantine. (AP Photo\/Gerald Herbert file)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earlier this summer, Colorado broke records for the highest number of reported cases in U.S. dairy herds to be infected with avian flu. It was also the first time Colorado\u2019s dairy industry was impacted by the disease. Now, all the infected herds have been released from quarantine.<\/p>\n

Dr. Maggie Baldwin, Colorado\u2019s State Veterinarian, said while she is very pleased that the last dairy herd has been released from quarantine, she doesn\u2019t think the state\u2019s dairy industry is out of the woods yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us to have achieved the milestone of releasing all of our dairy herds from quarantine in a six-month timeframe is pretty remarkable. I’m really proud of the way our state has handled this,\u201d Baldwin said. \u201cBut it’s too early to know what the long-term impacts are with HPAI in dairy herds, it’s too early to know if we’re really in the clear right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highly contagious avian flu \u2013 also called H5 bird flu or highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) \u2013 was detected in wild birds in Colorado in 2022.<\/p>\n

In birds, the disease causes severe respiratory symptoms and is often deadly. But in cows, the infection is largely \u2013 but not always \u2013 restricted to the mammary glands, according to researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz. Because of this, researchers believe that the disease was being transmitted to cows by contaminated milk equipment.<\/p>\n

In the last six months, more than 75% of Colorado\u2019s dairy herds were infected with the disease.<\/p>\n

However, Baldwin hypothesized that a big reason the disease spread so rapidly between dairy herds was due to shared equipment and workers between farms. Even if someone is not infected, Baldwin said they can still carry this virus from one farm to another.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Colorado, most of our dairies are located geographically in the Northeast region so there’s a lot of connections between those dairies \u2013 even if they’re a closed herd \u2013 there’s a lot of shared vehicles, shared service providers, a lot of shared people that might be transmitting that virus between [herds].\u201d<\/p>\n

In July, Gov. Jared Polis extended bird flu as an emergency disaster declaration. The emergency fund helped cover costs associated with \u201cmonitoring and mitigation of disease spread, response \u2026 and recovery efforts,\u201d including providing dairies with surveillance to help identify any infected cows.<\/p>\n

According to Baldwin, the state will continue to implement mandatory weekly bulk tank testing and will continue to do so \u201cuntil we have confidence that we don’t have the disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milk from sick cows is disposed of immediately on site, according to a spokesperson with the state health department. And all licensed commercial dairy cow facilities in Colorado are required to pasteurize their milk \u2013 which kills harmful bacteria and viruses, including avian flu.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

the herds of dairy cows in Colorado infected with bird flu have been released from quarantine. (AP Photo\/Gerald Herbert file)dur-i-syn Earlier this summer, Colorado broke records for the highest number of reported cases in U.S. dairy herds to be infected with avian flu. It was also the first time Colorado\u2019s dairy industry was impacted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,289,28,1398],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-disease","tag-headlines","tag-livestock-farming"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25059"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}