The “Thursdays at the U” series explores topics from a variety of different fields. Partially funded by the UW-Barron County Foundation, each edition has a lecture by a different speaker. 

Held in-person from 12:30-1:30 p.m. every Thursday at UW-Eau Claire Barron County’s Blue Hill’s Lecture Hall, each “Thursdays at the U” lecture is also livestreamed and a video is uploaded online.  

On Dec. 4, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Emily Steele presented “Bird Flu: It is the Next Pandemic?” 

Dr. Steele said she grew up in Barron County. She returned after getting hired to work for the USDA as a public veterinarian in the Food Safety and Inspection Service Agency. While in this role, she inspected Jennie-O Turkey’s slaughtering process. 

After working in this role, she said she stayed within the USDA but moved to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Agency.  

Dr. Steele said she observed avian influenza in both of her roles.

Now back with the Food Safety and Inspection Service, Dr. Steele presented on avian influenza and the information she knows.

According to the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) website, avian influenza, commonly referred to as bird flu, is a disease caused by avian influenza A and is typically spread through birds, not people. 

However, a specific strain of bird flu, H5, is spreading to species outside of birds, including sporadic outbreaks in dairy and poultry cows. The CDC says the current public health risk is low and they are carefully monitoring the situation. 

“The way I approach … things that might sound scary or that I don’t have a lot of information about, I like to find facts,” Dr. Steele said. “So that’s my goal today — to show you guys my experience with avian influenza and also some facts about it, so you can make decisions for yourself.” 

Dr. Steele said while she was working for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Agency, she was deployed to California. While there, she worked with cattle that had contracted bird flu. 

“(An) influenza virus will destroy a cell as a lot of the (influenza) cells replicate (the destroyed) cell,” Dr. Steele said. “Why do we get sick? Why do we feel bad? Why do we have these symptoms? Well, a lot of your cells are dying.” 

Influenza is an example of an enveloped cell, Dr. Steele said. This means that they don’t infect someone right away when they come in contact with your immune system; rather, it takes time for someone to experience symptoms. 

Similar to the influenza that humans can catch, bird flu also spreads through the respiratory and digestive systems, Dr. Steele said. Most of the time, bird flu spreads from bird to bird through coughing or feces. 

Dr. Steele said bird flu runs on two paths: either low pathogenicity avian influenza (LPAI) or high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI). LPAI is much milder, often causing mild to no symptoms and is commonly found in wild fowl. HPAI is more dangerous, can cause severe infection and is highly mutatable, meaning it could spread from species to species. 

“Normally (avian) influenza runs on the low path,” Dr. Steele said. “It runs on little mutations.”

When bird flu resides in a certain species for a long time, that is when mutations can occur, leading to the change from LPAI to HPAI, Dr. Steele said. 

The last HPAI that occurred was in 2015, according to Dr. Steele. The current HPAI that we are seeing started in 2022 and has continued every single following year. 

Dr. Steele said when people catch the bird flu, the majority of the time they do not get sick or experience symptoms. Most of the time, the only symptom they would experience is an irritated eye. 

“The more we let it circulate and sit and replicate, the more possible mutations and further diseases (will) spread,” Dr. Steele said. “Maybe it will become one that can easily pass through humans.”       

At the end of her presentation, Dr. Steele provided the CDC website on bird flu, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Agency website and a research article on bird flu by the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability. 

The full presentation can be viewed at this link.  

Hirata can be reached at [email protected].