Animal healthcare company Zoetis said it started development of a vaccine for dairy cattle this spring. Merck Animal Health said it is evaluating technologies and strategies that would allow for timely responses to emerging diseases, including bird flu in cattle.

The agency's other efforts on bird flu include research into potential respiratory spread of the virus between cows and providing support to farmers to increase biosecurity on farms.

While wild birds were a major vector for bringing bird flu to poultry farms, the main risks to spread on dairy farms appear to be the movement of people and equipment, he said. "For dairy cows, it isn't about migratory birds, it's about cows moving, it's about people, vehicles and equipment that may have virus they don't even realise that they're carrying," he said. "That's why the biosecurity becomes just incredibly, incredibly important."

Soon, a pilot program for testing bulk milk volumes will be launched in the United States, he said. The program aims to expand the possibilities of testing for the virus, allowing healthy herds to move across state borders without necessarily presenting a negative avian influenza test result for each animal.

Source: emeat