Global vaccine expert criticizes ‘incompetence’ of US bird flu response

LONDON – Seth Berkley, long time widely respected global leader in healthcaresaid Thursday it was “shocking to see the incompetence” of the US response the outbreak of bird flu among dairy cattleand added his voice to a chorus of critics.

In a presentation in London on vaccine development, Berkley, the former CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, raised the issue of H5N1 bird flu when discussing whether the world was ready for a new pandemic after the experiences with Covid-19.

“Are we better prepared?” he said. “We could have a long discussion about this, but I would argue that H5N1 has suggested that this is not the case. I live in Switzerland, but in my home country, the United States, it was shocking to see how incompetent it is to just monitor, talk about, track the infections and understand where we are. Do we have vaccines? Are these the right vaccines? It’s really a challenge. So I’m not sure we’ve learned anything.”

Berkley, who stepped down from Gavi last year after more than a decade leading the organization, made his comments at an event on the future of vaccines hosted by venture capital firm Flagship Pioneering.

“This scares me,” Berkley added about H5N1. “It’s one of the things that keeps me awake at night.”

Berkley’s criticism reflect those of other scientists, which largely focus on how poorly the virus is being tracked. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has done just that released limited information about the genomic sequences of flu samples originating from herds and where exactly infected herds have been identified. Efforts to expand herd testing have been met with logistical problems and resistance from farmers. Testing is voluntary except when cows are moved across state lines.

As a result, the official count Of the 94 herds with infected cows in a dozen states, this is believed to be an undercount.

States have also reported low testing of people, in part because people who work on farms may be reluctant to volunteer for a test. There have been three confirmed human infections related to the outbreak, all mild and all involving farm workers.

Right now, the virus doesn’t seem adept at infecting people or, more importantly, spreading among them. But the fear is that as the flu spreads among mammals and as more people are exposed to it, the virus could evolve in ways that make it better at infecting humans.

Berkley acknowledged that the USDA has limited authority to force private farmers to test herds, and that farmworkers — some of whom are likely undocumented immigrants — may not want to cooperate with government health officials. But he argued that countries must have systems in place that can monitor pathogens and inform preparations about the potential for them to spread among people.

“This is not an isolated small issue,” Berkley said, pointing out that Researchers found genetic traces of H5N1 in 1 in 5 milk samples weeks ago. “We’ve seen it get worse and worse. Why don’t we have a surveillance system that can do this?”

It’s not a technical issue either, Berkley added.

“The challenge is to get the political will and money behind it to make this happen,” he said. “But if we want to get ahead of these things, we have to do that.”