On Feb. 7, New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued an order to temporarily close live bird markets after cases of avian influenza, or bird flu, were detected in seven markets in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx in the past week. The closures apply to all bird markets, including those that didn’t report any cases, in New York City, Westchester, Suffolk, and Nassau counties.
The order requires market owners to sell or otherwise remove all live birds and conduct a thorough cleaning and disinfection of their facilities—even if bird flu wasn’t detected there. All markets must remain closed for five days after the cleaning to confirm they are free of the H5N1 bird flu virus so that the virus won’t spread again when live animals are reintroduced.
Here’s what to know about the decision and what it means for bird flu to be detected in poultry.
Will closing the markets reduce the threat of bird flu?
“Getting ahead of any biological threat—in this case, amongst birds—is good to do,” says Dr. Raj Panjabi, senior partner at Flagship Pioneering and former leader of the National Security Council’s pandemic office. Panjabi coordinated the White House’s response to bird flu in 2022. “I like that New York is being proactive here, and leveraging the state agriculture commissioner and the health commissioner at the state as well as city level, to coordinate.”
Jarra Jagne, professor of practice in the department of public and ecosystem health at Cornell Veterinary School, says some of the infected birds had died and were reported by market operators, while some were detected by the state’s routine surveillance for H5N1. Jagne’s lab is funded by New York State Animal Health Diagnostics Lab, and her team performs testing for the state for a number of infectious diseases in chickens and other species. Because of the extensive testing network, she says, the cases “were picked up pretty early.”
New York State health commissioner Dr. James McDonald says once the positive tests were confirmed, the state health and agriculture departments decided to close all markets in several counties, including those that had not reported any infections. “When you get a result from surveillance, now you have new information,” he says. “That’s when you need to take the prudent next step, and this is the prudent next step. We know if we act now, we have a better chance of not seeing the virus spread to others.”
How are birds in live markets getting infected?
There are many ways birds could be infected. Some could have picked up the infection from the farms where they originated; the virus is currently prevalent in wild birds, and as they leave feces in the environment, birds on farms or commercial operations could become exposed and infected. Jagne says that in January, her lab found 23 cases of H5N1 in wild birds from 12 counties in New York. In markets in particular, people might also be spreading the virus to the chickens. “People walking into markets could have been on the beach and picked up some feces on their shoes from Canada geese,” says Jagne. “Farmers could also be bringing it in from farms after walking into chicken houses with infected feces. It’s really hard to pinpoint the source of the virus.”
Should other states also shut down live bird markets?
“I think it’s worth considering,” says Panjabi. During his tenure in the White House, when H5 bird flu viruses began causing outbreaks, he says “it was really challenging, because in wild bird populations, there are certain times of year when they will be more active in migration and also have more active virus. Detection of the virus in wild birds gets outbreaks spiraling.”
Read More: What to Know About the H5N9 Bird Flu
Panjabi says New York’s actions will be closely watched by public health and agriculture experts. “What we’ve generally seen is that while there is short-term pain, there is less spread over the long term,” he says. While commercial poultry farms have a number of policies in place now to recognize and intervene if animals get sick, live bird markets are less regulated and have fewer protection measures in place. Typically, “a seller of birds may not recognize the symptoms and signs of infection, no one is wearing personal protective equipment, and they are not cleaning and sanitizing,” he says. “We know the risk [of disease in people] increases if there is more human interaction with poultry, especially in less-controlled environments.”
How widespread is bird flu?
Outbreaks among commercial poultry farms have jumped in the last two months. The U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that 85 flocks and nearly 24 million birds were affected by H5N1 by the end of January.
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, says the increasing number of outbreaks may be due to higher amounts of H5N1 in the environment. Infected wild birds leave behind feces, which comes in contact with commercial flocks. “This virus is common in the environment, and it’s blowing around. That’s different from anything we’ve seen before,” he says.
Can I get bird flu from eating chicken or eggs?
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eating properly cooked chicken and eggs is safe, but “eating undercooked or uncooked poultry, eggs or consuming unpasteurized milk from infected dairy cows could also be an exposure risk for infection with avian influenza A viruses.”
“The current risk to New Yorkers of bird flu (H5N1) remains low,” said New York City health department acting commissioner Michelle Morse in a statement. “Avian influenza viruses only present a wider risk if the virus develops the ability to transmit between people—which we have not seen.”
To protect themselves from the virus, McDonald says people should not drink raw milk; pasteurization can kill the virus. And when it comes to chickens, he says that “no birds from impacted establishments are sold or allowed to enter the food supply.” But if an infected chicken slips in undetected, cooking chicken and eggs properly can neutralize the virus and make the products safe to eat.