By Andi Anderson
Researchers are studying how bird flu behaves in the air to protect livestock operations and farm workers. The work is led by the University of Michigan Engineering. It is funded through a two-million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The project focuses on understanding how long bird flu remains infectious in air inside livestock facilities. It also studies how engineering tools can reduce that risk quickly and efficiently. These findings could help prevent future outbreaks.
Bird flu outbreaks often lead to large scale animal culling. This disrupts food supply chains. Since 2022 the ongoing HPAI H5N1 outbreak has resulted in the loss of millions of birds. Industry losses have reached an estimated 1.4 billion dollars.
The USDA grant seeks answers to two key questions. Researchers want to know how fast the virus loses infectivity in enclosed livestock air. They also want to identify technologies that can reduce airborne virus risk.
Herek Clack will lead the project. He is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. His team will test nonthermal plasma technology. This method uses strong electric fields to damage viruses in the air.
“Both the USDA and the agricultural industry want a playbook—science-based guidelines—for how to operate under the threat of bird flu,” Clack said. “We’re after a better understanding of how the airborne virus behaves in enclosed livestock operations and what technologies can best protect animals and workers.”
Previous research by Clack showed plasma technology reduced airborne virus levels by 99.9%. The new study will test this approach under real farm air conditioning. Livestock air often contains pollutants like ammonia.
“A key question we’re looking at is, ‘What will happen with pH levels—how do they impact the infectivity of the viruses?'” Clack said. “The air pollutants tend to raise the pH in the air, but nonthermal plasma reduces pH.”
Researchers from the University of Bristol are also involved. Allen Haddrell will study how fast bird flu naturally loses infectivity in air. His lab uses advanced techniques that capture early virus decay.
“What they miss with that approach is roughly the first 20 minutes of the infectivity decay,” Haddrell said. “Consequently, they can get wildly different results. Different research groups can look at the same virus and come to different conclusions.”“We levitate virus-containing droplets into an electrodynamic field,” he said. “We expose the population of viruses containing aerosols to different environmental conditions, where we change things like relative humidity or gas composition.
“After a set period, we deposit the aerosol and measure how much the viral infectivity has changed. We use this approach to measure how different environments affect airborne viral decay. And we use this information to figure out the fundamental drivers of decay.” The research may also help prevent future human disease outbreaks.
“During COVID, workers in these enclosed livestock or processing operations were 50 to 70 times more at risk for contracting the virus, according to a GAO report from 2023,” Clack said. “It told us those close working conditions were the source of greater risk.”
Photo Credit: michigan-state-university-msu
Categories: Michigan, Livestock