Senator of the State Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger) is frustrated by the lack of wastewater surveillance of the H5N1 bird flu in the most risky communities of the State: the regions of the central valley where dairy, dairy herds and commercial poultry operations are the most concentrated.
On Tuesday, she presented a bill to solve this problem. Called the wastewater monitoring law, if adopted, it would require at least one wastewater surveillance site in each California county. The bill would oblige the State Ministry of Public Health to extend its current wastewater network, known as Cal-Suwers, to include all counties “and prioritize poorly served and high-risk areas”.
California is on the ground zero for the H5N1 bird flu virus in dairy cattle and dairy. Since the virus was reported for the first time in dairy herds in March 2024, California represented 77% of all American dairy herd infections and 38 of the country's 68 human cases.
Hurtado said that his father and niece were both dismissed last summer by an unknown respiratory virus. She said they lived in the central valley near poultry and dairy products – but they were not tested for H5N1.
The central valley, where the majority of dairy herds in California have been at the center of the epidemic. However, with regard to wastewater monitoring – which health officials use to alert them to the presence and concentration of pathogens, such as H5N1, seasonal flu, COVVI -19 and Norovirus – We do little in this state area to monitor the virus.
In fact, it is nonexistent in some of the most risky counties, including Tulare and Kings.
In California, health officials claim that they follow 78 sites in 36 counties for a range of viruses; In all the sites except two, they say they are looking for the bird flu.
“We have a bird flu epidemic. He is running among the dairy cattle and the herds that are largely in the central valley,” said Hurtado. “And for the moment, we do not have a waste instructor, the surveillance of the wastewater taking place there. This law would change that. “
