Newsom declares emergency as bird flu spreads to SoCal cattle

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to bolster the statewide response to bird flu in dairy cows -- an outbreak that has now expanded from the Central Valley to Southern California.

According to the governor's office, Avian influenza A, or H5N1, was detected last week in cattle at four Southern California dairies. The exact locations were not disclosed. Previous California infections in cattle had been limited to the central part of the state, where 641 dairies had confirmed cases between Aug. 30 and early December.   

State officials had been conducting a regionalized containment effort in Central California, but the discovery of cases in Southern California led to the emergency declaration calling for "a shift from regional containment to statewide monitoring and response to active cases."

"This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak,'' Newsom said in a statement. ``Building on California's testing and monitoring system -- the largest in the nation -- we are committed to further protecting public health, supporting our agriculture industry, and ensuring that Californians have access to accurate, up-to-date information. While the risk to the public remains low, we will continue to take all necessary steps to prevent the spread of this virus.''

There have been 34 reported human cases of bird flu in California, with all but one of them definitively linked to infected cattle, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The source of the other case remains unknown, however, there have been no known cases of human transmission of the virus in the state.  

There have been 61 human cases reported nationally.   

The virus was first detected in cattle in March in Texas and Kansas. According to the CDC, there have now been 865 confirmed cases in cattle in 16 states.