--- title: Scientists Are Starting to Track Bird Flu in Farm Wastewater description: Testing wastewater could become a quick way to detect and manage bird flu, or H5N1 avian influenza, on farms. canonical: https://time.com/7212477/wastewater-testing-farms-bird-flu/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-02-04T20:16:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:50:08.009Z article:section: Health og:title: Scientists Are Starting to Track Bird Flu in Farm Wastewater og:description: Testing wastewater could be a quick way to detect and manage H5N1 on farms. og:url: https://time.com/7212477/wastewater-testing-farms-bird-flu/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt90adb60e666b8303/6998b31493610c2227c2d75d/GettyImages-182806636.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2116 og:image:height: 1190 og:image:alt: GettyImages-182806636.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Scientists Are Starting to Track Bird Flu in Farm Wastewater twitter:description: Testing wastewater could be a quick way to detect and manage H5N1 on farms. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt90adb60e666b8303/6998b31493610c2227c2d75d/GettyImages-182806636.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Scientists Are Starting to Track Bird Flu in Farm Wastewater > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=e0f8ed26-3123-4cae-a0c2-010b92422a21&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Bird Flu: What's At Risk For You [Watch (HLS stream): Bird Flu: What's At Risk For You](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/h7ByYR2R.m3u8) (4:43)  _Published 2025-01-16. You’ve probably been hearing a lot about bird flu in the news lately. So, what is it? Do you need to worry, and can you protect yourself? TIME Senior Correspondent Alice Park explains this latest outbreak of bird flu - also called H5N1 Avian Influenza - after officials reported the first death from virus in the U.S._  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Feb 4, 2025 8:16 PM UTC You’ve probably been hearing a lot about bird flu in the news lately. So, what is it? Do you need to worry, and can you protect yourself? TIME Senior Correspondent Alice Park explains this latest outbreak of bird flu - also called H5N1 Avian Influenza - after officials reported the first death from virus in the U.S.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Feb 4, 2025 8:16 PM UTC Now that bird flu has been [detected](https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/data-map-commercial.html) in animals in all 50 states, and nearly 70 cases have been confirmed in people, health officials are racing to find better and more reliable ways to track the virus. One promising method is sampling wastewater. The technique continues to prove useful for monitoring COVID-19; since most people now self-test and formal data collection has diminished, wastewater is the most reliable way of tracking upticks and changes in infections since it doesn’t require people to report results. Scientists are now figuring out how to apply the same principle to test wastewater on farms for H5N1, the avian influenza virus. On Feb. 4, the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) announced a grant to Barnwell Bio, Inc. to fund the development of a farm-based system for testing wastewater for pathogens. The nonprofit research group FFAR was created by Congress in 2014 via the Farm Bill to use both government and private funding to support important agricultural research, and Barnwell Bio focuses on agricultural applications of wastewater testing. "The system is pretty patchwork" when it comes to understanding what makes animals sick, says Michael Rhys, CEO of Barnwell Bio. “There isn’t a gold standard for understanding animal health of different species.” **Read More**: [_We Are Not Safe from Bird Flu Until We Protect Farmworkers_](https://time.com/6987552/bird-flu-farm-workers/) Part of the problem has to do with the many species of animals that reside on farms, from pigs to chickens and cows. And not all farms have a central wastewater system, like towns and cities do, where all waste is processed. Developing a way to detect H5N1 in these conditions required specific strategies for each species, says Rhys. To evaluate pathogens that affect chickens, which relieve themselves everywhere in the barn, the farmers wear booties that end up getting covered in the animals’ waste. Vets or health officials take samples from those booties, places them in test tubes, and analyzes them for the presence of H5N1. As for cows, most dairy farms generally focus on milk-producing cows, so effluent can be sampled after workers hose down milking areas, since that's where cows urinate. The grant, which totals around $150,000, will help Rhys’ team to develop a test that farmers can use on site to detect H5N1 early. “Can we detect H5N1 early such that on a big chicken farm, it’s not spreading barn to barn?” says Rhys. “We’re also looking at different variants of H5N1 which can be helpful in understanding where it came from, whether it was a wild bird or it was an animal-to-animal infection.” The company is currently working with two poultry farms to test the feasibility of their wastewater surveillance system. ## Transcript You've probably been hearing a lot about bird flu in the news lately. New cases of the bird flu are raising alarms among health officials America's first severe human case of h5n1 bird flu. So what is it? Do you need to worry and can you protect yourself? Bird flu is also called h5n1 Avian Influenza. This recent outbreak began in 2024, and what has experts concerned is that it's not only infected millions of birds, but the virus has also spread to dairy cattle and other mammals, including goats, foxes, and house cats. And increasingly, it's been diagnosed in humans. A US man over age 65 with other health conditions became the first to die with h5n1 infection in early 2025. Breaking tonight the nation's first human death from the bird flu just reported. Down from Louisiana here. The Department of Health There. Listen to this. The first person has died from bird flu. Genetic analysis of the virus from that man suggests that h5n1 mutated in his body after he became infected. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said these mutations are concerning, but not a cause for alarm. Yet, symptoms of h5n1 infection can resemble those of more common illnesses. Many of the people in the US who have caught bird flu are farm workers who have come into direct contact with infected cattle or poultry. They have developed relatively mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis like eye issues, eye redness, and discharge from the eyes. Dairy workers who milk infected cows are especially at risk, since the virus can enter their eyes from milk that sprays into their face. Bird flu can also cause respiratory and classic flu like symptoms, including cough, runny nose, fever, sore throat, body aches, headaches, fatigue, shortness of breath, and even pneumonia, the CDC says. As bird flu continues to spread, work on a vaccine is underway to protect the public in the event of a pandemic. Several companies, including Maderna, Pfizer, and Glaxo Smith Kline, which is working with Kvak are developing an MRNA vaccine, using the same technology that was used in the COVID 19 shots. In July, the US government awarded Maderna $176 million to develop its updated MRNA h5n vaccine. All of these MRNA vaccine candidates are in early stages of testing in people for safety and efficacy. In 2024, scientists led by a team at the CDC reported that an MRNA based h5n1 vaccine helped ferrets generate strong antibody responses against the virus. Vaccinated animals survived a lethal dose of the virus while unvaccinated ferrets died from their infection. While creating an MRNA vaccine can be done quickly, testing the shot in clinical trials will take longer. So in the meantime, several existing vaccines, which don't use MRNA technology, but do target previous strains of h5n1 exist in the national stockpile. Health experts expect they would still provide some protection against severe disease. Because the virus is spreading among poultry and dairy cattle, the outbreaks are leading to egg rationing and shortages and have led to higher prices. While milk prices are not expected to go up, the US FDA now tests for the virus in commercial milk and other dairy products on a regular basis. The agency also advises staying away from raw milk, which is not pasteurized, a process that can kill the virus. Some experts believe dairy workers and others who have close contact with animals likely to be infected, such as poultry and cattle, should be vaccinated to protect them from infection. The CDC says that the risk of bird flu is still low for the general public. And currently there are no recommendations for anyone in the US to get vaccinated against h5n1. As with all viruses, experts caution that everyone wash their hands carefully, avoid touching their face, and wear a mask if they may come in contact with infected animals. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7212477/wastewater-testing-farms-bird-flu/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7212477/wastewater-testing-farms-bird-flu/"},"headline":"Scientists Are Starting to Track Bird Flu in Farm Wastewater","datePublished":"2025-02-04T20:16:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-19T07:50:08.009Z","description":"Testing wastewater could be a quick way to detect and manage H5N1 on farms.","url":"https://time.com/7212477/wastewater-testing-farms-bird-flu/","keywords":["Bird Flu","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt90adb60e666b8303/6998b31493610c2227c2d75d/GettyImages-182806636.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt90adb60e666b8303/6998b31493610c2227c2d75d/GettyImages-182806636.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"GettyImages-182806636.jpg","caption":"Animal waste collected on a dairy farm","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/bird-flu/","name":"Bird Flu"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7212477/wastewater-testing-farms-bird-flu/","name":"Scientists Are Starting to Track Bird Flu in Farm Wastewater"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Bird Flu: What's At Risk For You","description":"You’ve probably been hearing a lot about bird flu in the news lately. 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