Egg prices have risen 50% since March 2024, the result of an ongoing bird flu crisis that has both producers and consumers grappling for solutions. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 166 million chickens have been infected and killed in the past three years, which means there are fewer egg-laying chickens, reduced supply, and higher prices. Mandatory culling, inadequate government reimbursement, and prevention costs have led to $1.4 billion in losses for the poultry industry, hurting both farmers and everyday Americans. But despite these soaring costs, the U.S. is about to sunset a relatively affordable, very effective tool we have for stopping bird flu — and other deadly viruses.
Bird flu’s unprecedented jump to dairy cows has opened a new pathway for human exposure and threatens a second major food sector. There are currently 70 confirmed human cases in the U.S., and in January, the nation saw its first death from bird flu — a person in Louisiana who was exposed to a combination of a backyard flock and wild birds. Meanwhile, infections at commercial poultry and egg laying facilities continue to rise with a single outbreak in Ohio infecting more than 1.8 million poultry.
One of the best tools we currently have to fight bird flu is wastewater monitoring, but we need to be doing more of it. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, scientists have been monitoring municipal wastewater to track the spread of pathogens like SARS-CoV-2 and, more recently, H5 (a biomarker for bird flu). Scientists in Texas, where wastewater monitoring is widely used, found that bird flu was circulating in wastewater weeks before it was first detected in local cattle. This early warning capability can make the difference between a modest or catastrophic economic loss for farmers. If farmers had early warning of bird flu’s presence in their region, they could intensify investigations on their farms, while local public health officials could strengthen human case investigations and reinforce biosecurity measures to contain the virus before it spreads.
The U.S. government monitors bird flu in wastewater through the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS), which integrates local wastewater monitoring efforts into a national platform that covers more than 45% of the U.S. population. However, the system has two major flaws: Only 29% of NWSS sites track H5 (as the only pathogen sites are required to monitor is SARS-CoV-2), and the entire program relies heavily on temporary Covid-era funding from the 2021 American Rescue Plan. This funding expires at the end of the 2025 fiscal year, with no permanent appropriation in sight.
To strengthen the nation’s fight against bird flu, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must mandate H5 monitoring at every active NWSS site nationwide. Tracking bird flu in 45% of the population can provide invaluable contextual awareness that will empower us to respond more effectively to the virus.
But 45% isn’t enough. The NWSS also desperately needs expansion to include more testing sites, particularly in high-risk areas where bird flu is spreading to dairy herds and other animals. Recognizing the urgency of this issue, California state senators have introduced a bill aimed at expanding wastewater monitoring in the Central Valley, an area with dense concentrations of farmworkers, dairy herds, and commercial poultry operations.
But this initiative cannot remain isolated to one state. Across America, similar high-risk communities remain unmonitored, creating dangerous blind spots in our surveillance. We have built an effective early warning system through NWSS, yet we are not using it where and when it matters most.
This system comes with another crucial advantage: cost-effectiveness. While individual testing provides information on one person’s health, a single wastewater sample provides insight into an entire community. With limited testing and 56% of farmworkers lacking access to health care, wastewater monitoring will be essential for detecting bird flu infections that might otherwise be missed. Every dollar invested in expanding wastewater monitoring yields exponential returns in early intervention to prevent illness and death.
Given the ongoing staff and programmatic cuts at the CDC, wastewater monitoring may be a way to extend our eyes and ears. Cost-effective surveillance methods, like wastewater monitoring, will be more important than ever. Studies show that wastewater monitoring can provide broader population coverage at a fraction of the cost of traditional individual testing programs. Without dedicated long-term funding, however, we risk losing an effective monitoring program precisely when the spread of bird flu demands we strengthen and expand our efforts.
Wastewater monitoring is not the only tool we need to stop the spread of bird flu. It is no replacement for expanding testing of animals and humans who are exposed to the virus, which is also very much needed. But wastewater monitoring has acted as a smoke alarm, alerting health officials to the presence of the virus in a region, signaling a need to ramp up testing and enhance biosecurity measures on farms to protect people and livestock from being infected.
We’ve built a sophisticated smoke alarm system in wastewater monitoring, but have failed to put it in the rooms that matter. Expanding wastewater monitoring is our best chance at early detection and containment of bird flu. This can protect farmers’ livelihood, maintain our food supply, and prevent a pandemic. The technology exists. The infrastructure is ready. Let’s get to it.
Temitope Ibitoye is a visiting fellow at the Brown University Pandemic Center. Jennifer Nuzzo is director of the Pandemic Center and professor of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health. Diane Meyer is a lead research scientist at the Brown University Pandemic Center.
