GEOFF BENNETT: The Trump administration says it plans to roll out a new strategy against the bird flu.

There are few details, but officials say the plan is aimed at trying to minimize the slaughter of chickens when the disease strikes a flock.

And that's in order to bring rising egg prices down.

The administration's first moves have raised concerns, including what it says was an accidental firing of several employees who work on bird flu.

The USDA says it's rehiring them.

More than 150 million poultry have been affected since 2022 and 58 people are confirmed to have been sickened by it.

One person has died.

For more, let's bring in epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, who writes the popular Substack newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist.

Thanks for being with us.

KATELYN JETELINA, University of Texas Health Science Center: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: So let's talk about this new strategy the Trump administration says it's considering, stressing vaccinations and tighter biosecurity.

What difference could that make?

KATELYN JETELINA: Yes, so livestock vaccination actually has been a strategy that's been seriously talked about for a while now.

And like any policy decision, there's pros and there's cons.

One of the biggest is the trade implications.

So many countries don't accept poultry that is vaccinated.

In fact, us in the United States don't accept poultry from other countries like Mexico because it has been vaccinated, so trade implications.

The second is biosecurity, right?

If we start vaccinating all of our poultry, this increases the probability of seeing asymptomatic spread among birds.

I also know that medications have been mentioned.

However, these are far more risky than, for example, vaccinations, because antivirals can lead to viral resistance.

And this actually happened in China when they dumped a ton of antivirals into chicken feed in the 2000s.

So, these methods, they cost a lot of time.

They cost money, and we really need to weigh the pros and the cons with each.

GEOFF BENNETT: And is that why it's been so difficult to stop the spread of avian flu, bird flu?

KATELYN JETELINA: Yes, I mean, it's been difficult because of these hard implication factors.

Also, it just spreads really rapidly among birds.

It's highly contagious, and it has a very high fatality rate.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, right now, when bird flu hits a flock, the prescribed way to address it is the mass slaughtering of those chickens, of those birds.

Why is that the approach?

KATELYN JETELINA: This is called culling.

And, again, it's the process of mass killing of poultry, for example.

And it's done for a few reasons.

One is that bird flu is incredibly contagious and very deadly for animals, right?

And it can be more humane to kill them all at once than letting them slowly get sick and die.

It can also be economically efficient, as poultry farmers can't repopulate with new birds until they get rid of all the sick birds.

And so, this administration has talked about, even beyond vaccination, setting up perimeters for quarantine.

However, the feasibility of these under massive agricultural operations is unclear.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, as we mentioned, USDA says it accidentally fired the officials who are working on bird flu and is now trying to rehire them.

Even before that, there were concerns about information not being provided by this administration or in some cases being removed from Web sites.

What level of concern do you have about that?

KATELYN JETELINA: I mean, I have a lot of concern, right?

The employees over at USDA, as well as FDA, as well as CDC, they're all getting cut right now.

And these are the eyes and the ears of biosecurity and health risks in the United States.

And the less staff, the less resources we have, the harder it will get to get this H5N1, as well as all the other health threats out there, under control and to prevent a pandemic.

GEOFF BENNETT: What about the potential that this virus could mutate and pose an even greater risk?

KATELYN JETELINA: There is definitely the possibility that this virus can mutate.

And we are seeing that it is mutating.

Every time this virus jumps from animal to animal or animal to human, it has the possibility to change, to mutate.

And if that happens, it also has the possibility to become more easily transmissible or spread more easily human-to-human.

And when that happens -- it hasn't happened yet.

But if that happens, then we start seeing an epidemic or even a pandemic that I know a lot of us just don't want to see again.

And this is particularly concerning during the flu season that we have right now, because if the same person is infected with the seasonal flu at the same time as H5N1, say, a farmworker or a farm operator, those genes can easily switch very quickly and we can also see a mutation.

Flu is always very random.

We always keep one eye open because it can change incredibly rapidly.

GEOFF BENNETT: How does bird flu present differently in humans than, say, the seasonal flu virus?

KATELYN JETELINA: Right.

So there's some similarities.

But what we're seeing is that, at least of the about 70 farmworkers that have been infected or those that have sick poultry in their backyard tend to have a lot of red eyes.

They also seem to have a fever, like we see with the flu.

And we are seeing severe disease, so those turning into respiratory symptoms and ending up in the hospital.

But really those red eyes is what differentiates it the most.

GEOFF BENNETT: Katelyn Jetelina of the popular Substack newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist, thanks for being with us.

KATELYN JETELINA: Thanks for having me.