Key points
- Employers should take steps to reduce workers' exposure to avian influenza A viruses from sick animals or contaminated environments.
- To protect workers who might be exposed, employers should update or develop a workplace health and safety plan.
- Humans can be infected with H5N1, and other avian influenza A viruses, when enough virus gets into a person's eyes, nose, or mouth, or is inhaled.
Take steps to reduce workers' exposure
Employers should take steps to reduce workers' exposure to avian influenza A viruses from sick animals or contaminated environments. Reducing exposure to avian influenza A viruses helps both public health and biosecurity – protecting people and animals from illness caused by these viruses, such as H5N1 bird flu.
Workers may be exposed in two main ways.
- Working with animals confirmed or potentially infected with avian influenza A viruses.
- Working with materials, including raw milk, that are contaminated or potentially contaminated with avian influenza A viruses.
Poultry and dairy workers are most likely to be exposed. Other types of workers may also be at risk for exposure.
Develop a health and safety plan
We encourage using a health and safety committee that includes representatives from both management and workers to develop the plan. OSHA has helpful guidance and consultation on developing a workplace health and safety plan. Your local agriculture extension office may also have resources available.
Notice
Familiarize yourself with any OSHA requirements that may apply to you. If you operate in a state regulated by a state OSHA plan, familiarize yourself with any additional requirements that may apply.
See also: OSHA Help for Employers
OSHA also has information about avian influenza prevention and control. USDA offers H5N1 bird flu outbreak response and support.
Conduct a site-specific hazard assessment
Identify potential exposures
First, conduct a site-specific hazard assessment of your farm to identify potential exposures to avian influenza A viruses based on work tasks and settings.
Identify workplace hazards and prioritize controls using these resources:
- Dairy - Hazard Assessment Worksheet for Dairy Facilities
- Poultry - Protecting Poultry Workers from Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)
Determine potential exposure level
After completing a site-specific hazard assessment, use the exposure levels table below to determine the potential exposure level (low, medium, or high) for work tasks and settings. Links in the table will take you to information on the appropriate type(s) of controls that can be used to reduce exposure to avian influenza A viruses.
Assess implementation of controls and PPE
The recommended actions are based on the hierarchy of controls. This model identifies a preferred order of actions to best control hazardous workplace exposures.
Engineering controls
Reduce or prevent hazards from coming into contact with workers.
Are more effective than other options because they don't require ongoing efforts by workers and their supervisors.
Administrative controls
Establish work practices that reduce the duration, frequency, or intensity of exposure to hazards.
Requires significant and ongoing effort by workers and their supervisors.
Personal protective equipment (PPE)
Equipment worn to minimize exposure to hazards. To be most effective, PPE must be put on and taken off correctly and in a specific order.
Requires significant and ongoing effort by workers and their supervisors.
Employers are encouraged to assess the feasibility of controls and PPE on their farm. Consider if the recommended controls and PPE can be used without introducing new risks. You will likely need to combine controls and PPE in order to provide the appropriate level of protection necessary to prevent infection (e.g., using a combination of engineering controls, administrative controls, and PPE). If you cannot implement a specific control or a piece of the PPE recommendations, you should ensure the combination of controls used provide the protection necessary to prevent infection.
Determine exposure level
Type of controls and PPE that can be used depend on the exposure level of the setting or task.A These recommendations are based on our current understanding of exposure.
Facilities and settings include locations such as farms, zoos, and other wildlife facilities.
Low exposure
Work tasks and setting
- No contact with animals or animal secretions, regardless of cases on the farm or regional cases
- Contact with animals, with no confirmed cases in the regionB
- Contact with animals at zoos or other wild animal facilitiesC without confirmed or potentially infected animals, regardless of infected animals in the region
Recommendations
Medium exposure
Work tasks and setting
- Contact with healthy non-lactating animals on a dairy farm that has animals confirmed or potentially infected
- Contact with animals from a farm without confirmed or potentially infected animals, but when there are confirmed or potentially infected animals in the regionB
- Contact with healthy birds and mammals at a zoo or other wild animal facilityC that has animals confirmed or potentially infected
Recommendations
High exposure
Work tasks and setting
- Contact with alive or dead animals confirmed or potentially infected (e.g., poultry culling operations, work in sick pens, or work with sick animals in zoos or other wild animal facilitiesC)D
Contact with raw milk, other secretions, udders, or viscera from a farm with confirmed or potentially infected animals (e.g., work in milking parlor, raw milk processing, some slaughterhouse work)
Recommendations
Other types of workers that may be exposed
- Other livestock workers
- Animal health responders including:
- Poultry culling
- Handling sick or dead wild animals
- Poultry culling
- Backyard bird flock owners
- Dairy laboratory workers
- Food processing workers handling raw milk and other confirmed or potentially contaminated materials
- Public health responders
- Slaughterhouse workers performing certain tasks on lactating dairy cattle including:
- Unloading or handling live lactating dairy cattle for slaughter, including working in holding pens and tasks involved with ante-mortem inspection
- Post-mortem processes including the post-mortem inspection, handling, and transporting of viscera
- Removing and transporting udders from dairy cattle for further processing or rendering
- Unloading or handling live lactating dairy cattle for slaughter, including working in holding pens and tasks involved with ante-mortem inspection
- Veterinarians and veterinary staff
- Zoo, other wild animal facility, or other animal farm workers, such as:
- Sanctuary workers
- Aquarium workers
- Wildlife rehabilitators
- Fur farm workers
- Sanctuary workers
- This is in addition to standard operating procedures for these settings.
- CDC recommends using the USDA-defined control area (10 km or ~6.21 mile radius around a farm) as the region. Factors that may justify widening a region include: (1) worker commute distances greater than 10 km from their home or other workplaces, especially other farms, (2) joint services that serve the farm (such as veterinary services, milk haulers, feed supply, and transport companies), (3) other considerations in the USDA Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Response Plan (The Red Book).
- Other wild animal facilities can include sanctuaries, aquariums, and wild animal rehabilitation centers.
- Once a positive test result is detected on a poultry farm, all the birds on that farm are considered potentially infected.