{"id":11293,"date":"2026-01-21T19:23:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T01:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11293"},"modified":"2026-01-21T19:23:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T01:23:40","slug":"whats-the-prognosis-for-bird-flu-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/01\/21\/whats-the-prognosis-for-bird-flu-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the prognosis for bird flu in 2026?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/newsletter\/2026-01-05\/whats-prognosis-for-bird-flu-in-2026\">LA Times<\/a> As 2024 came to an end, bird flu dominated headlines. The virus, technically known as avian influenza, was being detected in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/environment\/story\/2024-11-24\/bird-flu-detected-in-california-raw-milk\"><u>raw milk<\/u><\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/environment\/story\/2024-11-26\/bird-flu-warnings-are-going-unheeded-at-many-dairy-farms\"><u>dairy farms<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/environment\/story\/2024-11-19\/alameda-county-child-believed-to-be-latest-case-of-bird-flu-source-unknown\"><u>even children<\/u><\/a>, my colleagues Susanne Rust and Melissa Gomez reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After federal officials confirmed the severe case of a Louisiana patient, Gov. Gavin Newsom\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/environment\/story\/2024-12-18\/newsom-declares-emergency-in-california-after-cdc-confirms-severe-bird-flu-case-in-louisiana\"><u>declared a state of emergency<\/u><\/a>\u00a0in California and pushed to fortify the state\u2019s response to bird flu. In January 2025, the flu&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/environment\/story\/2025-01-06\/first-us-h5n1-bird-flu-death\"><u>took that Louisiana patient\u2019s life<\/u><\/a>. The individual was older than 65, had preexisting health conditions and had had&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/world-nation\/story\/2024-12-18\/health-officials-say-louisiana-patient-is-first-severe-bird-flu-case-in-us\">contact with sick and dead birds<\/a>. But still, headlines wondered if it meant a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/newsletter\/2025-02-06\/bird-flu-nevada-cows-essential-california\"><u>new epidemic<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;was coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then the headlines slowed, and big stories like wildfires and Donald Trump\u2019s new presidency pushed bird flu out of the public conscience. So what ended up happening with it?<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LA Times As 2024 came to an end, bird flu dominated headlines. The virus, technically known as avian influenza, was being detected in&nbsp;raw milk,&nbsp;dairy farms&nbsp;and&nbsp;even children, my colleagues Susanne Rust and Melissa Gomez reported. After federal officials confirmed the severe case of a Louisiana patient, Gov. Gavin Newsom\u00a0declared a state of emergency\u00a0in California and pushed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avian-influenza"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11294,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11293\/revisions\/11294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}