{"id":11822,"date":"2026-04-08T14:51:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T19:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11822"},"modified":"2026-04-08T21:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:05:15","slug":"two-years-after-it-emerged-cow-flu-is-still-circulating-and-baffling-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/04\/08\/two-years-after-it-emerged-cow-flu-is-still-circulating-and-baffling-scientists\/","title":{"rendered":"Two years after it emerged, \u2018cow flu\u2019 is still circulating\u2014and baffling scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/two-years-after-it-emerged-cow-flu-still-circulating-and-baffling-scientists?utm_source=sfmc&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=alert&amp;utm_campaign=DailyLatestNews&amp;et_rid=882751579&amp;et_cid=5916524&amp;stream=top\">Science<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Researchers still aren\u2019t sure how H5N1 influenza spreads between cows and from farm to farm. After 2 years, the U.S. outbreak of the H5N1 influenza virus in cattle appears to be waning, easing fears that the virus could cause long-lasting damage to the dairy industry or mutate into a form that could cause a human pandemic. The last new detection of an affected herd occurred on 13 December 2025 at a Wisconsin farm, according to the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aphis.usda.gov\/livestock-poultry-disease\/avian\/avian-influenza\/hpai-detections\/hpai-confirmed-cases-livestock\">website<\/a>&nbsp;of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Data from a USDA program that tests milk for the virus suggest 16 of the 19 affected states have gotten rid of the virus, which originated in wild birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it could still bounce back, and efforts to eliminate it entirely face formidable challenges. How it spreads between cattle remains unclear. And although candidate vaccines look promising in early tests, farmers and the government may be reluctant to embrace them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>H5N1 continues to circulate on farms in California and Idaho, those states\u2019 agriculture departments told\u00a0<em>Science<\/em>. Texas remains \u201caffected\u201d in USDA\u2019s latest update, even though it has not had a detection since May 2025, because it has not complied with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aphis.usda.gov\/livestock-poultry-disease\/avian\/avian-influenza\/hpai-detections\/livestock\/nmts\">National Milk Testing Strategy<\/a>\u00a0requirement that it sample all silos at milk-processing plants. In other states the virus may simply have escaped detection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/two-years-after-it-emerged-cow-flu-still-circulating-and-baffling-scientists?utm_source=sfmc&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=alert&amp;utm_campaign=DailyLatestNews&amp;et_rid=882751579&amp;et_cid=5916524&amp;stream=top\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science Researchers still aren\u2019t sure how H5N1 influenza spreads between cows and from farm to farm. After 2 years, the U.S. outbreak of the H5N1 influenza virus in cattle appears to be waning, easing fears that the virus could cause long-lasting damage to the dairy industry or mutate into a form that could cause a [&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":[37,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avian-influenza","category-featured-headlines"],"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\/11822","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=11822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11823,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11822\/revisions\/11823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}