{"id":6276,"date":"2024-04-05T07:35:51","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T12:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=6276"},"modified":"2024-04-05T07:35:55","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T12:35:55","slug":"new-bird-flu-infections-heres-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/04\/05\/new-bird-flu-infections-heres-what-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"New bird flu infections: Here\u2019s what you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MIT Tech Review<\/a> New cases in cows and a dairy worker in Texas highlight the need for vigilance and better strategies to protect animals and people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A dairy worker in Texas tested positive for avian influenza this week. This new human case of bird flu\u2014the second ever reported in the United States\u2014isn\u2019t cause for panic. The individual\u2019s illness was mild\u2014an eye infection\u2014and they are already recovering. There\u2019s still no evidence that the virus is spreading person to person. The person who became infected in Texas likely picked the virus up from infected cows or poultry on the farm where he works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the rash of recent infections among livestock is unsettling.<\/strong> Last month, goats in Minnesota tested positive. And avian influenza has now been confirmed in dairy cows in Texas, Michigan, Kansas, New Mexico, and Idaho. In some of those cases, the virus appears to have spread between cows. This week, let\u2019s take a look at what we know about this new outbreak and what people are doing to prepare for further spread.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strain of flu infecting dairy cows\u2014H5N1\u2014is a highly pathogenic avian influenza. Scientists have been watching these viruses closely since the 1990s because of their potential to spark a pandemic. In 1997, avian influenza sickened humans for the first time. Eighteen people in Hong Kong became infected, and six died.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small spillovers into mammals aren\u2019t uncommon for these viruses, especially in recent years. Avian influenza has been reported in mink, skunks, raccoons, coyotes, seals, sea lions, and bears, to name a few. But having the virus in domesticated mammals that come into frequent contact with humans is new territory. \u201cExactly what happens when an avian flu virus replicates in a cow and potentially transmits from cow to cow, we actually don\u2019t have any idea at all,\u201d says Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital who studies avian influenza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the good news: even though the virus is infecting dairy cows (and now one dairy worker), \u201cthis is still very much a bird virus,\u201d Webby says. Genetic sequencing by the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control suggests that these new infections are caused by a strain of flu that\u2019s nearly identical to the virus circulating in wild birds. Few of the changes they did identify would allow it to spread more easily in mammals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spread of bird flu in cows is worrisome, but not as worrisome as it would be if the infections were happening in pigs, which are an ideal mixing vessel for flu virus.<\/strong>\u00a0Pigs are susceptible to swine flu, avian influenza, and human influenza. That\u2019s how swine flu emerged back in 2009\u2014multiple viruses infecting pigs swapped genes<\/a>, eventually giving rise to a virus capable of human transmission.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MIT Tech Review New cases in cows and a dairy worker in Texas highlight the need for vigilance and better strategies to protect animals and people. A dairy worker in Texas tested positive for avian influenza this week. This new human case of bird flu\u2014the second ever reported in the United States\u2014isn\u2019t cause for panic. […]<\/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":[37,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avian-influenza","category-science-and-tech"],"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\/6276","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=6276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6277,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6276\/revisions\/6277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}