{"id":7275,"date":"2024-08-06T19:39:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T00:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=7275"},"modified":"2024-08-06T19:39:04","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T00:39:04","slug":"scientists-show-how-bird-flu-spreads-between-mammals-as-h5n1-pandemic-fears-grow-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/08\/06\/scientists-show-how-bird-flu-spreads-between-mammals-as-h5n1-pandemic-fears-grow-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Show How Bird Flu Spreads Between Mammals \u2014 As H5N1 Pandemic Fears Grow"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/roberthart\/2024\/07\/24\/scientists-show-how-bird-flu-spreads-between-mammals---as-h5n1-pandemic-fears-grow\/\">Forbes<\/a> Scientists have proven how cows have spread\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/ariannajohnson\/2024\/07\/16\/bird-flu-h5n1-explained-us-human-infections-rise-to-9\/\">H5N1 bird flu<\/a>\u00a0across the country and infected other cows, wild birds and even mammals like cats and raccoons, according to research published in Nature Wednesday, findings that suggest it may be capable of spreading effectively between people in the future as outbreaks on poultry and dairy farms spark concerns the virus could trigger a pandemic in humans. Using genomic data, computer modeling and data about the virus\u2019 spread, researchers from Cornell University have shown how infected cows from Texas spread H5N1 avian influenza to a farm with healthy cows in Ohio, as well as to cats, a racoon and wild birds in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is one of the first times scientists have seen \u201cevidence of efficient and sustained mammalian-to-mammalian transmission\u201d of the H5N1 bird flu strain, said Diego Diel, an associate professor of virology at Cornell and one of the study\u2019s authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While it primarily infects birds, the so-called highly pathogenic avian influenza strain is capable of infecting mammals\u2014including humans\u2014and Diel said repeated spillovers into mammals from birds or transmission between mammals raises the risk of the virus mutating in a way that \u201ccould lead adaptation to mammals, spillover into humans and potential efficient transmission in humans in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This H5N1 strain is particularly capable of targeting and infecting cells for the mammary gland, a specialized gland that produces milk and is unique to humans and other mammals, the researchers found, and milk from infected animals contained high quantities of the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Genetic data showed the infected cows transmitted the virus to cats and a racoon found dead at affected farms, likely through drinking raw milk from infected cows, as well as wild birds, which the researchers suspect were infected from environmental contamination or aerosols kicked up during milking or cleaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/roberthart\/2024\/07\/24\/scientists-show-how-bird-flu-spreads-between-mammals---as-h5n1-pandemic-fears-grow\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forbes Scientists have proven how cows have spread\u00a0H5N1 bird flu\u00a0across the country and infected other cows, wild birds and even mammals like cats and raccoons, according to research published in Nature Wednesday, findings that suggest it may be capable of spreading effectively between people in the future as outbreaks on poultry and dairy farms spark [&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-7275","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\/7275","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=7275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7276,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7275\/revisions\/7276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}