H5N1 has infected cattle across the US and jumped from a mammal to a human for the first time. Experts fear it may someday evolve to spread among humans.
Source: Bird Flu Is Spreading in Alarming New Ways
fta:
Around the world, virologists responded to the news with varying degrees of alarm. While this is the second confirmed human case of H5N1 infection in the US in the past two years—in 2022, a worker at a poultry farm in Colorado contracted it from infected birds—it appears to be the first known case of the virus jumping from another mammal to humans.
“I have been following H5N1 since 1997, and the current situation is extremely worrying,” MacIntyre says. “In the past, H5N1 epidemics in birds were sporadic and would die down after culling of infected poultry. Since 2021 the pattern has changed, and it has not gone away but steadily increased.” In this time, many new mammalian species have been infected. “Some may be suitable genetic mixing vessels to create a human pandemic strain,” she says.
