In late March, a worker on a commercial dairy farm in Texas developed a case of pink eye. He eventually tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza Type A H5N1, also known as bird flu. Scientists were shocked to find out that cattle, not birds, were the host — and that large amounts of H5N1 were found in the infected cattle.
So far this year, there have been four confirmed cases in humans following exposure to a dairy cow, with at least 143 dairy herds affected in a dozen states. For years, scientists have warned that bird flu could become another pandemic like COVID-19 (which hasn’t exactly ended.) In other species, scientists have seen H5N1 decimate populations of seals and cats. Now, a new study published in the journal Nature takes a deeper look at the virus infecting cows, shedding light on the risk it poses to the human population.