An employee at a Texas dairy farm has contracted avian influenza after coming into contact with infected dairy cows. This is the first case of transmission of a subtype of the virus, called H5N1, when a person became infected from a mammal in the state of Texas, and the second in the country's history.
This was reported by UNN with reference to New Scientist and The New York Times.
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A person in the United States has tested positive for bird flu after contracting it from a dairy cow, authorities said on Monday.
This is the first case of human infection with the avian influenza virus type A (H5N1) in the state of Texas, but the second in the history of the country. The first case was registered in April 2022 in Colorado, in an employee who participated in the slaughter of poultry at an agricultural enterprise where the virus was confirmed to have infected the livestock.
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Last week, cows in five US states - Texas, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico and Idaho - tested positive for the H5N1 virus. It is not known how they got sick, but according to the US Department of Agriculture, the virus can spread among animals.
Previously, it was confirmed that mammals contracted the virus only from sick birds.
There have been several outbreaks that have not involved humans, where mammalian-to-mammalian transmission is possible
At the end of 2023, 17,000 sea elephants died of bird flu in Argentina. In 2022, Spain also experienced an outbreak among farmed mink. Since the summer of 2021, the avian influenza virus has caused the death and slaughter of millions of poultry in Europe.
Initial tests did not reveal any changes in the virus that could make it more transmissible to humans
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