Bird flu is once again setting many of us on edge.
The human case was reported Sunday by Texas health officials andconfirmedMonday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
These are viruses that often have high levels of virulence with little to no population immunity to combat them.
A cow with a cattle egret bird sitting on top of it.Image: Gillian Holliday (Shutterstock)
These livestock cases are unprecedented.
Right now, there are many unsettled questions about the nature of these outbreaks.
But it is not clear yet whether strains of the virus have been transmitted from cow to cow.
The key question is understanding how the cows are getting infected, Adalja said.
As worrying as this is, not all of the news weve learned so far is bad.
Other aspects of the situation are currently impossible to know.
But its not certain that strains adapted to spreading between humans would retain that level of virulence.
Influenza remains the biggest pandemic threat that we face.
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No further cases have been detected yet.
