Bird flu's jump to cattle took dairy farmers by surprise

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The dairy industry was caught off guard by bird flu's jump to cattle, Scientific American reports. "Spillovers of viruses is not something that happens on a daily basis. There are many factors that have to align and be in place for that to happen," observes Diego Diel, who leads the Virology Lab at Cornell’s Animal Health Diagnostic Center. He says: "given what we have seen so far, this virus is likely to continue to circulate in dairy cows. The continuous circulation of the virus in mammals can lead to mutations that will make this virus more adapted to the human receptor. That could increase the risk of infection in humans, severity of disease in humans and the potential transmissibility of the virus from human to human."

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