Four years after the COVID pandemic first began, public attention has turned to another virus: highly pathogenic avian influenza A (also known as H5N1), which has been the center of a rash of outbreaks across dairy farms in the U.S. Even more worryingly, a few humans have also gotten sick.
But wait, isn't this a pathogen that only infects birds? Technically, it originated in birds, but as we've seen many times in the history of public health, some of the most problematic viruses jump from animals to us. The long list of so-called zoonotic transmissions includes Ebola, SARS-1, MERS, Lyme disease and most likely, SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19.
