A recent study published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases examined influenza infections among cattle on a dairy farm in Texas, United States of America (USA). Since the 2.3.
4.4b clade bird-origin influenza A/cattle/Texas/56283/2024 (H5N1) virus arrived in the northern parts of America by late 2021, several spillover incidents among mammals of diverse species, including humans, have occurred. Nonetheless, the viral strains did not harm dairy livestock.
Cattle are permissive but resistant to infections by influenza A (IAV), influenza B, and influenza C viruses; nevertheless, they are vulnerable to infections by the influenza D virus. Influenza D viruses are assumed to transfer between cows by direct touch or aerosol transmission over brief distances via the respiratory route, and potential influenza D viral spillovers to humans are alarming. However, veterinarians have investigated different pathogens associated with livestock respiratory epizootics.
Study: Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Virus among Dairy Cattle, Texas, USA . Image Credit: McKenzie Kizer / Shutterstock In the present study, researchers studied dairy cattle samples from a Texas farm using various pathogen identification methods from March to April 2024. The researchers performed molecular screening to identify the etiological agent for cattle diseases.
In a few cases, they performed cell culture experiments and next-generation sequencing (NGS) on cattle swab biospecimens. They targeted six groups of viruses:.
