Research reveals that although H5N1 can infect mice and ferrets through contact with infected milk, it does not easily transmit through the air. This indicates a potential risk to humans handling raw milk, but less concern for wider airborne spread. Researchers have found that the H5N1 virus , while capable of making mice and ferrets sick from infected cow’s milk, shows limited ability to spread through the air among ferrets.
This suggests that while there’s a real risk to humans exposed to raw milk, airborne transmission among humans might be limited. However, the virus has shown adaptability to human receptors, emphasizing the need for vigilant monitoring and containment. H5N1’s Transmission Dynamics While H5N1 avian influenza virus taken from infected cow’s milk makes mice and ferrets sick when dripped into their noses, airborne transmission of the virus between ferrets — a common model for human transmission — appears to be limited.
These and other new findings about the strain of H5N1 circulating among North American dairy cattle this year come from a set of laboratory experiments led by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers, reported on July 8 in the journal Nature . Together, they suggest that exposure to raw milk infected with the currently circulating virus poses a real risk of infecting humans, but that the virus may not spread very far or quickly to others. Colorized transmission electron micrograph of avian influenza A H5N1 virus particles (yel.