A different cow tissues may help to explain the pattern of illness being seen in the outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in U.S. dairy cattle — and also is sparking debate about the implications of the cow outbreak for human disease.
The study, a preprint that hasn’t yet been through peer review by a scientific journal, found that tissue from the mammary gland contains abundant receptors of the kind to which avian flu viruses like H5N1 can attach. But brain and respiratory tract tissues contained far fewer of this type of receptor.