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A highly fatal form of avian influenza, or bird flu, has been confirmed in U.S. cattle in Texas and Kansas, the Department of Agriculture announced on Monday. It is the first time that cows infected with the virus have been identified. The cows appear to have been infected by wild birds, and dead birds were reported on some farms, the agency said. The results were announced after multiple federal and state agencies began investigating reports of sick cows in Texas, Kansas and New Mexico. (Anthes, 3/25)

Officials with the Texas Animal Health Commission confirmed the flu virus is the Type A H5N1 strain, known for decades to cause outbreaks in birds and to occasionally infect people. The virus is affecting older dairy cows in those states and in New Mexico, causing decreased lactation and low appetite. ... The federal government said its tests in the cattle did not detect any changes to the virus that would make it spread more easily to people. (Stobbe and Aleccia, 3/25)

The government said milk from sick cows is being diverted or destroyed so it does not enter the food supply. Pasteurization is required for milk entering interstate commerce, a process that kills bacteria and viruses such as flu, the USDA said. ... It added there should be no impact on prices for milk or other dairy products. U.S. dairy industry groups urged importers not to ban or restrict shipments of U.S. dairy products because of the detections. (Polansek, 3/25)

People pass twice as many viruses to domestic and wild animals than animals pass to people, concludes a study today in Nature Ecology & Evolution. University College London (UCL) researchers analyzed genomic data on nearly 12 million viruses in 32 viral families using network and evolutional analyses to characterize the mutations behind recent vertebrate species jumps. (Van Beusekom, 3/25)