![]() ![]() It seems to cause only mild bovine infection, says Mayara Maggioli, a veterinary immunologist at Oklahoma State University. A nationwide survey in 20 showed that about 75 percent of the animals carried antibodies to the virus. Influenza D is believed to be most prevalent in cattle. ![]() Influenza D is the most recently identified type and the only one that has not been confirmed to infect humans. Influenza C is very common but typically mild, except for some cases in infants, and there is no vaccine for it. ![]() ![]() each fall are tuned to two strains each of influenza A and B. Scientists have identified four different types of influenza virus, most of which infect humans. “I think it’s fair to say that influenza D has everything it needs to infect humans from a scientific standpoint,” says Feng Li, a virologist at the University of Kentucky, who helped identify the virus as a new type of influenza. There’s currently no definitive proof, but there are worrying hints that human infection is possible-and that if luck favored the virus on a couple key fronts, it could begin spreading among people. Scientists have since been watching for any signs that this bovine flu is infecting humans, as flus from birds and pigs sometimes do. Veterinarians first identified influenza D in pigs in 2011 and later sleuthed out the virus’s primary host: cattle. But experts have their eye on the threat it could potentially pose to humans. Influenza D, a relatively recent addition to the alphabet of flu viruses, most commonly infects cattle. ![]()
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