Nevada just confirmed its first human case of avian flu from infected cattle. Nevada’s first case was found in Churchill County, the Central Nevada Health District announced on Monday.

A dairy worker has become the first person to catch bird flu in Nevada as a new strain of H5N1 appears in dairy cows

A dairy worker in Nevada has reportedly been infected by the killer variant of H5N1 bird flu; analysis shows changes in new strain that makes it more lethal in mammals.

The newer variant of avian influenza that recently infected dairy cattle in Nevada has a genetic change that’s thought to help the virus copy itself in mammals — including humans — more easily, according to a new technical brief from the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

The newer strain had been seen before in more than a dozen people exposed to poultry, but this is the first time an infection was traced to a cow. The Nevada dairy worker was exposed at a farm in Churchill County, in the west central part of the state, state health officials said.

Nevada officially has its first and only human case of bird flu. The Central Nevada Health District confirmed the illness on Monday.

Nevada has reported its first case of bird flu in a human, a dairy worker exposed to cattle. This incident is part of a broader U.S. outbreak, impacting nearly 70 individuals since April, mainly in the agricultural sector.

This version of the virus is circulating broadly in wild birds and is different from the virus that has been causing dairy cow outbreaks since early 2024, the CDC said.

Cows in Nevada have been infected with a strain of H5N1 bird flu different from the strain detected in all other herds to this point in the ongoing dairy outbreak. It's the same strain that killed a Louisiana resident in early January and sent a Canadian teenager to intensive care in early November.