A pig on an Oregon farm has been found to have bird flu, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). announcement Wednesday. This is the first time the virus has been detected in pigs in the United States and raises concerns about the potential for bird flu to become a virus. human threat.

The infection occurred on a farm in Crook County, in the center of the state, where different animals share water and are housed together. Last week, poultry at the farm were found to have the virus, and tests this week revealed one of five pigs at the farm had been infected.

The farm was quarantined and all five pigs were euthanized so that further testing could be carried out. It is not a commercial farm, and U.S. agriculture officials have said there are no concerns about the security of the nation’s pork supply.

But the discovery of bird flu in a pig raises concerns that the virus is a stepping stone to becoming a bigger threat to humans, said Jennifer Nuzzo, DrPH, a pandemic researcher at Brown University.

Pigs can be infected with several types of flu, and animals may play a role in making avian viruses better adapted to humans, she explained. THE 2009 H1N1 flu The pandemic has swine origins, Nuzzo noted.

“If we’re trying to stay ahead of this virus and prevent it from becoming a threat to the general public, it’s crucial to know if it’s present in pigs,” Nuzzo said.

The USDA conducted genetic testing on the farm’s poultry and found no mutations suggesting the virus is gaining an increased ability to spread to humans. This indicates that the current risk to the public remains low, officials said.

Another strain of the avian flu virus has been reported in pigs outside the United States in the past, and it has not sparked a human pandemic.

“This is not a one-to-one relationship, where pigs are infected with viruses and cause pandemics,” said Troy Sutton, PhD, a researcher at Penn State who studies influenza viruses in animals.

This version of bird flu — known as type A H5N1 — has spread widely in the United States among wild birds, poultry, cows and a number of other animals. Its persistence increases the chances that people will be exposed and potentially caught, officials say.

It is not necessarily surprising that a pig infection was detected, given that many other animals have been infected with the virus, experts say.

The infection of Oregon pigs “is remarkable, but does that change the threat level calculus? No, it doesn’t,” Sutton said. If the virus starts to spread more widely among pigs and human infections follow, “then we will be more worried.”

So far this year, almost 40 human cases have been reported – in California, Colorado, Washington, Michigan, Texas and Missouri – with mostly mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis. All but one person had been in contact with infected animals.