USDA Adds House Mouse To Mammals Affected by H5N1

 

#18,101

Last week the USDA added domestic cats to their list of mammalian infections, and in today's update, they've added 11 infections of a new species Mus musculus (the common house mouse), all from a single county (Roosevelt) in New Mexico.   

While it is not surprising that mice are susceptible to H5N1, given past laboratory experiments (see NIH Assessing avian influenza in dairy milk), this is the first time they've been placed on the USDA's list.

There are no details provided on where these mice were collected, or if they we're symptomatic, or even dead.  While it seems likely these were barn mice at a dairy farm, it would be nice to have those details. 

In any event, the number of mammalian spillovers reported to the USDA continue to grow, and now sits a 259, spread across 22 species.  

Given the sparse surveillance, and the difficulty in locating and testing sick or dead animals in the wild, this is likely a huge under-counting of affected mammals.