Yes, avian flu is very much still around. The H5N1 strain has been circulating globally in wild birds, poultry, and mammals for several years, and since early 2024 it has spread into U.S. dairy cattle, creating a new and ongoing outbreak. As of mid-2025, the CDC reports 71 human cases in the United States since February 2024, and 26 human infections were reported worldwide between January 1 and August 4, 2025 alone.
Where the Virus Is Spreading Now
H5N1 has been detected on every continent. Wild migratory birds continue to carry the virus across international borders, and it has jumped into a growing list of mammal species, including dairy cows, cats, seals, and sea lions. In South America, outbreaks in marine mammals preceded the virus reaching the Antarctic Peninsula during the 2023/2024 austral summer, though mass die-offs there have not been observed so far.
In the United States, the major development since 2024 has been the virus establishing itself in dairy cattle herds across multiple states. This was unexpected. Before this outbreak, cows were not considered a significant host for bird flu. The virus spreads between cows and can contaminate raw milk, creating new exposure pathways for farmworkers and raising food safety questions that hadn’t come up in previous outbreaks.
How People Are Getting Infected
Nearly all U.S. human cases have occurred in people with job-related exposure to infected birds or dairy cows. Of the 71 reported cases, 64 were detected through monitoring of exposed workers rather than through routine flu surveillance, which gives a sense of how targeted the risk still is. People get infected through direct contact with sick or dead animals, by touching contaminated surfaces and then touching their eyes, nose, or mouth, or when raw milk or other contaminated material splashes into the eyes.
No person-to-person spread has been identified in the United States. Globally, it has occurred only rarely, in situations where a family member provided prolonged close care to someone seriously ill with the virus. This is the key reason public health officials consider the current risk to the general public low: the virus has not acquired the ability to spread efficiently between people.
Symptoms in Recent U.S. Cases
Most recent human cases in the U.S. have been mild. Eye redness, or conjunctivitis, has been the most common symptom, which makes sense given that many infections happened when contaminated material contacted workers’ eyes. Other mild symptoms include low-grade fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose, muscle aches, headaches, and fatigue.
More severe illness is possible, though it has been rare in this outbreak. Signs of serious disease include high fever, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, altered consciousness, and seizures. Historically, H5N1 has carried a high fatality rate in global cases, but the strain circulating in U.S. cattle has so far produced milder illness in the people it has infected.
Is the Milk Supply Safe?
Pasteurized milk and dairy products are safe. The FDA has tested 464 pasteurized dairy products, including milk, cheese, butter, and ice cream, and all came back negative for live H5N1 virus. Multiple studies have confirmed that standard commercial pasteurization completely inactivates the virus, with a large margin of safety. In one study designed to simulate real commercial processing conditions, the virus was eliminated in every single run across nine repeated experiments.
Raw milk is a different story. The FDA strongly advises against drinking unpasteurized milk, particularly during this outbreak. It’s not yet clear whether H5N1 can infect humans through consumption of raw milk from an infected cow, but live virus has been found in raw milk samples. If you drink pasteurized milk from a grocery store, you don’t need to worry.
How Officials Are Tracking It
Beyond testing individual people and animals, the CDC began publicly reporting results from wastewater surveillance for H5N1 in August 2024. Testing community wastewater can flag the presence of the virus in an area, though it can’t distinguish whether the source is infected animals, contaminated animal products like milk being poured down drains, or actual human infections. When a detection occurs, public health and agriculture teams investigate to figure out what’s driving it and whether action is needed.
This approach fills gaps that traditional surveillance misses. Many mild infections, especially in workers who might chalk up eye irritation to dust or allergies, could go unreported without these complementary monitoring systems.
Protecting Yourself
For the general public, the practical steps are straightforward: drink pasteurized milk, avoid contact with sick or dead wild birds, and don’t handle animals that appear ill. The virus is not spreading in the community the way seasonal flu does, so everyday precautions like masking in public spaces are not currently necessary for bird flu specifically.
For farmworkers and anyone handling poultry, dairy cows, or raw milk, the calculus is different. The CDC recommends wearing personal protective equipment in medium and high exposure settings. That means eye protection, gloves, respiratory protection, and coveralls when working around potentially infected animals or contaminated surfaces. Workers should avoid touching their face while wearing PPE, shower at the end of each shift, and leave contaminated clothing at the worksite. Employers are required to provide recommended PPE at no cost.
The core concern with H5N1 isn’t what the virus is doing right now in humans. It’s what it could do if it mutates to spread more easily between people. Each new host species it adapts to, whether dairy cows or marine mammals, gives it additional opportunities to change. That’s why surveillance, worker protection, and outbreak containment remain active priorities even though the number of human cases is still small.