Human breast tissue may be capable of hosting — and passing on — bird flu.
Human mammary glands contain sugars that avian influenza can latch onto to infect cells, researchers report August 8 at medRxiv.org. The finding, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, raises the possibility that nursing babies could be infected with bird flu through breast milk.
When H5N1 bird flu was detected in dairy cattle in 2024 — primarily in the mammary glands in the udder — and in cows’ milk shortly after, Carrie Byington began to wonder whether human mammary tissue could also harbor the virus. There were no studies addressing the question in scientific literature,