On Apr. 28, 2025, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced it had awarded a more than $3 million, one-year grant to a multidisciplinary research team led by experts at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health to assess the presence of avian influenza among dairy farm workers in Texas.

In April 2024, a month after avian influenza (HPAI H5N1) was detected in dairy cows in several states, the first known human case was reported in an individual in Texas who had been exposed to dairy cows.

The CDC believes this was the first case of H5N1 being spread from birds to cattle to a human — and the risk to humans remains low. Since H5N1 was first found in dairy herds, there have been 70 human cases, with four of these cases linked to exposure to sick dairy cows. 

The researchers learn how workers may have been exposed to the virus by combining the questionnaire data with the lab analysis. The test results and questionnaire answers tell the team what strain of flu they are dealing with and what to tweak to improve worker health and safety.

If H5N1 is identified, the researchers help the farmers prevent its spread and keep the workers and cattle herds safe. Their findings are reported in aggregate so that individual farms cannot be identified.