H5N1 may be in North America to stay

When an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza spread across North America this spring, researchers hoped for a replay of what happened after a different avian flu variant arrived in the United States in December 2014.

Although more than 50 million birds died or were destroyed in a matter of months, costing farmers more than $1.6 billion, the virus had essentially vanished by June 2015.

Poultry outbreaks ended, wild birds stopped dying, and migratory waterfowl didn’t bring the virus back when they returned from their summer breeding grounds in Canada.

But this time is different.

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