CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Dr. Patrick Jackson, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Virginia who has led numerous trials for treatments and cures, has published an article in the online researcher journal The Conversation of three viruses he’s watching in 2026, those being avian influenza, M-pox and the Oropouche virus.

Jackson said in a UVA Health conference call with reporters that avian influenza, or H5N1 subtype, was first discovered back in 1997 in China, and wild birds helped spread it to the United States in 2024. Not only did it result in deaths of flocks of birds, which led to skyrocketing egg prices in 2024, it was discovered to have spread to dairy cattle for the first time.

“That spillover was really concerning because that was the virus adapting to mammals and obviously getting closer to being able to cause infection in humans,” Dr. Jackson said.

Jackson said there have only been a few spillover cases into humans that have been detected over the past year, but not that some surveillance surveys have shown that “there is probably quite a bit of exposure to this virus in humans, especially people who work with cows.”

“So far there has not been any sustained human-to-human transmission of avian influenza which would be the bigger trigger of concern, but because it’s out there still having contact with people after adapting to mammals it remains a threat,” Dr. Jackson warned. “So that could change at any time.”

M-pox, a virus that causes a painful rash that can last for weeks, was first found in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Dr. Jackson, who added that there was a global outbreak of clade II m-pox that reached the United States in 2022. While Jackson said the outbreak has largely subsided, there is still some transmission of the virus Stateside and in other places where the virus hadn’t been seen as recently as a few years ago.

“What’s new in the M-pox world is there are new outbreaks of clade I M-pox, usually thought of as being more severe of that, in central Africa, in places where that virus hadn’t been seen before,” said Jackson.

Jackson said patients in the United States have picked the virus up through both local transmission and while traveling.

Fianlly, Oropouche virus is a tropical virus Jackson said we’ve known about since the 1950s first described in Trinidad off of South America. He said the disease causes fever, flu-like symptoms, severe headache and can lead patients to recurrent symptoms like weakness and fatigue weeks after initial recovery.

He said we’ve seen it spread more dramatically through South America and the Caribbean in recent years, and it’s potentially able to spread into the United States because the insect that carries it is well-distributed throughout the southeastern U.S.

“Oropouche is carried by a biting midge, or a ‘no-see-um’ as we often call them, and most of us have encountered those from time-to-time,” Jackson said. “So, throughout the southeastern U.S., including Virginia and even farther north than us, we see the particular species that’s able to carry Oropouche.”

While no domestic transmission of Oropouche has been detected yet, due to the commonality of its vector, Jackson said, “there’s really no barrier from preventing that virus from spreading more rapidly.”

Outside of the three diseases he highlighted, Jackson said COVID-19 continues to spread, though we haven’t seen significant amounts this winter season as we’ve seen influenza. But he said that could change any moment.

“COVID’s going to be with us forever,” he said, “and I think what’s likely going to be driving large outbreaks into the future is how the virus mutates. I think we’ll occasionally see variants of that virus that have a mutation that kind of gets around people’s pre-existing immunity and causes large outbreaks, and then those outbreaks will burn out, and the cycle will repeat.”

With heavy seasonal flu this fall into winter, Jackson also said he believes “an influenza pandemic threat is always present,” regardless of the strand of disease.