This disease affects nearly all cloven-footed mammals, including cattle, sheep, swine, goats, bison, antelope, deer, reindeer, camel, llama, giraffe and elephants. Horses are resistant. In surviving cows the flow of milk is greatly reduced, and abortions are common. Aside from the death to cows, farmers lose money. As you know when farms go broke people suffer both psychologically and financially.
Child abuse goes up, as does alcoholism, divorce, suicide, etc., etc.
While it may not be contagious to humans, it does indirectly affect their health. An alien biologist on another planet would say, First the cows contract the disease, and then humans kill them, very efficiently. Since humans would be just another organism to the alien, this would be seen as part of the disease cycle one that inevitably lead to death in almost all cases. The cows are killed because the disease is extremely contagious. The virus survives for a long time in the air, food, garbage, hides, hair and wool.