Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
More COVID-19 studies suggest BA.2.86 may be less immune-evasive than feared
CIDRAP Two more lab groups—one from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute and the other from Harvard University—have reported results of antibody neutralization lab experiments, which suggest vaccination or previous infection offer some protection against the highly mutated BA.2.86 SARS-CoV-2 variant. In other developments, countries uploaded more BA.2.86 samples to genetic sequencing databases, and the United Kingdom updated […]
Sep 5, 2023
What to know about COVID, the flu and RSV this fall
Axios What’s happening: A potent flu virus, resurgent COVID-19 and rebounding RSV are combining to prompt new warnings in Colorado about the coming seasons when all three will be circulating. What they’re saying: “This is why we’re encouraging everyone, and especially kids, parents and grandparents, to get their vaccinations early,” Michelle Barron, the senior medical director of infection prevention […]
Sep 5, 2023
Three lessons from Covid that could help global leaders prevent the next pandemic
STAT Everyone has things that, looking back, they would have done differently in the early days of 2020, had they known how the Covid-19 pandemic would tear across the globe. But those regrets may be particularly poignant for global leaders whose actions (or lack thereof) had direct impacts on how Covid-19 spread. Joanne Liu, a […]
Sep 5, 2023
CBP Reminds Travelers of Restrictions Relating to Avian Flu
Homeland Security Today U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is reminding the traveling public of the restrictions for avian commodities originating from or transiting Mexico including hunter harvested, non-fully finished avian trophies and meat. “We want to remind the traveling public that fresh eggs, raw chicken, and live birds or poultry continue to be prohibited […]
Sep 5, 2023
RSV Advisory Issued by the U.S. CDC
Precision Vaccinations The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today announced a Health Alert Network Health Advisory CDCHAN-00498 to notify clinicians and caregivers about increased respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity in the Southeastern United States. Historically, such regional increases have predicted the beginning of the RSV season in the U.S. Across both prepandemic and pandemic years, RSV circulation began […]
Sep 5, 2023
Airborne transmission of human-isolated avian H3N8 influenza virus between ferrets
Cell H3N8 avian influenza viruses (AIVs) in China caused two confirmed human infections in 2022, followed by a fatal case reported in 2023. H3N8 viruses are widespread in chicken flocks; however, the zoonotic features of H3N8 viruses are poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that H3N8 viruses were able to infect and replicate efficiently in organotypic […]
Sep 5, 2023
South Africa: Poultry industry faces mounting losses amid bird flu outbreaks
Farmer’s Weekly Dr Abongile Balarane, general manager of the Layer Organisation of SA Poultry, told Farmer’s Weekly that initial cases of the H5N1 strain of HPAI occurred among layers in the Western Cape in April. This strain is the same as the one currently affecting the majority of other countries in the world. In June, however, a […]
Sep 5, 2023
Kansas: Multidrug-Resistant TB Outbreak
MedPageToday An outbreak of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) developed in Kansas in November 2021, and included multiple children who were born in the U.S. and became infected in the state, CDC researchers reported. The outbreak involved 13 people across four households in Kansas City and spanned 1 year. While a majority of the seven adults identified […]
Sep 5, 2023
Scientists at Johns Hopkins research malaria transmission following a positive case in Maryland
CBS News A team of scientists at Johns Hopkins Hospital are leading research efforts behind malaria transmission. Maryland health leaders earlier this month reported a resident tested positive for malaria despite not traveling outside of the United States or to another state with recent malaria cases. It’s the first case of malaria of that kind in decades. […]
Aug 29, 2023
Accelerated evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in free-ranging white-tailed deer
Nature The zoonotic origin of the COVID-19 pandemic virus highlights the need to fill the vast gaps in our knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 ecology and evolution in non-human hosts. Here, we detected that SARS-CoV-2 was introduced from humans into white-tailed deer more than 30 times in Ohio, USA during November 2021-March 2022. Subsequently, deer-to-deer transmission persisted […]
Aug 29, 2023