Category: Featured Headlines
CDC Assists in Study Testing for Asymptomatic Bird Flu in Humans
MedPageToday Top brass at the CDC, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other agencies shared a roadmap for preventing and understanding human infection with bird flu, along with their plan for developing countermeasures against the virus that has infected more than 120 dairy herds across a dozen states. Looking for Asymptomatic Infection To date, […]
Jun 25, 2024
Bird flu? Swine flu? A guide to H5N1 viruses and beyond
DW Ever been confused by the names for bird flu or Spanish flu H1N1? Type A influenza has 130 known subtypes, but which ones cause the flu in people? Here’s what the numbers mean. Avid virus-watchers will know that influenza viruses that make the news often feature the letters “H” and “N” in their names, such as H5N1 or H9N2. Those […]
Jun 18, 2024
With the threat of H5N1 bird flu, hospitals must stay prepared
STAT A third case of mammal-to-human transmission of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus has been reported in the United States. This latest case, involving a dairy worker in Michigan, raises concerns due to the individual exhibiting respiratory symptoms, highlighting the pandemic potential of this virus. U.S. hospitals need to prepare for the worst and hope […]
Jun 18, 2024
So far, officials have not detected infectious virus in any supermarket milk samples.
USA Today The finding comes as authorities are still identifying new infected herds in this year’s unprecedented outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in dairy cattle. Infections have been detected in cows across farms in at least a dozen states, with most of the positive tests coming from raw milk samples that were teeming with the virus. Authorities have called […]
Jun 18, 2024
Infectious bird flu survived milk pasteurization in lab tests, study finds. Here’s what to know.
CBS News A “small but detectable quantity” of infectious H5N1 bird flu virus was able to survive a common approach to pasteurizing milk, according to new research co-authored by scientists at the National Institutes of Health. The findings, published Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine, were based on experiments run at the agency’s lab. The researchers note […]
Jun 18, 2024
A Bird-Flu Pandemic in People? Here’s What It Might Look Like.
NYT There is no guarantee that a person-to-person virus would be benign, scientists say, and vaccines and treatments at hand may not be sufficient. The bird flu outbreak in dairy cattle has so far spilled over to just three farmworkers in the United States, as far as public health authorities know. All of them have […]
Jun 18, 2024
Flesh-Eating Bacteria That Can Kill in Two Days Spreads in Japan
Bloomberg A disease caused by a rare “flesh-eating bacteria” that can kill people within 48 hours is spreading in Japan after the country relaxed Covid-era restrictions. Cases of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS) reached 977 this year by June 2, higher than the record 941 cases reported for all of last year, according to the National Institute of Infectious […]
Jun 18, 2024
Japan reports record spike in potentially deadly bacterial infection
CNN Cases of a dangerous and highly fatal bacterial infection have reached record levels in Japan, official figures show, with experts so far unable to pinpoint the reason for the rise. As of June 2, Japan’s Health Ministry had recorded 977 cases of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS), which has a mortality rate of up […]
Jun 18, 2024
With So Much Bird Flu Around, Are Eggs, Chicken, and Milk Still Safe to Consume?
Wired Recent outbreaks of bird flu—in US dairy herds, poultry farms in Australia, and elsewhere, and isolated cases in humans—have raised the issue of food safety. So can the virus transfer from infected farm animals to contaminate milk, meat, or eggs? How likely is this? And what do we need to think about to minimize our risk when shopping […]
Jun 12, 2024
ABC News Australia The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed the child who contracted Australia’s first human case of a “severe” subtype of bird flu was likely exposed during a trip to India last month. The WHO said on Friday, local time, that genetic sequencing showed the avian influenza virus was H5N1 — a strain […]
Jun 11, 2024