Category: Featured Headlines
Is New York Prepared for a Bird Flu Pandemic?
NYT The health care system has stockpiles of medicine and has worked out “a lot of the kinks” since the Covid pandemic. But experts still have some concerns about a bird flu outbreak. Four years after a new coronavirus swept through New York in what was called a once-in-a-century event, public health officials are beginning […]
Jun 26, 2024
9th case of bird flu in cattle detected in Sioux County, 11th in Iowa
Iowa Local News The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship has confirmed another case of bird flu in Sioux County. According to the Ag Department, this is believed to be the 11th case of bird flu in the state of Iowa. This brings the total number of cases detected in Sioux County up to 9. HPAI […]
Jun 26, 2024
Bird flu spreads to tenth Australian poultry farm
Reuters A highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza has spread to an eighth poultry farm near Melbourne, the government of Australia’s Victoria state said on Tuesday, taking the total number of infected facilities in the country to 10. Australia is dealing with three parallel outbreaks of bird flu, two near Melbourne and one near Sydney. […]
Jun 26, 2024
“No evidence” new COVID variant LB.1 causes more severe disease, CDC says
CBS News There are no signs so far that the new LB.1 variant is causing more severe disease in COVID-19 patients, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, as infections have begun to accelerate in this summer’s wave around the country. The LB.1 variant currently makes up 17.5% of new COVID cases, the CDC projected Friday, and could […]
Jun 26, 2024
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