Author: Claudinne Miller
Flu season is over, but there is a viral surge in California wastewater. Is it avian flu?
Los Angeles Times An unusual surge in flu viruses detected at wastewater treatment plants in California and other parts of the country is raising concerns among some experts that H5N1 bird flu may be spreading farther and faster than health officers initially thought. In the last several weeks, wastewater surveillance at 59 of 190 U.S. […]
May 14, 2024
Mers outbreak in Saudi Arabia puts health experts on high alert
Telegraph Officials race to determine infection source after three people with no direct contact to camels contract the deadly coronavirus. Health agencies are racing to determine the origins of a Mers outbreak in Saudi Arabia, after three people with no direct contact to camels contracted the coronavirus. The pathogen, known as Middle East respiratory syndrome, […]
May 14, 2024
Farmers will now get paid to test their dairy cows for bird flu
NBC News The federal government is putting up nearly $200 million to stop the spread of the virus and help experts get a better handle on just how widespread it is. Federal authorities on Friday pledged nearly $200 million in an attempt to control the spread of bird flu on dairy farms. Some of that money […]
May 14, 2024
Future Pandemics Will Have The Same Human Causes As Ancient Outbreaks
Discovery Magazine The changes that came with the transition from foraging to farming paved the way for disease. The last pandemic was bad, but COVID-19 is only one of many infectious diseases that emerged since the turn of this century. Since 2000, the world has experienced 15 novel Ebola epidemics, the global spread of a 1918-like influenza […]
May 14, 2024
There’s a New Covid Variant. What Will That Mean for Spring and Summer?
NYT For most of this year, the JN.1 variant of the coronavirus accounted for an overwhelming majority of Covid cases. But now, an offshoot variant called KP.2 is taking off. The variant, which made up just one percent of cases in the United States in mid-March, now makes up over a quarter. KP.2 belongs to a […]
May 14, 2024
Just One Human Is Infected by Bird Flu in the US. More Cases Are Likely
Bloomberg It’s spreading rapidly among cows. It’s also infecting skunks, mountain lions and red foxes. Yet as the highly contagious avian flu affects mammals across the US, just one human case has been reported so far. But that’s probably only because there is extremely limited testing of people underway to detect it. State governments and farm owners […]
May 8, 2024
Avian flu hits more turkeys in Gratiot County, Michigan
Watt Poultry Gratiot County, Michigan, has had two commercial meat turkey flocks affected by H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in less than a week. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced that the presence of HPAI was confirmed in a flock of 26,400 turkeys on May 2. HPAI was confirmed […]
May 8, 2024
Study of cow tissues provides clues for unusual pattern of bird flu infections in dairy cattle
STAT A different cow tissues may help to explain the pattern of illness being seen in the outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in U.S. dairy cattle — and also is sparking debate about the implications of the cow outbreak for human disease. The study, a preprint that hasn’t yet been through peer review by a scientific journal, […]
May 8, 2024
Squirrels may have given medieval Britons leprosy
BBC Humans may have caught leprosy from squirrels in medieval times, researchers say. They studied human and red squirrel bones from archaeological sites in Winchester, southern England, and found they had closely related strains of the bacteria that causes it. Leprosy is a chronic disease infectious between humans that attacks the skin, nerves and mucous […]
May 7, 2024
How to tell if a conspiracy theory is probably false
The Conversation Conspiracy theories are everywhere, and they can involve just about anything. People believe false conspiracy theories for a wide range of reasons – including the fact that there are real conspiracies, like efforts by the Sackler family to profit by concealing the addictiveness of oxycontin at the cost of countless American lives. The extreme consequences of unfounded conspiratorial beliefs could be […]
May 7, 2024