Category: Featured Headlines
‘Uncertainty’ Isn’t a Bad Word: U.S. Agencies Must Tighten Up H5N1 Communications
MedPageToday More effective and efficient public messaging is the need of the hour. Less than a month ago, we published a pieceopens in a new tab or window suggesting that H5N1 bird flu could pose an even thornier health communications challenge than COVID-19. We offered a three-point prescription for how the U.S. government agencies most responsible for […]
Jun 4, 2024
Alpacas test positive for H5N1 bird flu for the first time
CNN Highly pathogenic avian influenza, sometimes called bird flu, has been confirmed in alpacas for the first time, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories. The animals that tested positive were on a farm in Idaho where poultry had tested positive for the virus and were culled in May. The alpacas […]
May 29, 2024
Wastewater and the Current Outbreak of Influenza A (H5N1) in birds, cattle, and other animals
CDC During the two most recent weeks, (May 5, 2024–May 18, 2024), a total of 281 of 689 sites reported data meeting criteria for analysis for influenza A virus for both weeks or for either week, and 3 (1%) sites from 2 states were at a high level (>80th percentile compared to levels recorded at that site between October 1, 2023 and March 2, 2024).
May 28, 2024
Covid will still be here this summer. Will anyone care?
Washington Post Despite “FLiRT” variants, this may be the first covid wave with little federal pressure to limit transmission or data to even declare a surge. By now, it’s as familiar as sunscreen hitting the shelves: Americans are headed into another summer with new coronavirus variants and a likely uptick in cases. This is shaping up to […]
May 28, 2024
Is It Covid, Spring Allergies or a Cold?
NY Times It’s sniffle season. Here’s how to figure out what’s causing your symptoms. As summer approaches, many people with spring allergies are still suffering. And as new Covid variants circulate, experts say we may also soon see an uptick in cases. (Though wastewater data suggests that Covid cases are currently fairly low.) It can be tricky to distinguish […]
May 28, 2024
The Disease Detectives Trying to Keep the World Safe From Bird Flu
NY Times When a child in a small Cambodian town fell sick recently, his rapid decline set off a global disease surveillance system. As Dr. Sreyleak Luch drove to work the morning of Feb. 8, through busy sunbaked streets in Cambodia’s Mekong river delta, she played the overnight voice messages from her team. The condition […]
May 28, 2024
CDC preparing for ‘possibility of increased risk to human health’ from bird flu
CBS The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a summary on Friday that it is preparing for the “possibility of increased risk to human health” from bird flu following an outbreak among dairy cows and two confirmed human cases. However, the federal health agency also said the risk of bird flu, also known […]
May 28, 2024
Bird flu detected in tissue samples of US dairy cow sent to slaughter, USDA says
Reuters Bird flu virus particles were found in tissue samples taken from one dairy cow sent to slaughter at a U.S. meat processing plant, but none were detected in samples from 95 other cattle, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on Friday. Meat from the animals was prevented from entering the nation’s food supply, […]
May 28, 2024
Cows in the US have bird flu – is it inching closer to humans?
BBC The long-feared leap The H5N1 strain of avian flu has been around since 1996, but until now its been largely confined to animals. But it has now jumped to cattle in America and some think it means we are inching towards eventual human-to-human infection, with potentially serious consequences. Infected cows have started infecting each […]
May 22, 2024
We Don’t Know How Bad Bird Flu Is Getting
NY Magazine Intelligencer he H5N1 influenza has killed tens of millions of birds over the last few years, and it’s not slowing down. Instead, it has confounded expectations by spreading into animals once thought immune, and even to at least one person in the United States. (There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission, and risk to the public is still considered low.) […]
May 22, 2024