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Experts called together in the wake of the Ebola crisis laid out ways to better prepare for the next threat.
For the second day in a row, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported a new MERS-CoV case, and like yesterday the patient is a man who had contact with camels before he got sick.
The 50-year-old man is a Saudi citizen from Medina, located in the western part of the country. The man is hospitalized in stable condition for his MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) infection.
Officials have confirmed a severe case of H5N1 avian flu in a man in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in south central China, according to a statement from the Sichuan Health and Family Planning Commission translated and posted today by Avian Flu Diary (AFD), an infectious disease news blog.
In related developments, French officials posted an update on the country's outbreaks, which remain at 67, with testing still under way.
After 12 days without a MERS case, Saudi Arabia reports one involving contact with a camel.
Taiwan officials today reported a new H7N9 avian flu case on the mainland, while Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) provided details on eight recent cases in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.
The initial effectiveness investigations flagged a problem with the 2009 H1N1 vaccine virus in the inhaled version and drove improvement efforts.
Four of the 8 H5N6 cases ever reported have been in the past 2 weeks, and H7N9 has topped 700 cases.
According to the first-ever global burden estimates for melioidosis, the disease is sharply underreported in 45 endemic countries, it's probably endemic in 34 more, and conditions are suitable for the disease in parts of the United States and Japan.
The new, worrisome MCR-1 resistance gene has been detected in 6 more nations.
The findings add more evidence that resistance is common in parts of Cambodia.
The next step in the deliberations is a 2-day National Academies of Science symposium in March.
Kansas researchers have developed a vaccine that they say can protect poultry against multiple H5 avian flu strains, but chicken producers remain reluctant to use such vaccines because of possible foreign bans on US poultry products, according to reports yesterday.
Some topics: weighing risks and benefits, ethical issues, and global involvement.
Johnson & Johnson's prime-boost Ebola vaccine regimen is entering phase 2 clinical trials in both healthy and HIV-infected people, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) announced yesterday in a press release.
Three of the world's seven human cases of H5N6 have now been reported in the past 10 days, with Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) reporting a new case today, following cases on Dec 29 and Jan 4.
Also, a short report notes gender differences during the outbreak, such as higher survival in females.
Provincial officials in China have reported two new cases of H7N9 avian flu, according to reports yesterday and today.
The first case is in Ningbo city in Zhejiang province in east central China, according to a China News story yesterday translated and posted by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board. The patient—whose age and sex were not specified—had contact with live poultry and is hospitalized.
All 3 nations have been hit hard; France has now had 66 high-path outbreaks.
Canada can now be added to the growing list of countries that have detected MCR-1, the recently identified worrisome gene that disables the last-line antibiotic colistin, after it was detected in a patient and in ground beef sold in 2010, the Toronto Star reported today.
After being identified for the first time in China in November, the gene has now been confirmed in samples from at least 11 countries.
