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An H5N1 avian flu virus that killed a Canadian woman in January had two uncommon mutations that may have helped increase its ability to bind to human cells, researchers from Singapore and Canada reported yesterday in a letter in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
About two thirds of the 38,000 new cases reported last week were in the Dominican Republic.
A US doctor with Ebola is improving and new cases have been reported in Morocco and Nigeria, as the outbreak reaches 1,603 cases and 887 deaths.
A World Health Organization (WHO) emergency committee has extended a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) over the global polio situation and the temporary recommendations that came with it, the WHO said in a statement yesterday. The group met by teleconference on Jul 31, its first meeting since it first declared the PHEIC on May 5.
An emergency committee next week will consider if West Africa's Ebola outbreak is a health emergency as US officials prepare to airlift two sick American aid workers.
The agency also establishes new steps to control Salmonella and Campylobacter in poultry.
The neuraminidase inhibitor laninamivir, made by Biota Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga., failed to perform better than a placebo at alleviating influenza symptoms in a phase 2 trial, the company said in a press release today, adding that it will no longer develop the drug.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has turned down a long-pending petition to declare antibiotic-resistant (ABR) Salmonella an adulterant in raw ground meat and poultry, saying there's not enough evidence to support the change.
The WHO will launch a $100 million plan tomorrow, and the CDC advises against nonessential travel.
Journal editors call for specific steps, while the ASM said it wants the NAS to weigh the risks and benefits.
Resistance to artemisinin, the main drug for treating malaria, has now spread throughout Southeast Asia, including critical border regions, and a genetic mutation in the Plasmodium falciparum parasite that causes the disease may be the culprit, according to a study today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The illness continues to exact a heavy toll on healthcare workers and disrupt aid.
Statement is a counterpoint to recent calls for restrictions on gain-of-function research.
The steady flow of imported chikungunya infections linked mainly to travel to the Caribbean continued in the United States last week, with 98 more cases reported, lifting the total to 398, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said yesterday.
Producers recently began shipping doses of a US supply that has more quadrivalent products in the mix this year.
Six more states reported Cyclospora cases in the past week, and health officials are still seeking a common food source.
An analysis of seven children infected with H7N9 avian influenza during the outbreak's second wave in China found that the illnesses were mild, a phenomenon that could contribute to spread of the virus. Researchers from China's Guangdong province published their findings today in an early online edition of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.
With the continuing spread of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday issued an official advisory for US HCWs to consider EVD and possible isolation pending diagnosis in patients who have Ebola-like symptoms and a travel history to affected countries within the previous 21 days.
Cases in the Americas now total almost 475,000, with the Dominican Republic accounting for most of last week's rise.
Two new developments are fanning concerns about the international spread of the disease.
