The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today confirmed more H5N1 avian flu detections in poultry from four states, including several in hard-hit Ohio.

The latest outbreaks in Ohio involved four commercial farms in Mercer County, three turkey producers and one at a duck meat facility. Over the past month, Ohio’s outbreaks have led to the loss of nearly 6 million birds, including several large layer farms, with most of the other events involving turkey producers.

APHIS also confirmed an outbreak at a layer farm in Arizona’s Pinal County that has about 316,000 birds. Officials also confirmed two detections in backyard flocks, one in Nebraska’s Kearney County and one in Florida’s Orange County.

Since H5N1 was first detected in US poultry in early 2022, outbreaks have led to the loss of a record 147.25 million birds across all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

In dairy cow developments, APHIS confirmed one more detection, another herd from California, raising the national total to 944 and the state’s total to 727.

The United Kingdom’s Health Security Agency (HSA) yesterday reported the country’s seventh clade 1b mpox case, which involves a patient who had recently traveled to Uganda. 

The country’s last clade 1b mpox case, announced on January 20, also involved an individual who recently returned from Uganda, one of Africa’s current hot spots.

Susan Hopkins, MB BCh, the HSA's chief medical adviser, said in the statement, “The risk to the UK population remains low. Close contacts have been identified and offered appropriate advice in order to reduce the chance of further spread.”

WHO notes concerning situation in the DR Congo, first mpox case in Azerbaijan

In its monthly mpox update today, the World Health Organization (WHO) said clade 1b mpox activity continues in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, and Uganda, with new travel-related cases continuing to be reported outside the region.

Though the situation has stabilized in many DRC provinces, sustained circulation continues with escalating violence in the eastern part of the country adding challenges to the country’s mpox response.

Two cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in wild deer have been confirmed in two Minnesota deer permit areas (DPAs) with no previously identified instances of the fatal neurodegenerative disease, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced yesterday.

One of the two infected white-tailed bucks harvested in fall 2024 was found in DPA 701 near Greenfield in Hennepin County, in the southeastern part of the state. The other was taken in DPA 266 near Hawley in Clay County, along the North Dakota border in northwestern Minnesota. 

Hennepin County is also home to Minneapolis, which is less than 30 miles from Greenfield.

The closest CWD detection in wild deer to the case in DPA 701 was 31 miles away, in Dakota County. The DPA 266 case was identified about 54 miles from a previous confirmed positive in Polk County.

"This finding is concerning because it indicates possible new areas of CWD prevalence in wild deer where it hasn’t previously been detected," Erik Hildebrand, DNR wildlife health supervisor, said in the news release. "This also highlights how important our disease surveillance efforts are and how critical it is that hunters are able to test deer harvested anywhere in the state if they would like to."

Detections trigger CWD response plan

The DNR will implement its CWD response plan, which entails 3 consecutive years of testing to help estimate disease prevalence. The findings will also trigger carcass movement restrictions and a deer feeding and attractant ban and may include more hunting opportunities with higher bag limits.

Additional management actions... might include the establishment of a new CWD management zone and surrounding surveillance area to better understand the distribution and prevalence of this disease in the area, as well as considerations of late season hunting, landowner shooting permits and targeted culling.

"Additional management actions will be taken per DNR’s CWD response plan, likely this fall, and might include the establishment of a new CWD management zone and surrounding surveillance area to better understand the distribution and prevalence of this disease in the area, as well as considerations of late season hunting, landowner shooting permits and targeted culling," the release said.

CWD is a fatal neurodegenerative cervid disease caused by prions, infectious proteins that trigger abnormal folding in normal proteins. Infected animals shed CWD prions in body fluids, which can spread to other cervids through direct contact or the environment.