Michigan health officials recently announced two variant H3N2 (H3N2v) influenza illnesses in Muskegon County residents who exhibited swine at the Muskegon County fair in late July. The cases appear to be the nation's first for 2016.
Saudi Arabia confirmed a new MERS-CoV case today in Medina, according to its Ministry of Health (MOH).
Contrary to some hypotheses, 1918 pandemic flu did not shorten the lifespan of survivors, at least in male soldiers, New Zealand researchers reported today in Epidemiology and Infection.
Flu season markers in the Southern Hemisphere show a mixed picture, with increases recorded in southern Africa and parts of South America, with low activity for this time of year in Australia and New Zealand, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its most recent update.
The viruses causing outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5 avian flu that spread across North American poultry farms in late 2014 into the summer of 2015 did not persist in wild aquatic birds like ducks, suggesting they are not an ongoing source of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses, according to a study yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Egypt recently reported three new H5N1 avian flu cases, all in people who had been exposed to poultry or their environments, according to a monthly update from the World Health Organization (WHO) on animal-to-human flu transmission events for the middle of June through the middle of July.
A dose of H5 avian influenza vaccine may set the stage for a stronger cellular immune response if a person later encounters a different strain of H5 virus, which suggests that this prime-boost strategy could be useful in fighting an H5N1 pandemic, according to a study reported Jul 20 in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
After a quiet 3 months, France is reporting avian flu activity in the southwestern part of the country, according to Avian Flu Diary, an infectious disease blog. The 2 new outbreaks raise the total number of French outbreaks to 79 since November of 2015.
Cameroon's recent outbreak is its first since 2006 and signals southern movement of the virus, the FAO said.
A French research team yesterday reported the first known detection of Zika virus in the genital tract of an infected woman, along with signs that it persists there after it clears from blood and urine. The team, from Guadeloupe and Toulouse, reported its findings in a letter to The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
