Veterinary officials in two countries reported highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks from different strains, H5N6 in Vietnam and H3N2 in Taiwan.
Cyclospora illness—which previously this summer had been almost exclusively reported in Texas—has now affected 358 people in 26 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an update today.
More than half (199, or 56%) had symptoms that began after May 1 and reported no international travel before becoming sick, the agency said.
Bipartisan leaders of the US House oversight and investigations subcommittee yesterday continued to press federal health officials for answers about seasonal flu preparedness in the wake of a mismatch between the vaccine and the main circulating strain last season.
Influenza activity is increasing in Australia, New Zealand, and South America, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in an update yesterday.
Germany is the second European country to report a recent highly pathogenic H7N7 outbreak in poultry.
BARDA's director says he's hopeful that a call for proposals in October will bear better fruit.
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has sickened four more people in Saudi Arabia in the past 2 days, one of them fatally, according to reports from the country's Ministry of Health (MOH).
Two doses of H7N9 avian flu vaccine produced what is considered an adequate immune response in only 2% of adults vaccinated, but two different adjuvants boosted that rate to 57% and 84%, according to a study yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
China's Animal Disease Control Centre has confirmed H5N1 avian flu as the culprit in a die-off of more than 2,000 gulls at Qinghai Lake, a major migratory bird stopover site that has recorded large avian flu outbreaks in previous years, according to a report yesterday from the World Organization of Animal Health (OIE).
South Korea has gone 15 days without reporting a new MERS-CoV case, keeping the total at 186 cases, the country's Yonhap News Agency reported today. No deaths have been reported in 9 days, keeping the fatality count at 36.
The country will be considered free of the virus if it goes two incubation periods, a total of 28 days, without a new case.
