The nation's flu markers showed another sharp spike last week, with all 10 of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regions reporting that clinic visits for flu-like illness were above their baselines.
Overall, the percentage of doctor's visits for flu-like illness climbed from 3.7% to 5.5% last week, while the percentage of respiratory samples that were positive for flu increased from 25.9% to 28.1%
Chinese researchers who tested 225 close contacts of H7N9 influenza patients found that about 10% of them carried antibodies suggesting they had been infected with the virus without getting sick, according to a letter yesterday in Emerging infectious Diseases.
China today reported the world's second known human case of H5N6 avian flu, in a 58-year-old man in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said.
The first case, in early May, was in Sichuan province and proved fatal.
The current H5N6 patient is hospitalized in critical condition in Guangzhou, the CHP said in a press release. His close contacts have shown no sign of illness.
An H5 avian flu virus strikes a large poultry flock in Vietnam, while H5N8 resurfaces in Germany.
An H5N8 influenza virus has been detected in a backyard poultry flock in southwestern Oregon, the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) reported today, just 3 days after H5N8 and H5N2 viruses were found in wild birds in neighboring Washington.
In the latest gain-of-function (GOF) research news, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has allowed five such studies involving a mouse model for MERS-CoV and two influenza studies to continue after a 2-month moratorium, NPR reported today.
The Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak related to mung bean sprouts has grown by 24 cases since the CDC's last report on Dec 4, bringing the total to 111 cases in 12 states, according to yesterday's CDC update.
The 2 highly pathogenic strains in Washington state raise questions about possible connections with outbreaks in Canada and Europe.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported two new MERS-CoV cases today, bringing the country's total to 821 cases.
Chickens on two more farms in British Columbia have been infected with H5N2 avian influenza, bringing the total to 10 and the number of birds dead or scheduled for culling to nearly 234,000 since the outbreak's start just 2 weeks ago, say news sources and official reports.
