The outbreaks involved different strains, including H5N6, H5N1, and H5N8.
Dutch officials report H5N6 outbreaks in wild birds, and Italy confirms an H5N8 poultry outbreak.
The USDA proposes moving away from a per-bird payment for outbreak response efforts.
The World Health Organization (WHO), in an update yesterday on 18 Saudi MERS-CoV cases, said that 5 of the 18 cases involved contact with camels before symptom onset.
According to an updated situation report from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), there are now 61 monkeypox cases in that country, 5 more than last month. This is Africa's largest-ever monkeypox outbreak.
An Escherichia coli outbreak in Canada linked to romaine lettuce now involves five provinces, with 30 cases reported so far, 1 of them fatal, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said yesterday in an update.
The strain has 2 mutations that might alter its susceptibility to the neuraminidase inhibitor class of antiviral drugs.
Also, Cambodia reports an H5N1 outbreak in poultry, its first in nearly a year.
Health officials in Hildago County on Dec 7 reported three recent Zika cases, one of which appears to have been transmitted locally by mosquitoes, the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) said yesterday in a statement.
For the first time since 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) updated its pandemic influenza guidance, emphasizing the need for better tracking during the human-to-human transmission phase. The new guidance was published yesterday.
The WHO defined and named phases of an influenza pandemic. In the alert phase, when human-to-human transmission begins, the agency said there is no need for case-counting.