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.
China has detected two new human avian influenza cases, one involving an adult sickened by H7N9 and the other a young child infected with H9N2, according to government reports in the region.
The world rarely receives advance notice of a significant public health threat, but the detection of the highly pathogenic form of H7N9 avian influenza in China serves as a second warning, an expert from the World Health Organization's collaborating center in Australia said today in a Cell Research commentary.
The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) today reported a new case of MERS-CoV in Bisha, the third within the last week.
A 67-year-old Saudi woman is in stable condition after presenting with symptoms of MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) infection. Her source of infection is listed as "primary," meaning it's unlikely she contracted the virus from another person.
The strain resulted from a mix of high-path H5N8 and low-path H3N6.
