The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today confirmed more H5N1 avian flu detections in poultry from four states, including several in hard-hit Ohio.

The latest outbreaks in Ohio involved four commercial farms in Mercer County, three turkey producers and one at a duck meat facility. Over the past month, Ohio’s outbreaks have led to the loss of nearly 6 million birds, including several large layer farms, with most of the other events involving turkey producers.

APHIS also confirmed an outbreak at a layer farm in Arizona’s Pinal County that has about 316,000 birds. Officials also confirmed two detections in backyard flocks, one in Nebraska’s Kearney County and one in Florida’s Orange County.

Since H5N1 was first detected in US poultry in early 2022, outbreaks have led to the loss of a record 147.25 million birds across all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

In dairy cow developments, APHIS confirmed one more detection, another herd from California, raising the national total to 944 and the state’s total to 727.

The United Kingdom’s Health Security Agency (HSA) yesterday reported the country’s seventh clade 1b mpox case, which involves a patient who had recently traveled to Uganda. 

The country’s last clade 1b mpox case, announced on January 20, also involved an individual who recently returned from Uganda, one of Africa’s current hot spots.

Susan Hopkins, MB BCh, the HSA's chief medical adviser, said in the statement, “The risk to the UK population remains low. Close contacts have been identified and offered appropriate advice in order to reduce the chance of further spread.”

WHO notes concerning situation in the DR Congo, first mpox case in Azerbaijan

In its monthly mpox update today, the World Health Organization (WHO) said clade 1b mpox activity continues in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, and Uganda, with new travel-related cases continuing to be reported outside the region.

Though the situation has stabilized in many DRC provinces, sustained circulation continues with escalating violence in the eastern part of the country adding challenges to the country’s mpox response.

CARB-X (Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator) announced today that it is awarding $1 million to Rhode Island Hospital at Brown University Health to develop a test to diagnose bacterial pneumonia from whole blood.

The hospital will use the funding to demonstrate proof of concept for a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test that uses RNA sequencing to detect pneumonia caused by Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Haemophilus influenzae from whole blood drawn directly from the patient. The test would not require the blood to be cultured, which would allow for faster results.

While clinical diagnosis of pneumonia is typically based on patient symptoms and imaging, microbiologic diagnosis involves obtaining samples from patient airways. But because such samples are difficult to obtain, the pathogen often goes unidentified, and patients are typically treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics to cover a wide range of pathogens, which can increase the risk of resistance and poor outcomes.

"This innovative diagnostic approach holds the potential to improve access to testing for lower-respiratory-tract infections [LRTIs], including pneumonia, enabling clinicians to make faster, more informed decisions and reduce the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics," Erin Duffy, PhD, chief of research and development at CARB-X, said in a press release. "By supporting Rhode Island Hospital's work, CARB-X is learning whether alternative sample types in detecting LRTIs is promising for future product development."

Novel sample types for diagnosing LRTIs is one of the four distinct product themes for CARB-X's most recent funding round, launched in March 2024. Since its inception in 2016, CARB-X has funded 110 early-stage projects designed to prevent, diagnose, and treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.