Argentina's National Agri-Food Health and Quality Service (Senasa) yesterday reported new detections of highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza in marine mammals from Chubut province in the south of the country, including the first positive detection in a sea elephant.

The animals—including both sea elephants and sea lions—were found dead in three of the province's coastal cities: Comodoro Rivadavia, Rada Tilly, and Punta Tombo. The event marks Argentina's tenth involving sea lions.

Other countries in the Americas and elsewhere have recently reported avian flu in marine mammals, and scientists are closely tracking the events to assess if the animals are contracting the virus from infected wild birds or if they are passing the virus among themselves, which might be a sign that the virus is becoming more transmissible among mammals.

Finland orders culling for all fur farms affected in H5N1 outbreaks

Elsewhere, 2 months after the first H5N1 at a fur farm, the Finnish Food Safety Authority today ordered that all animals at 26 affected farms be culled, according to a statement translated and posted by Avian Flu Diary, an infectious disease news blog. The step targets about 115,000 animals, mainly foxes.

All mink on the farms have already been culled. Minks are known to be a potential mixing vessel for respiratory viruses. Today's statement said all foxes and raccoons at the fur farms will now be culled to protect human health. The group added that genetic sequencing of viruses from the affected fur farms suggests that the virus spread to fur animals at other locations.

Finnish officials also said the genetic analysis identified mutations in six samples from mink, foxes, and raccoons that could facilitate transmission in mammals. Further analysis is underway.

Following the deaths of two people from Nipah virus , with two more in the hospital, health officials in India's Kerala state have ordered some schools and offices to close to limit the spread of the virus, according to several media sources, including Al Jazeera, that cite local health officials. They have also announced containment zones in villages with connections to the cases.

The initial patient who died is a landholder in the village of Marutonkara in Kozhikode district, where outbreaks of the highly lethal disease have been reported before, and fruit bats in the area are known to harbor Nipah virus.

Media reports said the second patient who died wasn't related to the first case-patient, but had contact earlier in a hospital. The other confirmed patients who are hospitalized include an adult and a child who are family members of one of the patients who died.

So far, more than 300 contacts have been identified, 127 of them health workers, the Indian Express reported.

India battled an outbreak in Kozhikode district in 2018, which resulted in 17 deaths. Since then, the country has reported sporadic cases, including one in 2021, also from Kozhikode district.

Mount Sinai has received a $13 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to develop vaccines that can protect against many different types of coronaviruses. The 5-year grant was awarded to the Icahn School of Medicine.

The award will fund the "Programming Long-lasting Immunity to Coronaviruses" (PLUTO) project led by Viviana Simon, MD, PhD of Mount Sinai, and Ali Ellebedy, PhD, of Washington University in St. Louis.

 We aim to develop next-generation coronavirus vaccines with broad protection.

"Our multidisciplinary team is poised to tackle the challenges posed by coronaviruses head on," said Simon in a press release. "By pooling our expertise and resources, we aim to develop next-generation coronavirus vaccines with broad protection, thus contributing significantly to curbing the current pandemic and averting future coronavirus-related public health crises."

Team previously developed universal flu vaccine candidate

The goal of PLUTO is to develop a vaccine that will not only protect against future variants of SARS-CoV-2, but all emerging threats posed by coronaviruses. Researchers said they will use a wide array of biological samples from participants who have been vaccinated, boosted, and infected during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bone marrow, blood, and fluid will be used to study coronavirus humoral immunity. A second project will design and test efficacy of viral variant-proof pan-sarbecovirus and pan-betacoronavirus vaccines.

"The assembled team has a track record of success in designing these types of broadly protective universal vaccines, bringing universal influenza vaccine candidates into clinical development. Using the same methods and strategies, we are confident that our PLUTO efforts will result in similar successes," said Ellebedy.