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.

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.

Two cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in wild deer have been confirmed in two Minnesota deer permit areas (DPAs) with no previously identified instances of the fatal neurodegenerative disease, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced yesterday.

One of the two infected white-tailed bucks harvested in fall 2024 was found in DPA 701 near Greenfield in Hennepin County, in the southeastern part of the state. The other was taken in DPA 266 near Hawley in Clay County, along the North Dakota border in northwestern Minnesota. 

Hennepin County is also home to Minneapolis, which is less than 30 miles from Greenfield.

The closest CWD detection in wild deer to the case in DPA 701 was 31 miles away, in Dakota County. The DPA 266 case was identified about 54 miles from a previous confirmed positive in Polk County.

"This finding is concerning because it indicates possible new areas of CWD prevalence in wild deer where it hasn’t previously been detected," Erik Hildebrand, DNR wildlife health supervisor, said in the news release. "This also highlights how important our disease surveillance efforts are and how critical it is that hunters are able to test deer harvested anywhere in the state if they would like to."

Detections trigger CWD response plan

The DNR will implement its CWD response plan, which entails 3 consecutive years of testing to help estimate disease prevalence. The findings will also trigger carcass movement restrictions and a deer feeding and attractant ban and may include more hunting opportunities with higher bag limits.

Additional management actions... might include the establishment of a new CWD management zone and surrounding surveillance area to better understand the distribution and prevalence of this disease in the area, as well as considerations of late season hunting, landowner shooting permits and targeted culling.

"Additional management actions will be taken per DNR’s CWD response plan, likely this fall, and might include the establishment of a new CWD management zone and surrounding surveillance area to better understand the distribution and prevalence of this disease in the area, as well as considerations of late season hunting, landowner shooting permits and targeted culling," the release said.

CWD is a fatal neurodegenerative cervid disease caused by prions, infectious proteins that trigger abnormal folding in normal proteins. Infected animals shed CWD prions in body fluids, which can spread to other cervids through direct contact or the environment.