In two separate reports this week to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced closure to its follow-up to H5N8 avian flu outbreaks and noted that 11 states—because of measures taken after H5N2 outbreaks—are now free to move poultry domestically and internationally.
Measles was confirmed as the culprit in a Washington state woman's death this spring, the Washington State Department of Health (WSDH) said on Jul 2, the first US measles death in 12 years.
An investigation into a norovirus outbreak near Portland, Ore., in July 2014 revealed that the source was a swimming beach at a park, outlining the risk and need for preventive steps, especially in settings where water isn't treated.
Suspected botulism has sickened 24 people and killed 1 after a potluck lunch at a Lancaster, Ohio, church, Reuters reported today.
Fifty to 60 people attended the lunch on April 19 at Cross Pointe Free Will Baptist Church, and outbreak patients started getting sick on Apr 21, said Jennifer Valentine, a spokeswoman for the Fairfield (County) Department of Health.
A 9-month boy tested positive for Ebola after he died in Sierra Leone's Kailahun district, a former hot spot for the disease that had not seen a case over the past 4 months, Reuters reported today.
Nearly 600 million cases of foodborne enteric disease, with 351,000 deaths, occurred worldwide in 2010, 40% of them in young children, a World Health Organization (WHO) research group noted today as it released early findings of a broad analysis of the global burden of the diseases. The full report is planned for release in October.
The steady drumbeat of MERS-CoV cases in Saudi Arabia continued today, as the country's Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed two new cases and two deaths in previously reported patients.
California has logged 1,100 new cases of pertussis (whooping cough) in the past 2 weeks, bringing its season total to 4,558, almost twice as many as in all of 2013, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) said today in a news release.
Foodservice settings, not cruise ships, top the list for norovirus outbreak culprits.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today filed a rule on sanitary transportation "to ensure that transportation practices do not create food safety risks," the agency said in the proposed rule.
The rule is part of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, and is the act's seventh and final rule. Today's filing complies with a court-ordered Jan 31 deadline, according to a Food Safety News (FSN) story today.
