Plague infects man from New Mexico

News brief

The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDH) yesterday said tests have confirmed the state’s first human plague case of the year, which involves a 43-year-old man from Valencia County who was hospitalized but has since been discharged.

Health officials said he may have been exposed to Yersinia pestis while camping in Rio Arriba County in northern New Mexico near the Colorado border. Officials said plague is known to circulate in the western United States.

The disease is spread by rodents who can transmit the bacteria to humans through infected fleas. Symptoms in people include sudden fever onset, chills, headache, weakness, and often swollen painful lymph nodes.

Case prompts heightened community awareness

Erin Phillips, DVM, New Mexico’s public health veterinarian, said the case is a reminder of the threat still posed by the ancient disease. “It also emphasizes the need for heightened community awareness and for taking measures to prevent further spread,” Phillips said

California last week reported a plague case involving a South Lake Tahoe resident who like the New Mexico patient is thought to have been exposed while camping.

Osivax receives $19.5 million BARDA support for universal flu vaccine candidate

News brief

Lisa Schnirring

Osivax, a biopharmaceutical company based in France, announced today that it has received a $19.5 million contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to develop a broad-spectrum influenza A candidate vaccine for pandemic and seasonal flu preparedness.

The company said the agreement will support ongoing clinical development, large-scale trial preparation, and preparing manufacturing systems to produce the vaccine, with $11.5 million earmarked for clinical development and $8 million for preparing a large efficacy study. The agreement has potential funding for future options that could support phase 2b and scale-up activities.

Vaccine targets conserved region

The vaccine, called OVX836, is designed to target the nucleoprotein (NP) of the influenza A virus, which is a highly conserved internal antigen and is less likely to mutate, which could provide a broader, more universal immune response. The company’s platform involves the design and production of a recombinant NP that self-assembles into a nanoparticle and triggers T- and B-cell immune responses. Early clinical trials involving 1,400 participants have shown promising safety and immunogenicity data.

Alabama announces first measles case of the year

News brief

Lisa Schnirring

The Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) yesterday announced the state’s first measles case of the year, which marks its first case in 23 years.

In a statement, officials said the patient is an unvaccinated child in North Alabama who is younger than 5 years old and likely contracted the virus during international travel. The child had not attended daycares or school, and medical facilities that evaluated and treated the child have been notified.

The ADPH said the child’s siblings are vaccinated and have not shown any measles symptoms.

Measles infects 2 school kids in Utah

Elsewhere, Utah health officials have reported two more measles cases, raising the state’s official total to 13. The latest cases involve school-age children from Washington County who were unvaccinated, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, which noted that parents of students at Water Canyon Elementary School and Water Canyon High School have been notified about potential exposure. Washington County is in southwestern Utah.

AI tool can help identify patients who may have H5N1 avian flu, researchers say

News brief

Mary Van Beusekom, MS

Doctor examining woman for H5N1 infection — *Zinkevych / iStock*

An artificial intelligence (AI) tool can quickly scan electronic medical records to identify high-risk patients who may be infected with H5N1 avian flu, University of Maryland (UM) researchers write in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The team used a generative AI large-language model to analyze 13,494 adult emergency department visits at the UM Medical System in 2024. The patients had sought care for an acute respiratory illness featuring conjunctivitis ("pink eye") or symptoms such as cough, fever, and congestion, which are common in early H5N1 infections.

More-advanced systems needed

Requiring only 26 minutes of human input and 3 cents per patient note, the AI tool identified 76 records that mentioned a risk factor for H5N1, such as working as a butcher or at a farm with livestock.

It's vital for healthcare systems to monitor for potential human exposure and to act quickly on that information.

Katherine Goodman, PhD, JD

After the researchers reviewed the flagged records, 14 patients were confirmed to have had recent exposure to animals that transmit H5N1, such as poultry, wild birds, and livestock. The patients weren't tested for H5N1, so their infections couldn't be confirmed, but the tool zeroed in on the relevant cases among thousands of patients with suspected flu or another routine respiratory illness.

"Because we are not tracking how many symptomatic patients have potential bird flu exposures, and how many of those patients are being tested, infections could be going undetected," lead author Katherine Goodman, PhD, JD, said in a UM news release. "It's vital for healthcare systems to monitor for potential human exposure and to act quickly on that information."

In a commentary in the same journal, Erica Shenoy, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues said that the study tool represents a more efficient screening method.

"However, screening for H5-specific exposure requires already knowing what to look for—in other words, these tools detect chickens, not eggs," they wrote. "To find (golden) eggs, that is, identifying risks in the earliest stages of disease emergence or as an epidemic evolves, will entail more advanced systems in which algorithms are trained based on past outbreaks for what to look for."

CARB-X awards $1.1 million to phage-based product for E coli bloodstream infections

News brief

Chris Dall, MA

Bacteriophage illustration — iLexx / iStock

CARB-X (Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator) announced today that it is awarding $1.1 million to biotechnology company Phiogen to advance its novel bacteriophage-based treatment and preventive for extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) bloodstream infections.

The money will enable Houston-based Phiogen to evaluate PHI-BI-01, a product that uses bacteriophages—bacteria-killing viruses—to eliminate ExPEC in the bloodstream and activate an immune response that helps prevent recurrence. ExPEC strains, which typically originate in the gastrointestinal system or urinary tract, have become a more frequent cause of invasive bloodstream infections and have grown increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

PHI-BI-01 is among the phage-based drug candidates delivered through Phiogen's discovery platform, which uses a bacteriophage mass-capturing device, high-throughput screening, and directed evolution to develop phages with antibacterial and immunogenic properties.

"Our team's discovery redefines what phages can do, opening the door to a new class of live biologics capable of addressing both acute infection and recurrent disease," Phiogen CEO Amanda Burkardt, MBA, said in a CARB-X press release.

Novel approach for preventing E coli infections

Phiogen will work with CARB-X to explore PHB-BI-01's immunogenic properties, generate pre-clinical data, and advance the project to first-in-human clinical trials.

"PHIOGEN offers a potential novel approach to the prevention of invasive disease caused by E. coli," said CARB-X research and development director Erin Duffy, PhD. "We are excited to evaluate the immune harnessing potential of this project."

The award is the latest from CARB-X's 2024 funding round. Since its founding in 2016, CARB-X has funded 116 early-stage R&D products designed to prevent, treat, and diagnose antibiotic-resistant infections.