The US tally of enterovirus D68 cases has reached at least 181, and six more states have identified cases, raising the number of affected states to 28, according to the latest federal and state reports.
In an update late yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 175 cases in 27 states, signaling increases of 15 cases and five states since the agency's Sep 19 report.
The national count of confirmed enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) cases reached 160 in 22 states on Sep 19, which is seven more cases and three more states than reported a day earlier, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Four illnesses in four states have been confirmed in a Salmonella outbreak likely associated with recalled nut butter, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an update yesterday.
Researchers who sifted data from 12 recent influenza seasons in Finland concluded that about 42% of influenza B cases involved strains that were not targeted by the vaccine, which they say supports the inclusion of both influenza B lineages in seasonal flu vaccines.
A national investigation is under way in England to look into a number of isolated clusters of Salmonella Enteritidis over the past few months that have been handled locally but that may represent a more widespread outbreak possibly related to catering outlets, says a press release today from Public Health England (PHE).
States reported another bump in Cyclospora cases last week, and health officials are still trying to determine how many are travel-related and if there is a common source for the locally acquired cases. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that as of Aug 12 it had been notified of 283 Cyclospora infections, 48 more than the previous week.
Officials reported more than 62,000 new chikungunya cases in the Caribbean and surrounding areas last week—almost all in the Dominican Republic—expanding the outbreak to 576,000 cases, according to an Aug 8 update from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has turned down a long-pending petition to declare antibiotic-resistant (ABR) Salmonella an adulterant in raw ground meat and poultry, saying there's not enough evidence to support the change.
The agency also establishes new steps to control Salmonella and Campylobacter in poultry.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said this week that the safety of gain-of-function (GOF) studies like a recent one involving the generation of a 1918-like influenza virus merits more public discussion, given the obligation of researchers to "first do no harm."
