In an epidemiologic update on MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia today, the World Health Organization (WHO) noted that there were more cases in the first 2 months of 2017 than during the same period last year. The WHO also said its scientists are seeing younger women with the coronavirus, but that much of the disease's demographics haven't changed.
In a study that expands on an earlier analysis, screening of blood donations in Puerto Rico last spring and summer found a 13% incidence of Zika virus, according to a study yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
A study today of Zika infections in Canadian travelers who visited destinations in the Americas revealed they were just as common as other mosquito-borne diseases, with complications more severe than expected. A team from Canada reported its findings in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).
The Florida Department of Health (Florida Health) yesterday reported three more locally acquired Zika cases, all involving samples collected a few months ago.
Two involve people who were sampled in October as part of an ongoing investigation, and Florida Health recently received confirmation test results back from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The incidence type of birth defects seen with congenital Zika infections in the United States rose 20 times higher than it was before the virus started circulating in the Americas region, researchers reported today in the latest issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
Neuraminidase inhibitors, the antiviral drugs given to fight and prevent influenza, pose no safety risks to fetuses or newborns, according to a new study published today in BMJ. This is the largest study on antiviral use and safety in pregnancy conducted to date.
A federal ethics committee that reviewed a research proposal to experimentally infect humans with Zika virus to help gauge the best approach to a vaccine has rejected the application, according to a report posted last week and first reported today by Stat.
A case series of 87 infected babies from Brazil's epicenter finds an 82% rate of microcephaly.
A World Health Organization (WHO) working group recently updated its Zika vaccine target profile, a document used to inform vaccine developers, regulators, and other stakeholders. The group published the first version of the profile in July 2016, and the revision takes into account new data from the past 6 months.
Spain reported its first highly pathogenic H5N8 avian flu outbreaks in poultry, following two earlier detections in wild birds, and Egypt noted poultry outbreaks involving both the H5N8 and H5N1 strains, according to the latest reports from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
