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Tag: avian flu

H5N1 avian flu isolate from dairy worker is transmissible, lethal in animals

In experiments designed to learn more about the threat from the H5N1 avian flu virus spreading from cows to people, researchers found that an isolate from a sick dairy worker may be capable of replicating in human airway cells, is pathogenic in mice and ferrets, and can transmit among ferrets by respiratory droplets.

The team, based at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Japan, reported its findings today in Nature. Working in a high-containment lab, the researchers used an H5N1 isolate grown from the eye of a dairy worker who had experienced conjunctivitis after exposure to infected cows.

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Ontario: Contact councillors — save Ontario’s wastewater monitoring!

📣 Let municipal councillors know you want funding for wastewater monitoring to continue

✉️ Send letters to municipal councillors to voice your support for wastewater monitoring. Use our online tool to send emails.

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Ontario has a globally praised system for monitoring diseases through wastewater. So why is the province shutting it down?

For the past three years, Alexandra Johnston has started her work day by reaching for the pickaxe in the trunk of her car.

It is her tool of choice for prying open manhole covers – a task she demonstrated with practised ease last week while on a tour of her wastewater sampling regimen in Toronto.

Wearing a surgical mask and gloves, Ms. Johnston dragged the heavy cover aside, then grabbed hold of the fishing line secured underneath. After hauling up a few metres of line, she displayed her catch: a dripping wet tampon she had placed there the day before.

Her teammate, Claire Gibbs, quickly moved in with a prelabelled plastic bag to capture the sewage-laden sample. Using scissors, Ms. Gibbs deftly snipped the line, sealed the bag and stowed it away in the trunk as part of that day’s delivery.

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Colorado reports avian flu infections in 5 people who culled sick poultry

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has reported five human H5 avian influenza infections in workers who were part of the response to a recent large outbreak at a layer farm, four of which have been confirmed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Patients have eye, respiratory symptoms

The patients have mild illness, including conjunctivitis and common respiratory symptoms. None were hospitalized, according to statements from the CDPHE. Though officials haven’t said if the virus on the poultry farm is the same as the B3.13 genotype infecting dairy cattle, conjunctivitis has also been reported in four dairy farm workers over the past few months.

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Avian influenza in the United States closely monitored by authorities

The rise in the number of cases of avian influenza on farms in the United States, the infection of cow herds and recent cases of transmission to human beings are of concern to Quebec and Canadian authorities, who say they are monitoring the situation very closely.

Avian influenza – specifically avian influenza of subtypes H5 and H7 – is a reportable disease in Quebec. Avian influenza is a zoonosis, meaning it can be transmitted from animals to humans.

Cases of avian influenza in humans remain very rare, but last spring three cases of human infection associated with infected dairy farms were reported in the United States. Two infected people had eye symptoms and the third person suffered a respiratory infection.

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Finland to start bird flu vaccinations for humans, in world first

Finland plans to offer preemptive bird flu vaccination as soon as next week to some workers with exposure to animals, health authorities said on Tuesday, making it the first country in the world to do so.

The Nordic country has bought vaccines for 10,000 people, each consisting of two injections, as part of a joint EU procurement of up to 40 million doses for 15 nations from manufacturer CSL Seqirus (CSL.AX).

The European Commission said Finland would be the first country to roll out the vaccine.

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‘Dream tool’ being taken away by province, says public health doc

News that the province is shutting down wastewater surveillance for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases has left Simcoe-Muskoka’s associate medical officer of health “disappointed.”

“It is really unfortunate because I think the rest of the world is certainly embracing this (science), so I’m not quite sure why they’re not continuing this very important infectious disease surveillance tool let alone for COVID, but also for influenza and other infections,” said Dr. Colin Lee from the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit.

The Ontario wastewater surveillance network that began in 2020 as a way to track COVID-19 in wastewater includes 59 sampling sites across Ontario, covering about 60 per cent of the province’s population.

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Former director of the CDC predicts the next pandemic will be from bird flu

The former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, has said that the next pandemic could be from bird flu.

The World Health Organization recently announced the first human death from bird flu in Mexico, and the virus has been found in cattle across the US.

“I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time, it’s not a question of if, it’s more of a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic,” Redfield told NewsNation on Friday.

He added that the mortality rate is likely to be much higher from bird flu compared to Covid-19.

While the mortality rate was 0.6 per cent for Covid-19, Redfield said the mortality for the bird flu would probably be “somewhere between 25 and 50 per cent.”

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Cutting wastewater surveillance is short-sighted

Ontario to halt COVID wastewater surveillance program, June 4

The Ontario government’s plan to axe funding for wastewater surveillance is irresponsible. Wastewater monitoring is an essential public health tool that provides insights into the spread of SARS-CoV-2, influenza and other viruses. Without funding, we will lose important information about the prevalence of these significant health concerns.

The timing of the announcement is astonishing. We are faced with an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and new hyper-infectious subvariants are spreading rapidly. We will be hindered in providing an early warning system to inform everyone about new subvariants and emerging pandemic threats such as avian flu.

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Ontario’s wastewater testing program to be replaced by a federal program that is significantly smaller

When Ontario’s wastewater surveillance program is shut down next month it will be replaced by a significantly smaller federal program. That potential information gap worries some researchers and public health experts, especially at a time when COVID-19 cases are starting to tick up and avian influenza is spreading rapidly.

Ontario’s wastewater testing initiative, considered a world leader, currently tests wastewater for signs of infectious diseases including COVID, influenza, RSV and more at 58 locations across the province. The provincial government plans to pull the plug on the program at the end of July, saying it wants to avoid duplication with an expanding pan-Canadian wastewater surveillance program.

That new federal program includes plans to conduct wastewater surveillance in five Ontario cities. Four of the five cities have not yet been selected.

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Ontario is a ‘world leader’ in wastewater surveillance for COVID. The province’s decision to close testing sites will end that, experts say

Researchers are warning that Ontario’s decision to shut down its wastewater surveillance program that proved crucial in tracking COVID-19 will limit the province’s ability to rapidly respond to infectious disease threats, including new COVID variants, respiratory viruses and bird flu.

A key member of the waterwater surveillance program says Ontario has been a “world leader and now we’ll probably be one of the passengers” by the scale-back that will also stifle research.

Cancelling the provincial surveillance system — the largest in Canada — will drastically reduce the number of testing sites in the province, experts say. They also caution that shuttering the program will mean that monitoring may no longer take place in smaller communities and in rural and northern areas, potentially missing vulnerable populations.

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Radio | Peterborough Medical Officer of Health frustrated with the province’s decision to pullback on waste water monitoring

Medical officer of health for Peterborough Public Health, Dr. Thomas Piggott talks with host Molly Thomas about why he believes we shouldn’t drop wastewater testing for diseases — even if COVID-19 is not the same threat it was when the program was rolled out.

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‘I was shocked’: Ontario to cancel widely used wastewater surveillance program

The Ontario government is shutting down the wastewater surveillance program that has provided early warning for incoming waves of COVID-19 and a growing list of other infectious diseases since it was developed.

By the time it ends on July 31, the program that got its start in Ottawa early in the pandemic will be one of the biggest in the world to monitor the spread of infectious diseases through wastewater. Researchers were told of the decision to end funding last week.

Its closure comes at a time when COVID-19 is again beginning to spread through the world after a lull and when the United States and other countries are ramping up wastewater surveillance programs to warn about the possible spread of H5N1 avian influenza.

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Ontario: Protect our health — save Ontario’s wastewater monitoring!

📣 Let MPPs know you want funding for Ontario’s wastewater monitoring program to continue

✉️ Send letters to MPPs to voice your support for wastewater monitoring. Use our online tool to send emails.

Why take action? Wastewater monitoring is an essential public health tool that provides insights into the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in Ontario’s communities.

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Masks work, our comprehensive review has found

When a Texan farm worker caught bird flu from cattle recently, social media was abuzz with rumours. While bird flu is not a human pandemic, scientists and policymakers the world over are keen to prepare as best they can for when such a pandemic emerges – a tricky task, given that science is messy, policy must be pragmatic and people’s values don’t always align.

It’s time for masks to enter the chat. At the beginning of a pandemic caused by a novel or newly mutated virus, there may be no vaccine, no firm knowledge about how bad things will get and no specific treatment. Slowing transmission until more is known will be critical.

Getting most people to wear a mask could nip the outbreak in the bud, preventing a pandemic or lessening its impact. Wearing a mask is inconvenient, but not as inconvenient as lockdowns.

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CDC launching wastewater dashboard to track bird flu virus spread

Reluctance among dairy farmers to report H5N1 bird flu outbreaks within their herds or allow testing of their workers has made it difficult to keep up with the virus’s rapid spread, prompting federal public health officials to look to wastewater to help fill in the gaps.

On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to unveil a public dashboard tracking influenza A viruses in sewage that the agency has been collecting from 600 wastewater treatment sites around the country since last fall.

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