Alberta Health Services is warning the public that an individual with lab-confirmed measles has been in public settings in Edmonton while infectious.
In a Wednesday news release, officials sent out a list of locations and times of when the infected person was out in public and said residents who were at any of the locations during the specified dates and times may have been exposed to measles:
Comments closedUSDA is now ordering all dairy cattle must be tested prior to moving the animals across state lines as a way to help stop the spread of HPAI H5N1 impacting dairy herds across the country. This comes after a lab at Ohio State University detected genetic material of the virus in 38% of retail milk samples they’ve tested, data that also suggests the current outbreak is being underreported.
In a new Federal Order announced on Tuesday, USDA says in an effort to protect the U.S. livestock industry from the threat posed by highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza, there are a number of actions being taken with federal partners to limit the spread.
Comments closedViral fragments of bird flu have been identified in samples of milk taken from grocery store shelves in the United States, a finding that does not necessarily suggest a threat to human health but indicates the avian flu virus is more widespread among dairy herds than previously thought, according to two public health officials and a public health expert who was briefed on the issue.
Comments closedTesting conducted by the Food and Drug Administration on pasteurized commercially purchased milk has found genetic evidence of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the agency confirmed Tuesday. But the testing, done by polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, cannot distinguish between live virus or fragments of viruses that could have been killed by the pasteurization process.
The agency said it has been trying to see if it could grow virus from milk found to contain evidence of H5N1, which is the gold standard test to see if there is viable virus in a product. The lengthy statement the agency released does not explicitly say FDA laboratories were unable to find live virus in the milk samples, but it does state that its belief that commercial, pasteurized milk is safe to consume has not been altered by these findings.
Comments closedWhen the US Department of Agriculture announced late Sunday that it had publicly posted new data from its investigation into a bird flu outbreak in cattle, scientists eagerly searched a well-known platform used globally to share the genetic sequences of viruses.
The sequences weren’t there. As of Tuesday morning, they still aren’t.
Researchers looking to track the evolution and spread of H5N1 say the information that was posted — raw data on a US server — isn’t very useful and is anything but transparent. They also say the government’s release of information in the outbreak, which was confirmed in cattle almost a month ago, has been painfully slow.
Comments closedQuebec appears to be winning its battle against the rising tide of measles after 45 cases were confirmed province-wide this year.
“We’ve had no locally transmitted measles cases since March 25, so that’s good news,” said Dr. Paul Le Guerrier, responsible for immunization for Montreal Public Health.
There are 17 patients with measles in Quebec currently, and the most recent case is somebody who was infected while abroad, he said.
Comments closedThe recent detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, has been confirmed in three additional dairy herds in Michigan counties: Ionia, Isabella, and Ottawa, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said Friday. That brought the total to four affected counties, with Montcalm County the first to detect the disease in a dairy herd about two weeks earlier.
Comments closedA person with measles was on board a flight from Turkey that landed in Montreal on April 3, the Quebec Health Ministry and public health authorities…
Comments closedThe Durham Region Health Department is investigating a confirmed case of measles in the region after an adult was exposed during a recent trip abroad.
In a news release on Wednesday, the health department confirmed that “a local adult” is currently isolating at home after acquiring the illness, but it is not mentioned where in Durham region the adult resides.
Durham health has determined that individuals who travelled on the Royal Jordanian Airlines RJ271 flight on Thursday, March 28 departing from Jordan at 10:43 a.m. and arriving to Pearson airport on the same day at 5:24 p.m. local time — may have been exposed to the virus.
Comments closedThe US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service yesterday announced that tests have now confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in a New Mexico dairy herd and that the virus has now been confirmed in five more Texas dairy herds.
Part of quickly evolving developments, the announcement came shortly after Texas health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the first human case, which involves a person from Texas who had contact with dairy cattle, highlighting the risk to farm workers.
Comments closedThe number of confirmed measles cases in Canada so far this year is more than three times higher than all infections recorded in 2023, the country’s public health official said, urging people to make sure their vaccines are up to date.
The Public Health Agency of Canada identified 40 confirmed cases across the country in 2024, its Chief Administrator, Dr. Theresa Tam, confirmed on Wednesday.
Tam expressed concern that an insufficient number of school-aged children have not been properly vaccinated against the highly contagious virus.
Comments closedThe number of confirmed measles cases in Canada so far this year is more than three times higher than all infections recorded in 2023, the country’s chief public health officer said as she urged people to ensure their vaccinations are up to date.
The Public Health Agency of Canada is aware of 40 confirmed cases across the country in 2024, Dr. Theresa Tam said on Wednesday.
Tam said she is concerned that not enough school-aged children have been adequately vaccinated against the highly contagious virus.
“I strongly advise parents or caregivers to ensure that children in their care have received all measles vaccines according to schedule,” she said in an interview.
Comments closedPublic health officials say they were able to notify all individuals with direct exposure to the third confirmed case of measles in Toronto.
Comments closedThere have now been around thirty cases of measles in Quebec since the start of the year. While this number may not seem high, measles outbreaks indicate that vaccination coverage is inadequate. Interview with Ève Dubé, anthropologist and holder of the CIHR Applied Public Health Chair in the Anthropology of Vaccination Issues, INSPQ-ULaval.
Comments closedCanada is seeing a resurgence of measles, with cases in the first quarter of 2024 already far surpassing the total for all of 2023. There were 12 cases last year, and more than three times that number so far in 2024, with 38 reported as of March 19.
Most of these cases (28) are in Québec, and eight are in Ontario, while Saskatchewan and British Columbia have each reported one case.
As an immunologist with a focus on host-microbe interactions and antiviral immunity, I have been following recent measles outbreaks.
Comments closedRespiratory disease levels have remained mostly steady in the past week, Ottawa Public Health says in its latest update.
Influenza remains a major concern with 13 more patients hospitalized in the seven days ended March 16. There were 14 new hospitalizations for COVID-19, which OPH described as “low and decreasing since last week.”
There were 45 more confirmed COVID-19 cases, about half of them in patients 65 years of age and older.
The proportion of children infected with COVID-19 while riding a bus to a school in Germany was about four times higher than in peers who didn’t ride the bus, illustrating efficient transmission during multiple short rides on public transport, finds a study published this week in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
A team led by researchers from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and public health officials used surveillance data, lab analyses, case-patient and household interviews, a cohort study of all students in grades 1 to 4, and a cohort study of bus riders to investigate a 2021 COVID-19 outbreak that involved an infected bus driver and his passengers. The rides lasted 9 to 18 minutes, and multiple schools in a single district were involved.
Comments closedMicrobiologist and Cégep de l’Outaouais professor Patrick Fillion answers your questions about measles.
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