by Kaitlin Sullivan and Mustafa Fattah “For now, the Canadian teen and the patient in Louisiana are outliers, but the infections illustrate the virus’s ability to cause severe illness — and demonstrates how, during long illnesses, the virus has the chance to mutate to better infect humans.In both of those cases, virus samples showed that
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the current risk to humans remains low, and that pasteurized milk products remain safe to consume. But should human-to-human transmission become commonplace, experts fear a pandemic that could be far more deadly than Covid-19.On Thursday, the administration said it was committing $306
By Alice Park “As bird flu continues to ramp up, many are wondering what tools—namely, vaccines—we have to fight it if such intervention becomes necessary.”“What about an mRNA vaccine for H5N1?There isn’t one yet, but several companies—including Moderna, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (in collaboration with CureVac)—are working on such a shot. In July, the U.S. government’s
By Michael G. Ison, M.D. and Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., M.P.H. From the Respiratory Diseases Branch, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (M.G.I.), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (J.M.), Bethesda, MD. “……The past weeks have seen more cases detected in more states as well as more persons with respiratory illness