By Alvin Powell

““A key thing that we’ve not seen in the case of H5N1 and cattle are superspreading events.””
“We will certainly see another flu pandemic. That’s not an “if”; it’s a “when.” We cannot say how severe it will be, but we can say that it has the potential to be bad. We don’t talk enough about how we would detect it early and what we would do when it happens.”
“Are we doing enough with bird flu right now?
No. I would like to see more thorough investigation of the potential for transmission. I would like to see more careful surveillance of the adapting virus. I would like to understand more about the nature of the infections in the people we’ve identified them in.”
to read the full article go to
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/01/should-we-be-panicked-about-bird-flu-william-bill-hanage/

No, we’re not ‘one mutation away’ from an H5N1 bird flu pandemic. Here are the facts
by Ignacio López-Goñi and Elisa Pérez Ramíre

“Public health efforts should continue to focus on protecting workers exposed to infected animals with preventative measures, such as vaccination, to minimize risk. It is essential to investigate each human case to swiftly detect any changes that may suggest increased virulence or human-to-human transmissibility.
In addition, research into new therapeutic strategies and the development of universal vaccines (i.e. those effective against all influenza subtypes) remain a priority. We are not one mutation from a pandemic, but the H5N1 virus is certainly not getting any further away.”

to read the full article go to
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-01-mutation-h5n1-bird-flu-pandemic.html

“How the US is preparing for a potential bird flu pandemic”
By Jessica Hamzelou
“The good news is that there are already systems in place for tracking the general spread of flu in people. The World Health Organization’s Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System collects and analyzes samples of viruses collected from countries around the world. It allows the organization to make recommendations about seasonal flu vaccines and also helps scientists track the spread of various flu variants. That’s something we didn’t have for the covid-19 virus when it first took off.
We are also better placed to make vaccines. Some countries, including the US, are already stockpiling vaccines that should be at least somewhat effective against H5N1 (although it is difficult to predict exactly how effective they will be against some future variant). The US Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response plans to have “up to 10 million doses of prefilled syringes and multidose vials” prepared by the end of March, according to an email from a representative.
If we want our vaccine production process to be more robust and faster, we’ll have to stop relying on chicken eggs.”
to read the full article go to
https://www.preventionweb.net/news/how-us-preparing-potential-bird-flu-pandemic

H5N1: How worried should we be?
By Nora Samaranayake
https://www.usf.edu/health/news/2025/h5n1-update.aspx

“NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue today announced it will receive $2 million from the federal government to enhance national avian influenza preparedness, one of only thirteen institutions nationwide to receive this funding. Bellevue Hospital is the designated Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center (RESPTC) for Region 2, leading special pathogen preparedness and response efforts in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
Health care and ambulance workers needed to wear an N95 respirator, eye protection, gown and gloves and follow strict protocols to ensure their safety while handling the patient to prevent exposure to the simulated pathogen.
“As part of NETEC and as the Level 1 RESPTC for Region 2, Bellevue Hospital understands that effective response requires both expertise and extensive coordination,” said Vikramjit Mukherjee, MD, NETEC Co-Principal Investigator, and Director of the Special Pathogens Program and Director of Critical Care Services at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue. “Our established relationships with Special Pathogens Treatment Centers (SPTCs) and frontline facilities ensure that we can rapidly disseminate critical protocols and training to healthcare systems and emergency preparedness partners across the country.””
“NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue was one of three institutions in the U.S. that treated patients in the Ebola outbreak in 2014, and subsequently formed the National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center (NETEC), a consortium to enhance national special pathogen preparedness. The other two institutions are Emory University in Atlanta and University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska. For more about NETEC, avian flu training and resources, or to request technical assistance, visit NETEC.org.”

to read the full press release go to
https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/pressrelease/nyc-health-hospitals-bellevue-to-receive-2m-of-federal-funding-to-advance-avian-flu-preparedness/

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Falling Child Vaccinations
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/briefing/childhood-vaccinations-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Even Adults May Soon Be Vulnerable to ‘Childhood’ Diseases
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/health/vaccines-children-measles-pertussis.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
How Lagging Vaccination Could Lead to a Polio Resurgence
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/health/polio-vaccine-outbreaks.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Childhood Vaccination Rates Were Falling Even Before the Rise of R.F.K. Jr.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/01/13/upshot/vaccination-rates.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

By Bronwyn Thompson

“…..Post-infection mutation and no human-to-human transmission suggests whatever the viral changes, it’s not one that hugely concerns epidemiologists. It would be far worse for someone to become infected with an already altered H5N1 D1.1 strain, which would most likely point to the virus getting closer to cracking the complex code of human-to-human infection.
“The worry is, the more you let this sort of run wild … the more chances you have for this sort of mutation to not only occur, but to then get out and infect someone else, then you start a chain reaction,” Louisiana State University scientist Rebecca Christofferson told AFP this week.”…
“Further analysis identified that the mutation has the potential to more efficiently bind to cells in the upper respiratory tract in humans, which existing avian influenza strains have been unable to do. And, obviously, experts are concerned that each time the virus proves more adept at causing severe human infection, the more likely it will also figure out how best to jump between people.”
to read the full article go to
https://newatlas.com/infectious-diseases/first-us-human-death-bird-flu/

“Bird Flu Is a National Embarrassment. America should have more aggressively intervened almost a year ago.”

By Katherine J. Wu

“Three years ago, when it was trickling into the United States, the bird-flu virus that recently killed a man in Louisiana was, to most Americans, an obscure and distant threat…..But this virus is fundamentally more difficult to manage than even a few months ago and is now poised to become a persistent danger to people.
“That didn’t have to be the reality for the United States. “The experiment of whether H5 can ever be successful in human populations is happening before our eyes,” Seema Lakdawala, a flu virologist at Emory University, told me. “And we are doing nothing to stop it.” The story of bird flu in this country could have been shorter. It could have involved far fewer cows. The U.S. has just chosen not to write it that way.”
to read the full article go to
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/01/bird-flu-embarrassing/681264/

“California child is presumed positive for bird flu”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/10/health/california-child-bird-flu/index.html?cid=ios_app

BY Carolyn Barber
“This is how pandemics start,” Rick Bright, the renowned immunologist, vaccine researcher and former federal health official, tells Fortune. “We’ve had months to prepare, to activate and expand surveillance, to educate people about the risk, and even to make vaccines available that can help to reduce the risk of the current form of the virus.
“I hope that this death is not minimized or blamed on underlying medical conditions,” Bright adds. “The virus is changing quickly. We need to step up the pace of all efforts to track it and update our medical countermeasures to be ready when it pops.”
to read the full article go to
https://fortune.com/well/2025/01/09/bird-flu-next-pandemic-steps-prevent-spread/

“As 1st bird flu death reported in US, what could happen with virus in 2025.”
By Mary Kekatos
“Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said he believes there is a more likely scenario of the virus becoming more transmissible: an individual getting infected with bird flu and seasonal influenza at the same time.?
He said this could lead to the virus “reassorting” to produce a hybrid, or recombinant, virus that could then transmit more easily from person to person.”
to read the full article goto
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/1st-bird-flu-death-reported-us-happen-virus/story?id=117417561

“Is bird flu the next pandemic? What to know after the first H5N1 death in the US”
By Brenda Goodman
“Scientists think H5N1 infects the eyes because flu viruses enter cells through sugars on their surface called sialic acids. Birds – and human eyes – primarily have alpha 2,3 sialic acid receptors on their cells. But a different kind of sialic acid receptor, alpha 2,6, is more prevalent in the human respiratory tract. Human flu viruses, including those that cause seasonal influenza, have evolved to infect cells through alpha 2,6 receptors.
Given enough time in the human body, the bird flu virus has shown the ability to change to become better at infecting different kinds of cells and tissues, spreading from the eyes to the respiratory tract, for example.”
to read the full article go to
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/08/health/bird-flu-h5n1-pandemic-risk-explained/index.html?cid=ios_app

“US to build new stockpile of bird flu vaccine for poultry”
By Leah Douglas and Tom Polansek
“Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said such deployment would not be possible in the short term, in part due to trade risks. Many countries ban imports of vaccinated poultry over concerns the vaccine could mask the presence of the virus.”
to read the full article go to
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-build-new-stockpile-bird-flu-vaccine-poultry-2025-01-08/

“What We Know About HMPV, the Common Virus Spreading in China”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/health/hmpv-virus-china.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

By Will Stone

“The U.S. has recorded its first death of a person infected with bird flu.
The patient was a resident of southwest Louisiana who was hospitalized last month with the first known severe case of bird flu in the country….
The patient was over 65 and had underlying medical conditions.”
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/01/06/nx-s1-5250251/bird-flu-death-louisiana

“First Bird Flu Death in U.S. Reported in Louisiana”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/06/health/bird-flu-death-louisiana.html

“Bird flu risk remains low after first US death, WHO says”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bird-flu-risk-remains-low-after-first-us-death-who-says-2025-01-07/

“Opinion | Will Trump face the next pandemic? Biden should act now”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/06/bird-flu-biden-vaccines-pandemic/

“What you need to know about HMPV”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c23vjg7v7k0o

By Amy Maxmen

“Nearly a year into the first outbreak of the bird flu among cattle, the virus shows no sign of slowing. The U.S. government failed to eliminate the virus on dairy farms when it was confined to a handful of states, by quickly identifying infected cows and taking measures to keep their infections from spreading. Now at least 875 herds across 16 states have tested positive.”

to read the full article go to
https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2025/01/05/how-america-lost-control-bird-flu-setting-state-another-pandemic/

“Why The U.S. Could Be Making The Same Mistakes With Bird Flu As It Did With COVID-19”
By Omer Awan

“Some obvious questions remain- like how did the U.S. allow a patient to get severely ill from the virus? Also, are we repeating the same mistakes we made with the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020? Here are some reasons we may be repeating history.”

to read the full article go to
https://www.forbes.com/sites/omerawan/2025/01/06/why-the-us-could-be-making-the-same-mistakes-with-bird-flu-as-it-did-with-covid-19/

“A lack of wastewater testing is blinding the Central Valley to its bird flu problem”
By Melissa Gomez and Susanne Rust

““If you’re tracking disease that spreads from animal to human, you want to be looking at rural areas, like the county of Tulare where there are more cows than there are people — yet there’s no testing of wastewater anywhere south of Fresno in the valley,” Hurtado said.”

to read the full article go to
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-06/central-valley-lack-of-wastewater-testing-for-bird-flu

“Canadian teen with bird flu was on life support, new report reveals”
By Nicole Karlis
“The next day doctors started her on oseltamivir, also known under the brand name Tamiflu. However, her respiratory functions declined rapidly causing her to be intubated. She was also placed on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a machine that is a form of life support for people with life-threatening illnesses. In addition to the ECMO machine, the teenager received a plasma exchange and two more antiviral medication treatments — amantadine and baloxavir.”
to read the full article go to
https://www.salon.com/2025/01/06/new-report-on-severe-case-of-canadian-teen-with-bird-flu/

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 once it was in the body, it mutated in ways that would allow it to stick to cells in the mucous membrane lining the upper respiratory tract.”
“Still, the presence of these mutations doesn’t mean the virus can definitely spread from person to person.”

to read the full article go to
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/severe-bird-flu-cases-virus-can-mutate-lingers-body-rcna186009

“‘It is now time for new actions’ from the White House on bird flu: Dr. Ashish Jha”
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/now-time-actions-white-house-091529546.html

“Ex-FDA chief says Biden ‘mishandling’ bird flu, urges swift action from Trump“
by Ashleigh Fields

““President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team would be wise to prepare for quick action after he takes office,” the two wrote.
“The Biden administration has been mishandling the outbreak in cattle for months, increasing the possibility of a dangerous, wider spread,” they added.”

to read the full story go to
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5067433-ex-fda-chief-says-biden-mishandling-bird-flu-urges-swift-action-from-trump/