“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/
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 million toward improving hospital preparedness, early stage research on therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines. About $103 million of that will help maintain state and local efforts to track and test people exposed to infected animals, and for outreach to livestock workers and others at high risk.”
to read the full article go to
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/02/us/politics/bird-flu-biden-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
“Boston researcher and physician says we’re at ‘DEFCON 3’ for bird flu. Here’s what that means.”
By Abby Patkin
““All told, I think a severe case of H5N1 coming on the cusp of the forthcoming peak of flu season merits an increase in our threat assessment of the overall situation,” Faust wrote in his “Inside Medicine” newsletter Tuesday. “I’d say we are now at the equivalent of DEFCON 3 with H5N1.””
““An emerging potential epidemic demands our attention — and our full resources — when two features start changing for the worse: severity and transmissibility,” Faust explained in a Slate article Tuesday.”
to read the full article go to
https://www.boston.com/news/health/2025/01/03/boston-doc-says-defcon-3-for-bird-flu/
“Will there ever be a bird flu vaccine?”
“Should H5N1 bird flu begin to spread from person to person and lead to a pandemic, an effective vaccine may arrive sooner than later.As part of its pandemic preparedness protocols, the CDC says it routinely develops candidate vaccine viruses (CVVs) that pharmaceutical companies can use to engineer immunizations. The agency has already prepared CVVs closely matching the type of bird flu currently circulating, which “could be used to produce a vaccine for people, if needed.”
https://fortune.com/well/article/bird-flu-h5n1-2024-2025-seasonal-influenza-vaccine
“HHS awards $306 million in Avian Flu monitoring and preparedness funding”
“ASPR will award approximately $183 million in additional funding for regional, state and local preparedness programs:
$90 million to the Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP)
$10 million to the National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center (NETEC)
$26 million to the Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Centers (RESPTCs)
$43 million to the Special Pathogen Treatment Centers (SPTCs) Avian Influenza Preparedness and Response Activities
$14 million to replenish equipment and supply caches for the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS)
CDC will award approximately $111 million in funding for additional enhancements to our ability to monitor H5N1 at the local, state and national levels:
$103 million to jurisdictions for increased monitoring of individuals exposed to infected animals, testing, and outreach to high-risk populations (such as livestock workers)
$8 million to manufacture, store, and distribute additional influenza diagnostic test kits for virologic surveillance
NIH will award approximately $11 million in funding for additional research into potential medical countermeasures for H5N1:
$11 million to the Centers for Excellence for Influenza Research and Response contracts”
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2025/01/03/hhs-awards-306-million-avian-flu-monitoring-and-preparedness-funding.html
