This is an extraordinary amount of work, done in the week since Dept. of Agriculture posted raw sequence data without metadata from the dairy cow outbreaks of #H5N1 #birdflu .
🧵

This is not good.

Health labs today got an 'urgent' notice from CDC

One lot of agency's Influenza A/H5 Subtyping Kit discovered to have a faulty component

Labs urged to halt use of component when testing suspect bird flu cases, over risk of 'inconclusive results'

tinalexander.github.io/notes/attachme…

Interesting thread! #H5N1 #birdflu

.CDC expands its recommendations to safeguard workers exposed the dairy cows that might be infected with #H5N1 #birdflu to include workers in slaughterhouses. Among other things, they need to be careful how they handle udders. cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/h…

.Dept. of Agriculture's new rules about shipping lactating dairy cows across state lines to stop spread of #H5N1 #birdflu go into effect Monday. But they're more limited than initially revealed & there are concerns about how effective they will be, Megan Molteni reports. statnews.com/2024/04/26/h5n…

.U.S. FDA has more evidence pasteurization kills #H5N1 #birdflu virus in milk, saying it was unable to grow virus from some PCR-positive samples. Doesn't say how many samples it's tried yet, though.
Testing infant formula did not show evidence of H5. fda.gov/food/alerts-ad…

.CDC reports that the number of #measles cases in the US so far this year has reached 128, up 3 from last week. Two new jurisdictions — Vermont and West Virginia — have reported cases.
No new cases this week in the Chicago outbreak. 🙏🏻
cdc.gov/measles/cases-…

Colorado joins the list of states with confirmed #H5N1 #birdflu outbreaks in dairy cows. Now 9 confirmed states, 34 confirmed outbreaks.
Bizarrely, there have only been 2 new outbreaks added to the list this week. Must be little testing underway.

How can therapies for rare conditions make it into use, if pharma doesn't see an economic path? A British researcher who has seen her work stalled is trying a new approach: Her hospital is trying to develop the treatment. Andrew Joseph reports. 🔒 statnews.com/2024/04/25/bri…

The 2009 H1N1 pandemic traced back to a human virus that got into pigs decades ago & evolved more slowly in them, eventually differing enough from human H1s to be able to trigger a pandemic.
Would be good to know how fast #H5N1 #birdflu is evolving in cows.