H5N1

WHO: Influenza A(H1N2)v-United States of America

A WHO DON: Influenza A(H1N2)v-United States of America. Excerpt:

Situation at a glance:  

On 4 August 2023, the United States International Health Regulations (IHR) National Focal Point informed PAHO/WHO of a human infection with a novel influenza A(H1N2) variant virus identified in the State of Michigan. This was confirmed by Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction at the United States (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on August 2.  

The case was not hospitalized and is recovering from the illness. Investigations by local public health officials identified swine exposure by the patient at an agricultural fair.  

Additional public health response efforts including enhanced surveillance for cases is undergoing. Given the potential impact on public health, human infections with these viruses need to be monitored closely. In this event, there was no reported evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, the illness was mild and no further influenza variant virus transmission in the community has been identified.  

Description of the case:  

On 4 August 2023, the United States IHR National Focal Point informed PAHO/WHO of a human infection with a novel influenza A(H1N2) variant virus identified in the State of Michigan and confirmed by the US CDC.   

According to the report, the case is under 18 years old, with no comorbidities, resident in the State of Michigan, who developed respiratory illness on 29 July 2023. The case presented with fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches, headache, shortness of breath, diarrhea, nausea, dizziness, and lethargy. On 29 July, the case sought medical care at an emergency department, and an upper respiratory tract specimen was collected on 30 July. The specimen tested positive for influenza A virus on the same day. On 1 August, the patient received influenza antiviral treatment (Oseltamivir).  

On 31 July, the specimen was tested at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), and RT-PCR results were positive for influenza A virus but lacked reactivity with diagnostic tests for contemporary human influenza viruses representing either (H1) pdm09 or (H3) subtypes. The specimen was then sent to the US CDC for further testing and received on 2 August. On the same day, RT-PCR analysis of the specimen indicated an influenza A(H1N2) variant (v) virus. The virus was isolated and subsequent analysis including genetic sequencing is underway.  

The case was not hospitalized. Investigation by local public health officials identified swine exposure by the patient at an agricultural fair, that took place between 23 and 29 July, within 10 days prior to illness onset. Additional investigation did not identify respiratory illness in any of the patient’s close contacts or household contacts. No additional cases were identified related to this agriculture fair. No person-to-person transmission of influenza A(H1N2)v virus associated with this case has been identified. No additional cases of human infection with A(H1N2)v virus have been identified as of 10 August 2023.  

This is the first influenza A(H1N2)v virus infection identified in the United States this year. Since 2005, there have been 512 influenza A variant virus infections (all subtypes), including 37 (human infections with influenza A (H1N2)v viruses reported in the United States.

WHO: Weekly epidemiological update on COVID-19 - 3 August 2023

WHO has published Weekly epidemiological update on COVID-19 - 3 August 2023. Click or tap through to download the full report. The overview:

Globally, over one million new COVID-19 cases and over 3100 deaths were reported in the last 28 days (3 to 30 July 2023). While five WHO regions have reported decreases in the number of both cases and deaths, the Western Pacific Region has reported an increase in the number of cases and a decrease in the number of deaths. 

As of 30 July 2023, over 768 million confirmed cases and over 6.9 million deaths have been reported globally. Currently, reported cases do not accurately represent infection rates due to the reduction in testing and reporting globally. 

During this 28-day period, 46% (107 of 234) of countries and territories reported at least one case to WHO – a proportion that has been declining since mid-2022. 

In this edition, we include:  

• The COVID-19 epidemiological update at the global and the regional levels  

• An update on hospitalizations and ICU admissions  

• An update on the SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest (VOI) and variants under monitoring (VUM)   

• An update on the vaccine effectiveness of primary series and booster vaccination against the Omicron and its descendant lineages

How we used machine learning to look where Ebola may strike

Via ProPublica: How We Used Machine Learning to Look Where Ebola May Strike. Excerpt:

ProPublica spent months teaching a computer to analyze past Ebola outbreaks linked to deforestation. What we found reveals a weakness in the way that governments and public health experts are preparing for future pandemics. 

The bright spots on the map struck us like a lightning bolt. 

We had spent months teaching a computer about the Ebola virus –– feeding it information about the landscapes and populations in places where the disease had previously emerged, showing it how to analyze those outbreaks for patterns, and then instructing it to flag other areas that looked similarly perilous.   

Some of the highlighted spots were predictable; the virus had repeatedly ravaged one of those countries.  

But we didn’t expect our model to light up Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa. The West African nation and international travel hub has never seeded an Ebola outbreak, but just a year ago, it served as the springboard for another virus to travel into Europe and the Americas and spread across the globe. However that virus, mpox, originally known as monkeypox, is rarely fatal.  

What if it had been Ebola, which kills about half of the people it infects?  

We asked Nigerian public health officials whether they were concerned.  

“Ebola is not part of our top concerns any more,” said Oyeladun Okunromade, the director of surveillance and epidemiology at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.  

In the aftermath of the 2014 West African Ebola epidemic, the worst on record, Nigerian officials were on high alert. But last year, they took the virus off the list of the top infectious diseases the country needed to prepare for, downgrading Ebola in relation to threats like mpox, which Nigeria was actively fighting.  

The disjoint between how our model sees Nigeria’s risk and how the nation’s health officials view it reveals a weakness in the way that governments and public health experts are preparing for future pandemics. The methods many countries use to rank threats focus mainly on factors that occur after an outbreak has already begun, such as the potential economic impact of an epidemic. Or they rely on past cases, looking at where a pathogen has previously struck.  

Neither approach considers the root causes.  

We’ve spent more than a year digging into the question of what causes outbreaks and what the world can do to prevent them. And we’ve learned that while science has advanced so we’re starting to understand the complex factors that trigger an outbreak, the world is not doing nearly enough to try to head off the next big one.