Free Republic

A version of the H5N1 bird flu virus that killed a person in Louisiana and severely sickened a teenager in Canada has now been detected in dairy herds in Nevada. The version, known as D1.1, is circulating in wild birds around the nation — causing massive die-offs in places such as Chicago, upstate New York and Ohio. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed the finding Wednesday. It’s different from the version circulating in dairy cows, which has caused only relatively mild illness in humans, although it has killed scores of domestic and wild cats....

Amid an escalating bird flu outbreak spreading in the United States, federal health officials have begun to brief members of the incoming Trump administration about how they’ve responded to the crisis so far. “We sent them all of the information on our work,” said a Biden administration health official familiar with transition briefings within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s the first indication that the two administrations appear to be working together to prioritize the H5N1 response. Until now, it was unclear whether the Biden White House and Trump’s incoming health team had discussed bird flu in any...

There are now ten confirmed human cases of avian flu in Colorado, making it the largest outbreak of the virus in U.S. history, according to state health officials. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) is reporting three new confirmed bird flu cases at a second farm in Weld County. This latest update brings Colorado's total number of confirmed avian flu cases in humans to ten, with six cases coming from another poultry farm and one case found in a dairy farm worker, also in Colorado. Yesterday, CDPHE launched a data table to track cases of human bird...

Dairy cattle moving between states must be tested for the bird flu virus, U.S. agriculture officials said Wednesday as they try to track and control the growing outbreak. The federal order was announced a day after health officials said they had detected inactivated remnants of the virus, known as Type A H5N1, in samples taken from milk during processing and after retail sale. They stressed that such remnants pose no known risk to people or the milk supply. “The risk to humans remains low,” said Dawn O'Connell of the federal Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.

Seven people at a poultry farm in southern Russia have been infected with H5N8 bird flu, officials say, making it the first time that the highly pathogenic virus has been found in humans. There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission. “Today, I want to inform you about an important scientific discovery made by scientists at the Vector scientific center,” Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s consumer health watchdog, said on Saturday. “The first cases of human infection with [avian influenza A(H5N8)] have been laboratory confirmed.” The virus was found in seven employees at a poultry farm in southern Russia, where...