January 2025

Jan 30

Patch - Bird Flu Kills Almost All Chickens, Ducks On A Hudson Valley Farm

Jan 29

University of Pennsylvania - Avian Flu: An Explainer - Scott Hensley, professor of microbiology at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, discusses the avian flu, the virus’s jump into mammals, and vaccine development at the University.

Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy - Avian flu strikes second biggest US egg producer

NY Magazine - Think Eggs Are Expensive? Try Buying 2,700 of Them Each Week: At B&H Dairy, soaring prices have become untenable.

Jan 26

Vox.com - Eggs are pricey again. What’s the government doing about it? And four other burning bird flu questions, answered. - Bird flu is surging in the US again and has, once again, sent egg prices skyrocketing. Nearly 13 million birds have been infected or culled in the past month alone, contributing to shortages. A carton of eggs today costs more than $4 on average, up from about $2.50 a year ago.

Prices aren’t the only thing making headlines — the virus has recently taken a human life, too. After nearly three years of warnings from leading public health and animal agriculture experts that bird flu was becoming a threat to human beings, Louisiana health officials reported earlier this month that an individual died from the virus, the first reported human death in the US from bird flu.

This particular strain of bird flu, H5N1, has been circulating in the US and infecting poultry since February 2022. So far, millions of birds have been infected or were culled to prevent further spread. But, as Vox reported previously, the concern has always been that this strain could jump from birds, then to another animal, and then to humans, and evolve along the way into something much deadlier to humans.

In March 2024, the virus made its way to US dairy cows. About a month later, Americans began getting infected in greater numbers — the majority of those infected, health officials say, were exposed to commercial cattle or poultry farms. Today, nearly 1,000 cattle herds across 16 states have been affected, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The deceased Louisiana patient, however, was infected by backyard poultry wild birds. The individual was older than 65 years old and had underlying medical conditions, which likely increased their risk for severe disease and death, as it does for conventional flu.

This case brings the total number of documented human infections in the US to 67. Human infections have been reported in 10 states so far, but most cases have occurred in California, where the governor declared a state of emergency in December 2024.

Jan 24

NY Times - Egg Prices Are High. They Will Likely Go Higher. - Avian influenza has led to a shortage of eggs and wholesale prices that are through the roof. Consumers can expect to feel the pain for a while.Item description

Jan 23

NY Magazine - Bird Flu Is Wiping Out the City’s Duck Supply

Jan 21

NJ Star Ledger nj.com - 140 wild birds in N.J. likely died from the bird flu. Here’s why that’s important.

Jan 17

NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection - Murphy Administration Updates Public on Steps Being Taken to Track and Respond to H5N1 Avian Influenza - Outbreak Reported in Localized Wild Bird Populations, Public Health Threats Remain Low. The Murphy Administration today reminded the public that state agencies continue to aggressively monitor occurrences of H5N1 avian influenza, also known as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), in domestic and wild bird populations. While there have been recent confirmations of deaths in localized wild bird populations in parts of New Jersey, there have been no recent reports in domestic poultry or cattle and no human infections in the state.

northjersey.com - New Jersey ramps up efforts to fight bird flu after spike in wild bird deaths - Since late December 2024, the virus has been detected in wild birds at over 30 sites statewide, officials said. Clusters of sick and dead birds, mostly snow geese and Canada geese, were reported in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Salem and Warren counties.

Jan 14

University of Chicago Medicine - 7 things you can do to prevent getting bird flu - 1. Only consume pasteurized dairy products. 2. Refrigerate — and cook — your eggs, meat and poultry. 3. Get your human influenza vaccine. 4. Protect and vaccinate your pets. 5. Avoid contact with wild, sick or dead birds and livestock. 6. Wash your hands thoroughly and often. 7. Follow public health recommendations.

Jan 8

North Jersey .com - North Jersey wastewater sample tests positive for bird flu. Here's what it means - A wastewater sample from the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission tested positive for H5 bird flu this week, according to WastewaterSCAN, a monitoring program.

Jan 7

AP - First US bird flu death is announced in Louisiana - The first U.S. bird flu death has been reported — a person in Louisiana who had been hospitalized with severe respiratory symptoms.

State health officials announced the death on Monday, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed it was the nation’s first due to bird flu.

Health officials have said the person was older than 65, had underlying medical problems and had been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock. They also said a genetic analysis had suggested the bird flu virus had mutated inside the patient, which could have led to the more severe illness.

Jan 3

Forbes - Bird flu could merge with seasonal flu to make mutated virus that could spread among humans, CDC warns - If taking charge of your health is among your New Year’s resolutions, you might consider getting your 2024–25 seasonal influenza shot if you haven’t already. While it won’t protect you from H5N1 bird flu per se, immunization could play a pivotal part in warding off a bird flu pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The potential for danger lies in H5N1’s genetic pliability, according to Edwin Michael, PhD, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida College of Public Health.

“For example, if a human gets infected with a bird flu and also carries a human influenza A virus, these two viruses can exchange genetic material. This is known as genetic shift,” Michael previously told Fortune. “That can form very new viruses [and] cause epidemics.”

Immunization reduces the prevalence and severity of seasonal flu, the CDC says, thereby reducing the “very rare” but possible risk of coinfection, “which could pose a significant public health concern.”

NBC News - In severe bird flu cases, the virus can mutate as it lingers in the body - As the seasonal flu picks up, there are even more opportunities for the bird flu to acquire mutations as the different influenza viruses mix.

A 13-year-old girl in British Columbia who was hospitalized with bird flu for several weeks late last year harbored a mutated version of the virus, according to a report published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. 

The case was Canada’s first recorded human infection of avian influenza, which has infected at least 66 people in the United States since last March, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This includes the nation’s first severe case, in Louisiana in December. 

So far, nearly all of the cases of bird flu in North America have been mild, with symptoms including conjunctivitis, or pink eye, and runny nose, chills, cough and sore throat.  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.