Really excited out perspective piece on the H5N1 panzootic in mammals is out now! www.nature.com/articles/s41...@lhmoncla.bsky.social@evogytis.bsky.social@kasukhova.bsky.social@worobey.bsky.social, Anice Lowen and Martha Nelson

Another Friday surprise: A 2nd health worker who cared for a Missouri person who had #H5N1#birdfluwww.statnews.com/2024/09/20/m...

Second health care worker tied to Missouri bird flu case had respiratory symptoms

A second health worker who cared for a person hospitalized in Missouri with H5N1 bird flu developed mild respiratory symptoms but was not tested for influenza, the CDC reported.

It is the end of a scientific chapter that started serendipitously 18 months ago, gave me the honor of working with a stellar team of scientists, and, we think, sheds some more light on the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Genetic tracing of market wildlife and viruses at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic

DNA of mammalian wildlife species susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 was detected along with SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in environmental samples from animal stalls located at the market epicenter of the emer...

I hope that the human case of H5N1 in Missouri will remain a one-off event. But I don't like the early COVID-19 déjà-vu feeling about public communication about it: insisting on their underlying conditions, underestimating the potential for human to human transmission, not testing widely

I wrote a short piece about a new flu subtype (H19) which uses a surprising receptor. We've known about glycans terminating in sialic acid as a receptor for flu for 70 years but the virus still surprises us! Great work by Karakus et al. authors.elsevier.com/a/1jPEg6t8JE...#ViroSky#EvoSky#MicroSky

Important paper on the horrible H5N1 outbreak in seals:

In new study led by Bernadeta Dadonaite, we measure how all mutations to H5 influenza HA affect four molecular phenotypes relevant to pandemic risk: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...   Results can inform surveillance of ongoing evolution of H5N1.

With #H5N1#birdflu spreading amongst dairy cows, one of the most important things to think about right now is what would need to happen for this virus to actually start a pandemic. I'm on a train, so a brief thread...

Preliminary report on genomic epidemiology of the 2024 H5N1 influenza A virus outbreak in U.S. cattle. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this and, of course, first and foremost the data producers and those involved in the response. virological.org/t/preliminar...

Preliminary report on genomic epidemiology of the 2024 H5N1 influenza A virus outbreak in U.S. cattle (Part 1 of 2)

Due to length constraints on virological.org posts, we are splitting this report into two parts that should be read as a single report. This is Part 1, containing Background, Data, Methods, and Findi...

Great opportunity for early career researchers looking to take their first step towards independence in the area of zoonotic or veternary virology, immunology, or epidemiology!