A rather disturbing NEJM case report to kick us off for 2025 – a previously healthy 13 year old girl with severe respiratory infection due to influenza A (H5N1) bird flu in Canada. The girl came through ECMO and survived. But it’s a salutary lesson of what influenza – and especially H5N1 influenza – can do! There’s a lot of flu around at the moment (of various types), so please get your flu vaccine if you haven’t done so already – it’s good for you and those around you if you do.
Continue readingavian influenza
Avian influenza: it’s in the (waste)water
There is a sense of steadily building concern around avian influenza, remembering that an avian influenza outbreak would knock spots off COVID-19 (especially the modern variants) in terms of bad clinical outcomes. A letter in the NEJM relates wastewater surveillance in the state of Texas that has identified H5N1 avian influenza in all 10 cities in the surveillance programme since March 2024. This suggests that avian influenza is out there, and flying under the radar in animal populations. So, now would be a good time to dust down your pandemic influenza preparedness documents…
Continue reading
Reflections on Infection Prevention and Control 