#h5n1-outbreak

#h5n1-outbreak

Bay Area peregrine falcon numbers began plummeting after a massive, global outbreak of avian flu in 2020, the study documents, with only about a third of the nesting sites still in use as of 2025. The news, while dire, nevertheless helps scientists understand how the disease is impacting local populations, and what we can expect for their recovery.

Risks of outbreaks with pandemic potential rise with increasing land-use change, biodiversity loss and climate change. The Pandemic Agreement adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2025 marks a historic shift that establishes the One Health approach as a legally binding obligation for pandemic prevention.

Nearly half of the 261 species studied showed big enough losses in numbers to be statistically significant and more than half of those declining are seeing their losses accelerate since 1987, according to Thursday's journal Science. The study is the first to look at more than the total bird population by examining the trends in their decrease, where they are shrinking the most and what the declines are connected to.

Bats carry a lot of very deadly pathogens like Ebola virus, Nipah, Hendra, coronavirus, and also rabies virus. People are finding more and more bat-borne viruses. When such viruses are transmitted to humans, the results are often fatal so there's a lot of interest in trying to prevent spillover in the first place.

Highly pathogenic avian flu, or bird flu, has been confirmed in the Emerald Necklace. Risk of human infection is currently low. As always, please do not feed, touch, or remove birds from Boston parks.

Each day, they pore over reams of data about how the virus is evolving worldwide, how well last year's shot performed, and which strains might be easiest to mass produce for a vaccine. The meeting, convened by the World Health Organization twice a year, is a critical moment for the WHO's Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System.

This is exceptionally rapid detection of an outbreak in free-ranging marine mammals, said professor Christine Johnson, director of the Institute for Pandemic Insights at UC Davis' Weill School of Veterinary Medicine. We have most likely identified the very first cases here because of coordinated teams that have been on high alert with active surveillance for this disease for some time.

Many people look up to admire the silhouette of raptors, some of the planet's largest birds, soaring through seemingly empty skies. But increasingly, research shows us that this fascination runs both ways. From high above, these birds are watching us too. Thanks to the development of tiny GPS tracking devices attached to their bodies, researchers are getting millions of data points on the day-to-day lives of these apex predators of the skies, giving us greater insight into where they hunt and rest.

When compared with places such as Norway and Sweden, the UK has relatively warm winters, and we get large numbers of migratory birds from all over Europe, which travel here seeking shelter, food and water. But numbers change every year depending on what the weather is like there and here with the recent cold spell you may see some surprise migratory visitors outside your window

I think this particular strain makes people feel pretty horrible,

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Health departments across California are sounding the alarm about a highly contagious bacterial disease that can be deadly in dogs if not treated. And in rare cases, it can spread to humans. It's called leptospirosis -- and it's actively spreading right now in the Bay Area and parts of the state, including Los Angeles. 7 On Your Side's Stephanie Sierra's dog, Bubba, contracted the disease and fought it for weeks.

It's clear that the worst is far from over for the NHS this winter, with hospitals again experiencing a rise in patients admitted with flu and other respiratory virus cases last week.