While much of the focus on HPAI transmission among livestock and poultry has been placed on commercial farms, the seasonal rise in county and state fairs is shifting some of that focus to private farms and 4H/FFA show animals. In...

With Sunday, July 28th, being World Hepatitis Day, it’s a good week to take a look at your workers’ infectious disease knowledge and your business protections. Viral hepatitis is the second leading infectious cause of death globally, with 1.3 million deaths...

Sporadic multi-state outbreaks of H5 bird flu are being reported across the U.S. in poultry and dairy cows. In light of four more confirmed HPAI human cases, poultry, cattle, and other such facilities should be aware that there is a...

The European Food Safety Authority published a scientific report with updates on the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus during the period of March to June of 2024. While its evaluation of the general public’s risk of infection remains low,...

In preliminary 2023 data recently released by the CDC Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), Campylobacter, Cyclospora, STEC, Vibrio, and Yersinia infections were found to have increased as compared with incidence data from 2016-2018. Campylobacter and Salmonella continue to be...

A recent outbreak of Salmonella has been linked to pet bearded dragons, impacting humans across 9 states. As of June 14, CDC has reported 15 illnesses and 4 hospitalizations, but no deaths. In the last 10 years, there have been...

While the current assessment for the U.S. human health risk from avian influenza A (H5N1) remains low, CDC has created a “Risk by Exposure Table” in the appendix of their Avian Influenza interim recommendations page that categorizes people—such as farm...

As we experience less severe winters and increasing air temperatures, the risk and range of tick-borne illnesses grow. Historically, very cold, dry winters are poor conditions for tick survival, and recent winters have been anything but. Over the last decade,...

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen an increase of many communicable infectious diseases. One such disease is varicella, more commonly referred to as chickenpox, which is caused by the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) and is characterized by itchy red blisters...

Continuing federal studies are finding that food safety practices will kill avian influenza in foods, with USDA experiments showing H5N1 to be killed through the proper cooking of ground beef and FDA research finding pasteurization to be effective in killing...