A US government memo ordering a halt to communication with global health bodies has concerned scientists as a strain of bird flu is detected in California for the first time.

Detected on a duck farm in Merced County, California, it’s the first confirmed case of H5N9 in poultry in the US. Read more at straitstimes.com.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today released an advisory recommending clinicians expedite subtyping of type A influenza samples from hospitalized patients, particularly individuals in an intensive care unit.

"The Chinese poultry lineage may have experienced more vaccine-driven selection compared to other lineages," the researchers wrote.

The findings come at a time when outbreaks of bird flu -- a different subtype of the ... of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 influenza virus currently circulating

A subtype of bird flu caused by avian influenza A (H5) virus has been spreading worldwide ... including avian influenza A(H5N1), have gained the ability to spread easily and sustainably among ...

This pathogenic avian influenza A is a subtype that is found in cows ... with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A, H5N1 virus that primarily causes bird flu, has a high potential for ...

which concluded that vaccinating against the highly pathogenic H5 subtype of avian influenza virus (AIV) may drive viral evolution. One such H5 bird flu is the H5N1 virus currently causing an ...

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging hospitals to accelerate advanced testing of people they suspect may have bird flu.

However, none of this means we are "one mutation away" from a pandemic. The first highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of subtype H5N1 emerged in China in 1996. Since then, H5 viruses have spread widely in Europe, Africa, North America and Asia via ...

The first human death from bird flu in the United States occurred on Jan. 6 in a Louisiana hospital, less than three weeks before the second Donald Trump administration’s inauguration.