Helen Branswell covers issues broadly related to infectious diseases, including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine development. Follow her on Mastodon and Bluesky. You can reach Helen on ...

Scientists have discovered that a rapidly-mutating, species-jumping virus is contributing to mass honeybee deaths that are threatening the U.S.'s multi-billion-dollar agricultural industry, honey ...

Five years removed from the onset of Covid-19's global sweep, research into another subset of the coronavirus has scientists worried about another possible pandemic. This virus originated in bats, as ...

A single modification in the protein found on the surface of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 influenza virus currently circulating in U.S. dairy cows could allow for easier ...

Any time a person catches H5N1, or bird flu, their infection is a chance for the virus to mutate in the wrong direction. When someone dies from the bird flu—as an elderly Louisiana man did on Jan. 6, ...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that while the risk of human to human transmission remains low, experts and officials must be aware of the risk that mutations in the virus ...

Editor’s Note (1/6/25): The Louisiana Department of Health has announced that the patient in the state who had been hospitalized with severe H5N1 avian influenza has died. The individual had ...

BEIJING, April 22 -- Chinese scientists have deciphered the genetic code of a number of samples of the SARS virus and say their research could provide important clues as to whether the microbe will ...