There are limited #travel #scholarships available for participants from low- and lower-middle-income countries. If you’re an early-career #scientist working on respiratory viruses, or know someone who is, consider applying. 🦠🐓🧪😷🥼💉🔬
This five-day intensive program brings together early-career scientists and postgraduate students studying #influenza, #coronaviruses, #RSV, and other respiratory viruses. 🦠🐓🧪😷🥼💉🔬
Applications are now open for the 7th ISRV School of Respiratory Viruses, hosted by the School of Public Health at The University of Hong Kong.
Program details: isrv.eventsair.com/7th-isrv-sch... Apply here: isrv.eventsair.com/Presentation...
Applications close: 30 April (UTC+8)
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@michaelisonmd.bsky.social @mtosterholm.bsky.social @marionkoopmans.bsky.social @angierasmussen.bsky.social @jsiegers.bsky.social @filip-ectad.bsky.social @fao.org @who.int @duckswabber.bsky.social @fla-medic.bsky.social @thijskuiken.bsky.social
This is the first case this year (1 case, 0 deaths in 2026).
Since 2023 re-emergence: 35 cases, 15 deaths (CFR 42.9%)
Overall since 2004: 91 cases, 52 deaths (CFR 57.1%)
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First human #H5N1 case of 2026 in #Cambodia: a 30-year-old man from Kampot province. Sequencing, virus isolation & animal investigations ongoing. Dead chicken at home before onset. Patient has since recovered. 🦠💉😷🐓🥼🔬🧪
Sequencing, contact tracing, and poultry investigations ongoing.
Planning is underway for the 2026 Metagenomic Virus Discovery workshop. Last years workshop was a great success with 22 participants representing 11 countries. If you would like to know more, get in contact with our organising committee at mvdworkshop2025@gmail.com
This isn’t about replacing classic #surveillance. It’s about upgrading it. Find smarter, safer ways to see what’s coming. Sometimes the first signal of risk isn’t inside the bird. It’s already in the air.
Traditional sampling is time-consuming, expensive, and carries real #biosafety and animal health risks. Environmental sampling, especially #air, can reduce handling, broaden detection, and act as an early warning system in one of the most critical human–animal interfaces.
Perhaps most important: Environmental sampling outperformed poultry swabs for detecting highly pathogenic #H5N1, including clades 2.3.4.4b and 2.3.2.1c. Translation: the market environment was positive for H5N1 on days when the birds we swabbed were “negative.”
What we learned:
- Environmental samples detected a wide diversity of viruses
- Air was the MVP: greatest diversity of poultry viruses.
- When we compared, the environment is highly similar to what we saw in poultry
Here’s the problem: markets are not static. They’re more like airport terminals for #poultry. Constant arrivals, constant departures, constant mixing. Swabbing a few birds is a snapshot. So we tried something obvious in hindsight: Stop interrogating individual birds. Start listening to the room.
In our recent @nature.com Communications study, we compared traditional #poultry swabs with environmental #metagenomics, sampling #air, cage surfaces, carcass wash water, and drinking water in two Cambodian live bird markets. 🦠😷🔬🧪🐓🥼
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The takeaway: H5 #avianflu isn’t slowing down. It’s accelerating. And each new clade is a reminder that surveillance, sequencing, and real cross-sector coordination aren’t optional, they’re the only way to keep up. 🦠🥼😷🔬🐓🧪
#H5N1 #influenza #avianinfluenza #birdflu
The WHO/WOAH/FAO H5 Evolution Working Group just released a major nomenclature update: 12 new H5 clades across 2.3.2.1 and 2.3.4.4, the result of a decade of relentless viral evolution stretching from Asia to Africa, the Americas, and even Antarctica. 🥼🔬🧪🦠🐓😷
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Go @eakarlsson.bsky.social knocking it out of the park at the @virus-metagenomics.bsky.social workshop at CERI in Stellenbosch.
Tomorrow evening we have our keynote lecture session from 16:00 in the Neelsie Cinema, Stellenbosch University. Dr Maja Vukovikj will be speaking about Africas ancient disease landscape and Dr Erik Karlsson will talk about metagenomics and high-risk interfaces tinyurl.com/ytj3sppm
Grateful to the team led by Benjamin Larsen, Cameron Myhrvold, and @ajtevelthuis.bsky.social, and proud that @jsiegers.bsky.social and the IPC Virology Unit could contribute.
Sometimes evolution whispers. You just have to be listening fast enough to hear it.
When those shifts happen, like the PB2-E627K mutation we’ve seen in human #H5N1 cases in #Cambodia, the clock starts ticking. Speed matters. #Surveillance only works if it moves fast enough to turn data into action.
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
Proud to be part of this new Nature Biotechnology paper, “RNA structure modulates Cas13 activity and enables mismatch detection.” Detecting single-nucleotide mutations in #influenza or SARS-CoV-2 is how you know, fast, when a virus is playing by different rules.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@jsiegers.bsky.social @duckswabber.bsky.social @angierasmussen.bsky.social @fla-medic.bsky.social @cidrap.bsky.social @avianinfluenza.bsky.social @whofluccmelb.bsky.social @who.int @fao.org @marionkoopmans.bsky.social
Genomics show no human-to-human transmission but evolution’s been busy. A local clade quietly swapped genes with others, creating a new reassortant now spreading across the Greater Mekong.
Now out in @nejm.org :
Between 2023–2024: Sixteen human infections with A/H5N1 in Cambodia. Six deaths. Most in children. All exposed to sick or dead poultry.
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
Time’s running out!
We’re hiring 1 Scientist + 2 Postdocs at @PasteurCambodia’s #Virology Unit to work on emerging viruses & #zoonoses.
If you want to do real-time science that matters—this is your chance.
Apply now. Start soon.
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#academicjobs #OneHealth #Virology
@angierasmussen.bsky.social @marionkoopmans.bsky.social @fao.org @who.int @jsiegers.bsky.social @peaseroland.bsky.social
Cambodia has confirmed its 15th human case of #H5N1 in 2025. That brings the year’s total to 15 cases and 7 deaths (CFR: 46.6%). Since 2005: 87 cases, 50 deaths (CFR: 57.5%).
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#AvianInfluenza #Zoonoses #BirdFlu #Spillover
@duckswabber.bsky.social @jsiegers.bsky.social @marionkoopmans.bsky.social @angierasmussen.bsky.social @cidrap.bsky.social @mtosterholm.bsky.social @michaelisonmd.bsky.social @peaseroland.bsky.social @fao.org @who.int
Cambodia continues to lead a coordinated #OneHealth response — linking human, animal, and environmental health. Early #detection, rapid #diagnostics, and cross-sector #collaboration are essential to prevent and respond to current and future spillover events.
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#GlobalHealth #H5N1
