ETIDIOH - NEW

  {Summary} Overall risk statement -- At the end of 2025, the global public health risk from COVID-19 remained moderate, following the declining deaths and hospitalizations in 2022 due to high population immunity , improved clinical management, and similar virulence and characterized by sustained stability in severity indicators—including ICU admissions and in hospital mortality—throughout the following years.  -- Most SARS-CoV-2 variants now belong to the JN.1 Omicron sublineages , which show immune escape but do not result in increased disease severity compared to other Omicron sublineages.  -- Nonetheless, continued surveillance gaps , reduced genomic sequencing and sharing of sequence information, and limited reporting , especially from low- and middle-income countries, undermine a more informed risk assessment at this time.  -- SARS-CoV-2 continues to circulate widely , as indicated by sentinel surveillance under GISRS and wastewater surveillance , co-circulatin...

  A wild Mute Swan in Žilinský Region. Source:  Link:  https://wahis.woah.org/#/in-review/7246 ____

  Abstract Recent A(H5N1) zoonotic cases linked to poultry and cattle in North America highlight the urgent need to assess the pandemic potential of emerging strains . Using male ferrets , we evaluate two B3.13 and two D1.1 genotype A(H5N1) viruses isolated from humans and observe fatal disease and varying capacities for direct contact transmission . To enhance pandemic risk assessment , we conduct aerosol sampling using cyclone BC251 and water condensation capture-based SPOT samplers and perform comparative analyses to include additional A(H5N1), A(H9N2), A(H7N9), and A(H1N1)pdm09 strains with known transmissibility profiles. Although none of the A(H5N1) strains transmit via the air, B3.13 viruses are detected at significantly higher levels compared to D1.1 strains . Here we show strong correlations between viral loads in nasal washes, airborne virus shedding, and transmissibility in ferrets , highlighting the value of these metrics for identifying zoonotic influenza viruses that ...