COVID-19, HPAI H5N1 Avian Flu, Mpox and other virus UK and World News Update 13th June 2025
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"We’ve published our monthly update on measles in England, showing 109 cases in April and 86 so far in May.
With cases predominantly in unvaccinated children 10 and under, and a global rise in cases, we’re concerned summer travels could lead to another surge in the UK"
UK HSA.
The UK Government are very concerned that movement in Summer will spread measles around the UK, and then we'll have a lot of cases in the Autumn - when all the hospital beds will start filling up with seasonal patients, and potentially a COVID wave too because of the new variant NB.1.8.1.
New COVID variant NB.1.8.1 is making UK news headlines now (a couple of media outlets are calling it 'Nimbus'). It is causing waves wherever it takes hold, due to its increased ability to latch onto human cells, and skill at bypassing old infection-acquired immunity. There are no signs it causes more severe illness, but several media outlets claim it is more likely than previous COVID strains to give you a bad tummy. I cannot find any actual evidence to support this, but there's a lot of evidence to show the UK still has a massive issue with Norovirus. Catching both together, or catching COVID when your tummy hasn't fully recovered will cause Gastrointestinal symptoms, so this could be just unfortunate timing for the UK.
NB.1.8.1 is already dominant in China and Hong Kong, where it has doubled COVID emergency room/A&E visits, and it’s increasing pretty rapidly wherever it occurs - including India, the US, Europe etc. It has potential cause a notable Summer wave of infections anywhere across the Northern hemisphere - and frankly a wave is not any less likely for the people currently entering Winter in the Southern hemisphere.
Bangladesh is so concerned about the sudden rise in COVID cases from new variants that health authorities have advised against any inessential travel to India, and instructed all ports and points of entry to use enhanced screening of travellers - handheld temperature scanners are back.
The population have also been advised to wash hands thoroughly at least 7 times a day and wear masks.
"The waiting list for routine operations and appointments in England has fallen below 7.4 million for the first time in two years – it was at 7.6 million when Labour took office. But still fewer than 60% seen within 18 weeks of referral."
Hugh Pym, BBC Health Correspondent
Tragically the first person to reply to this tweet was a surgeon, explaining that 4 patients had been removed from his list this month because they'd become too ill to be operated on... so yeah, it's good, but cautious applause for this achievement.
The Trump administration is reversing the firings of over 450 CDC employees. Departments reinstated include STI prevention, environmental health, cruise ship safety and world health.
Did any of them take employment elsewhere or decide to retire early? Is their mental health shot? Will they all go back? Absolutely. Absolutely. Probably not.
On the 1st of June Marty Makary, the new head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), called the CDC 's vaccine panel ACIP (Advisory Committee for Immunisation Practices) a "kangaroo court" that "rubber stamps" every vaccine. Those comments were made during a live interview on CBS News, and weren't accurate. For starters vaccines only go to ACIP after approval by FDA (which he's in charge of), and ACIP don't even approve every vaccine the FDA does...
Then this Monday...
"RFK Jr has fired all 17 members of CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. The US now has no CDC director and no ACIP. Control of US vaccines is concentrated in the office of an HHS Sec who doesn’t believe any vaccine is safe and effective."
Professor Jonathan Reiner MD, department director and professor of medicine at The George Washington University, and CNN Medical Analyst.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece RFK Jr said the ACIP committee members were "plagued by persistent conflicts of interest". The 'proof' he offered for this was investigations from at least 18 years ago. In reality any potential conflicts of interest are disclosed before meetings begin, and meetings are public with feedback and questions, so everything is actually very transparent.
Dr Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, called the firings “a coup”.
RFK Jr claims this is an effort to "restore public trust in vaccines" and responded to criticism of the firings:
“A compliant child must take between 69 and 92 vaccines to stay in school in some states, and not one of them has been safety tested in a pre-licensing placebo-controlled trial. And that is just malpractice. So the people who are in charge of that are now gone.”
Back in the real world US states have different requirements but in Florida for example, 17 vaccine doses are mandated (mmr is 2 doses of measles, mumps and rubella, so accounts for 6). Vaccines ARE placebo-tested BEFORE they're authorised - and you can look up the results for any of them.
RFK Jr then began announcing his new 8 person ACIP panel, and it's as disturbing as you'd expect:
Joseph R. Hibbeln, MD, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist.
Martin Kulldorff, MD, PhD, a biostatistician and epidemiologist
Retsef Levi, PhD, the Professor of Operations Management
Robert W. Malone, MD, a physician-scientist and biochemist known for his early contributions to mRNA vaccine technology.
Cody Meissner, MD, a Professor of Paediatrics, specialising in children's infectious diseases.
James Pagano, MD, a board-certified Emergency Medicine physician
Vicky Pebsworth, OP, PhD, RN, critical care nurse, healthcare administrator, health policy analyst, and research scientist who is the Pacific Region Director of the National Association of Catholic Nurses
Michael A. Ross, MD, is a Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Clearly these are a group who have a very diverse knowledge of science, medicine, and erm, management, and I've no doubt they're all brilliant in their fields - but I'm only seeing 2 people who have a career studying infectious diseases, and 1 person with a career in vaccine development. To be fair, Cody was previously on the ACIP panel, so at least he knows a bit about authorising vaccines and where they keep the biscuits.
Vicky has previously served on the FDA vaccine panel, but is now a volunteer director for a group that is widely considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation. Robert is a good mate of RFK Jr's who appeared on podcasts promoting unproven alternative treatments for measles and COVID-19, and suggested COVID vaccinations cause a type of AIDS. Martin was co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, a letter against pandemic shutdowns, and Retsef claimed COVID vaccinations were ineffective and dangerous. This is not an unbiased group of people... I dunno, maybe they'll be great huh.
ACIP recommendations which are adopted by the US CDC are covered by US health plans, making them the route to affordable vaccines for most Americans, including around half of all children.
Without vaccines, Measles isn't the only thing that can risk your health and your life. If you're unlucky on the day then Polio is crippling, Rubella disables unborn children, Mumps makes boys sterile, Tetanus causes extreme muscle spasms and fits, Diphtheria skin ulcers and paralysis, Whooping Cough makes you cough yourself to death, Meningitis leaves you with brain and nerve damage, and dangerous forms of HPV (which we are currently genuinely on track to eradicate) quietly kill people by giving them cancers.
Nostalgia has its place, but there are some things we really don't want to go back to...
The US FDA has approved Moderna’s updated COVID vaccination, with the same restrictions as Novavax’s earlier this month (i.e. they want to see testing which proves it's still useful to the general, younger, healthier public).
As promised the US CDC has amended the childhood immunisation schedule to remove recommendations for all children to receive COVID vaccinations, but parents can ask for it... Healthy children aged 6 months to 17 years "may receive COVID-19 vaccination, informed by the clinical judgement of a healthcare provider and personal preference and circumstances."
Seems likely most health insurers will not fund this.
Another study has found that 1 in every 5 people who survives severe COVID (that required hospitalisation) still has symptoms 3 years later. The researchers put together results from 11 studies across 6 countries, with 142,171 Long COVID sufferers between them.
Common symptoms were shortness of breath (12%), fatigue (11%), insomnia (11%), loss of smell (7%), loss of taste (7%) and anxiety (6%). A massive 42% had 'impaired diffusion capacity' (how well the lungs transfer gases into the bloodstream). Impaired diffusion capacity on its own can cause a person to be short of breath, fatigued, feel anxious and have trouble sleeping.
Researchers from The Netherlands are not the first to try to classify different types of Long COVID patients into groups, but they have come up with 6 main phenotypes (set of observable characteristics) - fatigue/neuropsychiatric, neurosensorial, respiratory, chronic pain, cardiovascular, and multiple organ system.
The researchers are clear that there appear to be at least 9 different causes of Long COVID (ongoing gut problems, trauma after medical care, autoimmunity, inflammation, virus reactivation etc), each of which can affect the others, and in turn the symptoms they produce interact. Any given patient can have a different experience to another, and may fall into one phenotype, or 2 or more, even all 6 in some cases.
The aim of classifying is to try and assist those looking for solutions. To identify patterns, find causes which can be treated, groups of symptoms which might benefit from therapies, to find out what makes a person more likely to develop Long COVID and look at how we can avoid it. Among other things this study helps confirm that females are more likely to develop fatigue and neuropsychiatric symptoms (depression, anxiety etc), unvaccinated people or those infected early on were more likely to develop loss of smell or nerve damage, and being male, older or having comorbidities puts you at greater risk of problems with multiple organs.
Every step forward is a step in the right direction...
Heartbreakingly a newborn infant has died from measles in Ontario, Canada. The child was infected before birth via their unvaccinated mother. They were born prematurely, with other medical conditions and very ill.
Ontario’s chief medical officer Dr. Kieran Moore told The Canadian Press that 40 pregnant people have been infected with measles during this outbreak, only 2 were vaccinated. 6 babies have been born with measles, and fortunately the other 5 have recovered.
You can't get the MMR jab once you are pregnant because the components are weakened live viruses, as opposed to dead virus or parts of virus. In the case of exposure (and for exposed newborns), doctors can treat with intravenous immunoglobulin (antibodies) to boost defences.
Measles in North America
As soon as I'd gone live with my last report, Kansas published Measles stats with an additional swathe of cases, and Colorado reported 3 cases linked to a single airline flight. Darnit.
Going forward, rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll be using the almost real-time North America figures supplied by the Centre for Outbreak Response Innovation (CORI) at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Of Public Health Center for Health Security (that would be an acronym and a half). While the US cases appear to be slowing down, the story in Canada and Mexico is entirely different.
US Measles figures 2025 - 1,187 cases, 3 fatalities.
States with 20 or more cases: Texas 777, New Mexico 81, Kansas 76, North Dakota 34, Ohio 34, Montana 20.
Mexico Measles figures 2025 - 2,041 cases (plus 4,384 probable), 5 fatalities.
States with 20 or more cases: Chihuahua 1,914, Sonora 52
Canada Measles figures 2025 - 2,968 cases, 1 fatality.
Provinces with 20 or more cases: Ontario 2,046, Alberta 729, Manitoba 94, Saskatchewan 47, Québec 36
UK Measles figures 2025 - 420 cases confirmed to 5th June. Bristol 47, Leeds 29 and Newham 23.
Cases of Whooping Cough (Pertussis) in Kentucky, USA, have been steadily rising for around a year, with 543 cases in 2024, and 247 so far this year. Sadly health authorities have informed us that 2 Kentucky infants have died in the past 6 months. Neither infant nor their mothers had been vaccinated.
Sierra Leone has a concerning outbreak of a new Clade 2b mpox variant, G.1, which is doubling rapidly, approximately every 2.2 weeks (by contrast the lineage A outbreak in Nigeria currently has a doubling time of around 2 years).
The first case was reported on 10th January, with the Sierra Leone Minister of Health declaring a Public Health Emergency almost immediately. Over 2,800 new cases had been reported by 22nd May, so some estimates suggest over 11,000 people may already be infected. Nearly all cases have a severe rash and around 25% have been hospitalised.
Genomic analysis (bearing in mind very few mpox cases in poorer countries are sequenced) shows the closest relatives are lineage A cases from the US that were imported from Nigeria. It seems likely Sierra Leone's outbreak also originated in Nigeria, so where and when did the mutation to G.1 actually occur? Is Nigeria about to have a big problem too? Will this break out and cause epidemics elsewhere, and if/when it does, will richer, healthier countries still be able to shrug it off with very few serious cases, in the same way we have the previous mpox outbreaks?
Because mpox variants so far haven't been as severe in richer, well-fed populations with access to healthcare and vaccinations, it has been downgraded as a threat. G.1 variant mpox has already been detected in the US & Europe, if it begins to spread then then we can only hope the same is true.
Sierra Leone has a population of 8 million people and is one of the poorest countries on Earth. Despite this it is doing its best. They mobilised public health teams immediately and are contact tracing and educating the population, testing and sequencing as much as they can, and sharing all data in real time. What they really need is help, and for someone to start mass producing vaccines to send to them. To ignore this as 'someone else's problem' is a reckless and inhumane stance.
In an obscenely cruel turn of fate, less than 24 hours after the last UK Avian Flu restriction zone was lifted in Dorset, a new HPAI H5N1 outbreak has been confirmed in a backyard flock in Ravensthorpe, West Yorkshire.
The Government have sadly been proven correct to maintain the ban on bird shows and transit, and there are now concerns that despite farmer's best efforts, H5N1 will hide in waterfowl over Summer and plague the UK this Winter.
The H5N1 situation in US dairy herds is 'trickling along'. 8 new herds infected in 2 states in the last 30 days, for a total of 1,073. No new human cases.
Partly in response to the Avian Flu in US dairy cattle, a not-yet peer-reviewed study from researchers at the University Of Edinburgh has examined how well flu can survive in cow and sheep milk once it's outside the animal:
"Although the survival of influenza viruses in milk was variable, we consistently found that under laboratory conditions substantial viral infectivity remained over periods when people might reasonably be exposed to infected milk – for over a day at room temperature and for more than 7 days when refrigerated."
They tested several varieties of flu for 12 days, and H5N1 Avian Flu was one of the most successful. Your reminder that pasteurising kills flu viruses, and raw milk (especially in the US right now) is probably not worth it...
Just as people are made of DNA, viruses are made from RNA. COVID mRNA vaccines contain information about a 'spike protein' part of the RNA of the virus, so your body can recognise it and learns to fight it. They are "messengers" about RNA = mRNA vaccines.
A new COVID vaccine Zapomeran (or Kostaive) has been authorised in Europe, used in Japan and is being rolled out in India. Zapomeran isn't only a "messenger", it also contains the information to create an enzyme called 'replicase', which encourages your body to make more of the mRNA. This is a "self-amplifying messenger" = sa mRNA vaccine.
By self-amplifying, your immune system has more targets to practise on. Once your body has done it's job, recognised the threat and destroyed it, there isn't anything left - the same as with traditional vaccines, which usually contain a dead or weakened portion of an actual virus.
In trials Zapomeran is 56.7% effective at preventing symptomatic infection and 95.3% effective at preventing severe illness. Big benefits are that because it self-replicates, you only need 1/6th of the dose, and it comes in powder form, which is mixed with water and injected (several vaccines are made like this). Until it's been mixed it's pretty stable, so it's an excellent traveller and there’s very little waste.
"The UK becomes one of the first countries in the world to issue national evidence-based doxyPEP guidelines. This is a step forward in targeted STI prevention and addressing the continuing rise in syphilis cases in the UK."
UK HSA
The British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) has published national clinical guidelines on the use of doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis (doxyPEP), for the prevention of syphilis. This is given to people who may have been exposed, and prevents 77% of cases. With the rise in antibiotic-resistant strains, and syphilis diagnoses in England at their highest recorded level since 1948, this is a very wise move.
Still on sexual health and although the UK has a problem with sexually transmitted infections, it's not all bad news. We may have eye-watering levels of Syphilis, and new antibiotic-resistant strains of Gonorrhoea, but otherwise STIs dropped from 2023 to 2024. The excellent news is there was a 36% reduction in cases of Gonorrhoea in the 15-24 age group from 2023 to 2024, so fingers crossed that pattern continues.
Testing is free and confidential, and many people don't show symptoms, so risking it isn't wise.
On 4th June the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) published the UK’s first official guidance to "support the safe development and use of phage therapies – treatments that use viruses to target and destroy harmful bacteria".
Yep, bacteria have their own viruses too, and before antibiotics phages were used worldwide. Antibiotics were considerably more reliably effective and safer, so use of phages was phased out. Antibiotic-resistance is becoming a massive problem worldwide, so it looks like they're making a comeback.
"For patients, this could mean access to phage treatment when standard-of care-antibiotics fail or cannot be given, for example due to allergies. While some patients in the UK have already received phage therapy under compassionate use – with phages imported from abroad – there are currently no licensed phage medicines on the UK market."
An interim report from the Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner has confirmed that undelivered pandemic-era PPE contracts lost the British taxpayer £1.4 BILLION.
"...Over-ordering of PPE, and delays in checking it, mean that £762 million is unlikely to ever be recovered."
Recovery action so far has resulted in £182 million being returned to the public purse, and £468 million could still be recovered from suppliers.
And following on from that, sad news folks, but not for us. Muhahaha. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is suing PPE Medpro, Baroness Michelle Mone's husband's company, for £121 MILLION in the High Court. PPE Medpro 'allegedly' breached their COVID pandemic deal for 25 million surgical gowns, which were not useable because they were not sterile.
Quoted from UK Parliament records: "PPE Medpro was one of the private companies awarded valuable contracts having been referred through this High Priority Lane by Baroness Michelle Mone. PPE Medpro was set up on 12 May 2020. It was awarded its first contract, worth £81 million, a month later on 12 June to supply 210 million face masks. The Department awarded a second contract a couple of weeks later on 26 June, worth £122 million for sterile surgical gowns."
DHSC is seeking to recover an additional £8,648,691 for the cost of storage and transport of the useless items.
Might have to sell that new yacht Mich...
With the D-Day anniversary the UK National Archives have been sharing some of Churchill's handwritten notes with the BBC. Among them are several expressing his disappointment that the UK wasn't able to produce vast quantities of the new wonder drug Penicillin, in time to treat wartime casualties.
Although the antibiotic mould 'Penicillin' had been discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, it took some time to be able to turn it into a stable form which could be kept and transported, and the UK didn't have the capacity to produce it in bulk, so that job was turned over to the USA at first.
We all like to imagine that in an apocalypse we'd be killed by zombies, laser-wielding robots or something equally exotic, when in fact one of the biggest dangers could be tripping over your shoelace and getting a little cut on your finger.
"I can confirm that the FBI arrested a Chinese national within the United States who allegedly smuggled a dangerous biological pathogen into the country.
The individual, Yunqing Jian, is alleged to have smuggled a dangerous fungus called "Fusarium graminearum," which is an agroterrorism agent, into the U.S. to research at the University of Michigan, where she works."
Kash Patel, Director of the FBI.
I have deja vu. This is almost identical to where I came in, but in reverse... In late 2019 I noted a tiny, barely-newsworthy story about a Chinese national being caught attempting to smuggle 21 biological samples out of the US and back to China. I wanted to find out what it was - houseplant, banana, deadly pathogen? (it was cells for Cancer research). I began reading Chinese scientific media and voila, spotted something far more interesting and troublesome coming...
This week is Loneliness Awareness Week. Being by yourself when you want company can be miserable, but you don't have to be on your own to feel lonely, you can be alone in a relationship, and one of the loneliest places can be a crowded room. It helps to talk to somebody, and it shows a lot of strength. Please reach out. The Samaritans have lots of good advice online whether you are concerned for yourself or someone else, and their phonelines (116 123) are open 24 hours.
It is the weekend. Take some time to be kind to you - treat yourself. Do something that makes you smile and brings you joy. You've earnt it, and you deserve it. Dance, sing, smell the flowers, bake, bathe, read a good book or whatever suits, but do it for you.
I'll be back in 2 weeks, until then...
Wash Your Hands, Keep Talking, Save The NHS...
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Sources COVID
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
Reference pages H5N1
https://bnonews.com/index.php/human-cases-of-h5n1-bird-flu/
https://www.paho.org/en/topics/avian-influenza
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html
Infectious disease tracker
https://promedmail.org/
Bird flu updates and news
https://www.birdflualerts.com/
UK cases Measles
H5N1 (D1.1 wild bird / severe human and B3.13 dairy cows / mild human)
Images
WHO NB.1.8.1 images
WHO vaccines work against NB.1.8.1 image
Measles UK image
Ticks WHO image
Phage therapy UK IMAGE
Syplilis doxyPEP image
UK Gov wear a condom image
Antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea image
STIs over time UK IMAGES
Sources
Get updates
Measles UK
Get updates:
WHO NB.1.8.1 -
NB.1.8.1 first detected in January 2025, has spread to the US, Australia, Thailand, China, and Hong Kong
A virologist explains what to know about NB.1.8.1
NB.1.8.1 spreading across the USA
NB.1.8.1 spreading across Asia
NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus"
What you need to know about the new Covid strain NB.1.8.1 detected in the UK | The Independent
First cases of Covid variant NB.1.8.1 detected in England as virus spreads across UK | The Independent
Friday 6th week 1
Bangladesh enhanced COVID measures
UK operations waiting list down
The Trump administration is reversing 100s of firings at CDC, Chelsea Cirruzzo reports.
https://x.com/HelenBranswell/status/1932893963205128671?t=t3-D36YL8tWpyEFDMlZ65Q&s=09Trump
RFK Jr fires entire ACIP
RFK Jr quote Wednesday week 2
CIDRAP ACIP firing
RFK Jr to remove all members of CDC panel advising on US vaccines
Katelyn Jetelina
Monday week 2
Quote Professor Jonathan Reiner, CNN Medical Analyst.
RFK Jr.: HHS Moves to Restore Public Trust in Vaccines
Stat news ACIP firing
Sunday week 1
ACIP Kangaroo Court comments quote
Kangaroo Court in depth
Sunday week 2
https://x.com/HelenBranswell/status/1931837788787228763?t=w9x6A7OJOWxg80lpJ-A3Gw&s=09
The New ACIP Committee
RFK Twitter announcement
The new ACIP panel members
https://www.statnews.com/2025/06/11/rfk-jr-names-new-acip-members-replaces-cdc-vaccine-experts-he-just-fired/
ACIP The Guardian
US FDA approves Moderna’s COVID vaccination
Choldhood immunisation schedule US
Long COVID 3 years after hospitalisation
CIDRAP 3 year PC symptoms
Post‐COVID‐19 condition: clinical phenotypes
Measles
Baby dies from measles in Ontario
Six infants born with congenital measles in Ontario from unvaccinated mothers
Kansas Measles last report
Measles Us
CORI
CORI US, Canada and Mexico dashboard
Canada
UK Measles
dashboard
2 infants have died from Whooping cough in Kentucky
Sierra Leone mpox
https://x.com/PardisSabeti/status/1932859434738368610?t=TJJajj7wHL66u8WBdqZ_AQ&s=09
Sierra Leone mpox genomics
Top 20 Poorest Countries in the World 2025
H5N1
Farmers weekly H5N1 yorkshire
UK Gov bird flu
https://www.reddit.com/r/H5N1_AvianFlu/s/etq8dEjptB
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html
Avian influenza survives for a week in the fridge
CIDRAP Avian flu in milk
Zapomeran / Kostaive
Calcutta
Europe
The new vaccine encodes replicase proteins and the spike protein antigen, allowing for reduced doses of 5 ug compared to traditional mRNA vaccines that require 30 ug.
sr mRNA
Syphilis doxyPEP
Antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea and Syphilis
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ukhsa-publishes-latest-sti-data
Phage therapy UK
The @MHRAgovuk today released new guidance for #Phage therapy in the UK. This will provide direction for scientists and researchers working to make this treatment a reality for patients
Failed COVID PPE Contracts
PPE Medpro
Baroness Michelle Mone-linked company must pay back £121m for ‘faulty’ PPE, High Court told | The Independent
Parliament records PPE Medpro
Penicillin wartime BBC
2 Chinese nationals have been arrested for attempting to smuggle a deadly fungus into the US.
2019 scientists smuggling biological samples
The Samaritans
Call 116 123 for free from the UK.
Search 'help' on Google. Don't be on your own.
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