WHY IT MATTERS: The cases of swine flu set off alarm bells due to the pandemic potential of the swine flu virus if it recombines with a human flu virus, which could happen if a pig is infected with both at the same time.

In a later statement, the Catalan health department said the risk assessment for the population was considered “very low”.

The person infected did not exhibit flu-like respiratory symptoms, it said, and tests on direct contacts showed the virus had not retransmitted.

An earlier report by newspaper El Pais citing Catalan health department sources said the patient — who has since recovered — had no contact with pigs or pig farms, leading experts to conclude it was a human-to-human transmission of the pathogen.

This set off alarm bells due to the pandemic potential of the swine flu virus if it recombines with a human flu virus, which could happen if a pig is infected with both at the same time, the El Pais report added.

The WHO did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

In 2023, the Netherlands notified the WHO of a confirmed human infection with a swine influenza A(H1N1)v virus in an adult with no history of occupational exposure to animals.

In 2009, the swine flu pandemic in humans infected millions of people. It was caused by a virus that contained genetic material from viruses that were circulating in pigs, birds and humans.

— Reporting by Joan Faus, Emma Pinedo and Olivia Le Poidevin

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Asked about communication received by the WHO from Washington on the H5N1 outbreak, Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva: “Communication is a challenge indeed. The traditional ways of contact have been cut.”

He declined to elaborate.

A U.S. outbreak of the H5N1 virus has infected nearly 70 people, mostly farm workers, since April 2024. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported for the first time last week that a second strain of bird flu was found in dairy cattle in Nevada, a discovery that ramped up concerns about the U.S. outbreak.

Under WHO rules known as the International Health Regulations (IHR), countries have binding obligations to communicate on public health events that have the potential to cross borders. These include advising the WHO immediately of a health emergency and measures on trade and travel.

Other countries have privately voiced concern at the idea that the United States would stop communicating about emerging viruses that could become the next pandemic. “If such a big country does not report anymore, what message does it send?” said a Western diplomat in Geneva.

Argentina has also said it plans to withdraw from the WHO, citing “deep differences” regarding the agency’s management of health issues, notably the COVID-19 pandemic.

— Reporting by Emma Farge

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The official also urged stronger efforts to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus to new species of animals and to humans.

“What we really need globally, in the U.S. and abroad, is much stronger surveillance in animals, in wild birds, in poultry, in animals that are known to be susceptible to infection,” WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove told an online press conference.

The agency said it is in touch with partner agencies such as the World Organization for Animal Health and Food and Agriculture Organization to increase surveillance in animals.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month confirmed the presence of H5N1 bird flu in a pig on a backyard farm in Oregon.

Pigs represent a particular concern for the spread of bird flu because they can become co-infected with bird and human viruses, which could swap genes to form a new, more dangerous virus that can more easily infect humans.

“For us at the WHO we are always in a constant state of readiness as it relates to influenza, because it isn’t a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” Kerkhove said, adding that the risk to the general population for avian influenza remains low globally.

So far, 55 human cases of H5N1 bird flu, including in a child, have been reported in the United States this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A teenager in B.C. was also reported to be hospitalized with avian influenza.

Most of these cases were among farm workers who had contact with infected poultry or cows. There has been no person-to-person spread associated with any of the H5N1 bird flu cases, according to the CDC, but dairy and other farm workers are considered to be at higher risk of contracting the virus.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared AMR as one of the top 10 global public health threats against humanity. It is estimated that by 2050, antibiotic-resistant infections could claim 10 million lives each year and impose a cumulative $100 trillion burden on the global economy.

The list of bacteria that are becoming resistant to treatment with all available antibiotic options is growing and few new drugs are in the pipeline, creating a pressing need for new classes of antibiotics to prevent public health crises.

“We took a creative, double-pronged strategy to develop new molecules that can kill difficult-to-treat infections while enhancing the natural host immune response,” said Farokh Dotiwala, assistant professor in the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center and lead author of the effort to identify a new generation of antimicrobials named dual-acting immuno-antibiotics (DAIAs).

Existing antibiotics target essential bacterial functions, including nucleic acid and protein synthesis, building of the cell membrane, and metabolic pathways. However, bacteria can acquire drug resistance by mutating the bacterial target the antibiotic is directed against, inactivating the drugs or pumping them out.

“We reasoned that harnessing the immune system to simultaneously attack bacteria on two different fronts makes it hard for them to develop resistance,” said Dotiwala.

He and colleagues focused on a metabolic pathway that is essential for most bacteria but absent in humans, making it an ideal target for antibiotic development.

This pathway, called methyl-D-erythritol phosphate (MEP) or non-mevalonate pathway, is responsible for biosynthesis of isoprenoids — molecules required for cell survival in most pathogenic bacteria.

Researchers at the Philadelphia institute used computer modeling to screen several million commercially available compounds for their ability to bind with the enzyme, and selected the most potent ones that inhibited IspH function as starting points for drug discovery.

Since previously available IspH inhibitors could not penetrate the bacterial cell wall, Dotiwala collaborated with Wistar’s medicinal chemist Joseph Salvino, Ph.D., professor in The Wistar Institute Cancer Center and a co-senior author on the study, to identify and synthesize novel IspH inhibitor molecules that were able to get inside the bacteria.

The team demonstrated that the IspH inhibitors stimulated the immune system with more potent bacterial killing activity and specificity than current best-in-class antibiotics when tested in vitro on clinical isolates of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including a wide range of pathogenic gram negative and gram positive bacteria. All compounds tested were shown to be nontoxic to human cells.

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“China has been importing a large quantity of meats this year, and has detected virus on the packaging of cold chain products many times, even as lots of disinfection has been done domestically,” Gao Guan, spokesman for the China Meat Association, said by telephone on Tuesday.

“It should be better to handle this (virus control) at the meats exporting origins, and carry out disinfection at the production plants,” as the cost would be lower, and efficiency higher, Gao added.

China has ramped up disinfection and virus testing on frozen food after it found coronavirus on imported products and packaging.

The measures have pushed up costs, disrupted trade, and irritated major exporters.

The semi-official industry body suggested exporters in COVID-19 hit countries should disinfect the outer packaging of products and the inner side of containers before sealing export products, a statement published on the association’s official WeChat account said at the weekend.

The initiative was proposed to “ensure the safety of imported cold-chain food and boost consumers’ confidence in imported cold-chain products,” the statement said.

The proposal came after some major exporters, including JBS in Brazil, started to take measures including extensive disinfection of products and storage sites, to supply China with safe products, Gao said.

Reported cases have shown that contact with packaging contaminated with coronavirus could lead to human infection, said the Chinese association.

The World Health Organization has said the risk of catching COVID-19 from frozen food is low. Chinese officials echoed that such risk was low, but there was still a risk.

“The virus is new. We are still accumulating experience when fighting against it,” Gao said.

“We should get together and discuss how to use the most scientific, efficient and low-cost way to secure public health, and trade at the same time,” Gao added.

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Glyphosate, first developed by Bayer’s Monsanto under the Roundup brand, has generated intense global debate over its safety since a World Health Organization agency concluded in 2015 that it probably causes cancer.

While regulators worldwide have determined glyphosate to be safe, Bayer agreed in June to settle nearly 100,000 U.S. lawsuits for $10.9 billion, denying claims that Roundup caused cancer.

France will grant a temporary tax credit of 2,500 euros ($3,030) to farmers who declare in 2021 and/or in 2022 to have stopped use of glyphosate in the sectors most affected by a halt in the use of the weedkiller, such as wine, orchards and grain crops, the ministry said.

It also increased to 215 million euros planned financing to help farmers in the European Union’s top agricultural producer to change their agricultural equipment.

“The challenge is to put in place mechanisms to compensate for farmers’ costs due to the withdrawal (of) glyphosate, because today a farmer who invests to phase out glyphosate does not benefit from immediate value creation,” the ministry said in a statement.

Stopping the use of glyphosate on a grain farm leads to a loss in gross operating profit of up to 16 percent, which amounts to an extra cost of up to 80 euros per hectare, or up to 7,000 euros for an average farm of 87 hectares, the ministry said.

Last week Macron told online channel Brut that he had not changed his mind on the objective of ending use of glyphosate but recognised he had not succeeded in doing it within three years – a pledge he had made in 2017 – describing it as a collective failure.

France’s health and environment agency ANSES in October announced restrictions on glyphosate in farming, but stopped short of a full ban because of a lack of non-chemical alternatives in some areas.

($1 = 0.8260 euros)

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Health authorities found virus strains in humans and in mink which showed decreased sensitivity against antibodies, potentially lowering the efficacy of future vaccines, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at a press conference.

“We have a great responsibility towards our own population, but with the mutation that has now been found, we have an even greater responsibility for the rest of the world as well,” she said.

“The mutated virus in mink may pose a risk to the effectiveness of a future vaccine,” Frederiksen said, adding that it “risks being spread from Denmark to other countries.”

The findings, which have been shared with the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, were based on laboratory tests by the State Serum Institute, the Danish authority dealing with infectious diseases.

The head of WHO’s emergencies programme, Mike Ryan, on Friday called for full-scale scientific investigations of the “complex, complex issue” of humans — outside China — infecting mink which in turn transmitted the virus back to humans.

Outbreaks at mink farms have persisted in the Nordic country, the world’s largest producer of mink furs, despite repeated efforts to cull infected animals since June.

The country’s police, army and home guard would be deployed in order to speed up the culling process, Frederiksen said.

Tougher lockdown restrictions and intensified tracing efforts would be implemented to contain the virus in some areas of northern Denmark, home to a large number of mink farms, authorities said.

“The worst-case scenario is a new pandemic, starting all over again out of Denmark,” director at the State Serum Institute, Kare Molbak, said. The new strain showed diminished sensitivity towards antibodies, he added.

“That’s why we have to take this extremely seriously,” Molbak said.

Minks have also been culled in the Netherlands and Spain after infections were discovered.

Authorities had registered five cases of the new strain on mink farms and 12 cases in humans.

There are between 15 million and 17 million mink in Denmark, authorities said.

Canada, at the end of 2018, had 98 mink farms, down from 237 in 2014, according to Statistics Canada.

Of the 98, 43 were in Nova Scotia, 28 in Ontario. six each in British Columbia and Newfoundland, four each in Manitoba, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, and three in Quebec.

Canada’s National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) maintains a code of practice for the care and handling of farmed mink. A five-year review was completed in 2018.

NFACC, on its website, says the code is “currently undergoing an amendment,” expected to be completed in March next year, with a public comment period now running into December.

Issues flagged as “major challenges” expected to be addressed in those amendments include pen sizes, access to nest boxes and methods of euthanasia.

— Reporting for Reuters by Nikolaj Skydsgaard and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; additional reporting by Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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That study, by a team of Chinese scientists and published by the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), warned that a new swine flu virus, named G4, has become more infectious to humans and could become a potential “pandemic virus.”

However, China’s agriculture ministry said in a statement that the study has been interpreted by the media “in an exaggerated and nonfactual way.”

An analysis by the ministry concluded that sampling of the published study is too small to be representative, while the article lacks adequate evidence to show the G4 virus has become the dominant strain among pigs.

The ministry said it drew its conclusions after holding a seminar on the G4 virus’s impact on the hog industry and public health. Participants included Chinese veterinarians and anti-virus experts, as well as the leading authors of the PNAS study.

The participants concurred that the G4 virus is not new, the statement said. Furthermore, such a strain has been monitored continuously by the World Health Organization (WHO) and related agencies in China since 2011, the statement said, citing a senior WHO official.

In addition, the authors of the published study agreed that the G4 virus does not effectively replicate in the human body and cause disease, according to the statement.

The ministry’s statement was authored by Yang Hanchun, a swine viral disease scientist at China Agricultural University who also serves the role of expert on a ministry anti-epidemic committee.

— Reporting for Reuters by Samuel Shen, Hallie Gu and Ryan Woo.

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The EPA’s announcement reaffirms its earlier findings about the safety of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Bayer’s Roundup. The company faces thousands of lawsuits from Roundup users who allege it caused their cancer.

“EPA continues to find that there are no risks to public health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label and that glyphosate is not a carcinogen,” the agency said in a statement.

Farmers spray glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in U.S. agriculture, on fields of soybeans and other crops. Roundup is also used on lawns, golf courses and elsewhere.

The EPA did previously find ecological risks from the chemical and has proposed new measures to protect the environment from glyphosate use by farmers and to reduce the problem of weeds becoming resistant to it.

Bayer said it was pleased the EPA and other regulators who have assessed the science on glyphosate for more than 40 years continue to conclude it is not carcinogenic.”Bayer firmly believes that the science supports the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides,” it said in a statement. The company has repeatedly denied allegations that glyphosate and Roundup cause cancer.

But critics of the chemical disputed the EPA’s assurances.

“Unfortunately American consumers cannot trust the EPA assessment of glyphosate’s safety,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity.

Monsanto developed Roundup as the first glyphosate-based weed killer, but it is no longer patent-protected and many other versions are available. Bayer bought Monsanto last year for $63 billion (all figures US$).

The debate over glyphosate’s safety has put a spotlight on regulatory agencies around the world in recent years and, more recently, on U.S. courtrooms.

In 2015, the World Health Organization’s cancer arm classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” But the EPA in 2017 said a decades-long assessment of glyphosate risks found the chemical was not likely carcinogenic to humans.

In February, analysts at Brazilian health agency Anvisa also determined the weed killer does not cause cancer while recommending limits on exposure.

In the first U.S. Roundup trial, a California man was awarded $289 million in August 2018 after a state court jury found the weed killer caused his cancer. That award was later reduced to $78 million and is being appealed by Bayer.

A U.S. jury in March awarded $80 million to another California man who claimed his use of Roundup caused his cancer.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tom Polansek; additional reporting by Kate Kelland in London.

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It shows that while corn and soybean acreage and yield have increased in the province since 1983, the impact of herbicide use per acre has declined, in large part because glyphosate has displaced other herbicide chemistries.

Why it matters: Glyphosate has had a rough ride lately, partly because it is used on so many acres, but also because a jury in California recently awarded a man damages after he attributed his cancer to the use of glyphosate in his work. Government data, like this from Ontario, is important for farmers who continue to assert that glyphosate is safe and beneficial.

Chris Dufault, an agrologist and former head of re-evaluation and use analysis section of the Pest Management Regularly Agency (PMRA) and Rob Saik, founder of Agri-Trend and principal of Saik Management Group, looked at data from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, which they say is useful because is it collected every five years using the same method, and has been since 1983, so it will show trends over time.

The most-recent survey was from 2013-14.

Glyphosate’s popularity skyrocketed because it is effective on both broadleafs and grasses and can be sprayed on corn and soybeans modified to resist the herbicide. That simplified weed control for many farmers, but recently it has also resulted in greater concern with weeds resistant to the herbicide.

However, there can be no denying the effect of glyphosate on herbicide application in Ontario. Between 1983 and 2013, the total amount of herbicides applied to fields declined by 39 per cent. The reduction is due to the fact that glyphosate is applied at a lower rate of active ingredient than the herbicides it replaced. Use of glyphosate increased from one per cent to 54 per cent of total herbicide use in that time.

The decline in total herbicide use happened at the same time as an 11 per cent increase in the acres of corn. Yield also increased 74 per cent over that 30-year period.

In soybeans, acreage increased by 188 per cent, while the total herbicide applied to soybeans increased 47 per cent. Dufault and Saik also attribute this to the replacement by glyphosate of herbicides with higher application rates. Soybean yield per acre increased by 53 per cent in that time period as well.

Dufault and Saik also highlighted an Ontario government report that ranked herbicide active ingredients by their Environmental Impact Quotient — an indicator of a pesticide’s ability to do harm.

The EIQ, as calculated using 12 points in the Ontario study, was 15.3 for glyphosate, 10th lowest of the active ingredients evaluated. For example, atrazine has an EIQ of 22.9.

Dufault and Saik say not only has the volume of applied herbicides decreased with glyphosate use, but the toxicity of the herbicide applied has also declined.

National regulators use much more stringent evaluations than the 12 points in the Ontario EIQ. The herbicide has regularly been reapproved by regulators and Dufault and Saik say that is partly because of the larger volume of data country regulators have available to them, compared to other organizations such as the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The World Health Organization body classified cancer as “probably carcinogenic.”

“Glyphosate has played a key role in enabling many farmers to achieve excellent weed control in herbicide-tolerant crops while adopting reduced or zero tillage. This reduction in cultivation has positive implications for the environment in terms of soil health, water holding capacity and greenhouse gas balance,” Default and Saik conclude.

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