H5N1 Influenza From Animal Sources Surfaced In Wastewater Samples Across All 10 Monitored Texas Cities, Study Says

MedPage Today (9/11, Fiore) reports, “H5N1 influenza surfaced in wastewater samples across all 10 Texas cities monitored” between March and July 2024 by Texas Epidemic Public Health Institute researchers, data show, although “the detections have not correlated with influenza-related hospitalizations, nor has the group picked up mutations that would signal adaptation to humans.” Instead, the findings “suggest multiple animal sources, as all of their sequences ‘best match H5N1 genomes from birds and mammals’ and are from the 2.3.4.4b clade, the investigators wrote” in The New England Journal of Medicine.