The bird flu virus strain that infected a Texas dairy farm worker in March was lethal to ferrets in experiments designed to mimic the disease in humans, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Friday.
Seasonal flu, by contrast, makes ferrets sick but does not kill them, the CDC said.
Ferrets are considered the best small mammal for studying influenza virus infection and transmission and are commonly used as a tool to inform public health risk assessments of emerging influenza viruses, according to the CDC.
The strain of the (A)H5N1 avian influenza virus found in Texas spread easily among healthy ferrets when they were placed in direct contact with infected ferrets, the researchers found.
The virus was less efficient than other influenza strains at spreading by respiratory droplets, however.
This suggests that viruses like this one “would need to undergo changes to spread efficiently by droplets through the air, such as from coughs and sneezes,” the CDC said.
Bird flu has been reported in more than 80 dairy herds across 11 US states since late March. Scientists are on alert for changes in the virus that could signal it is adapting to spread more easily among humans.
Reuters reported earlier on Friday that US federal and state agencies are planning research into potential respiratory spread of bird flu among dairy cattle in a move aimed at guiding efforts to contain the virus and reduce exposure to humans. Respiratory spread could give the virus more opportunity to evolve, they said.
The US, Mexico and Australia have reported a total of five human cases of different versions of H5 bird flu since March. The three US cases were mild, with two dairy workers — one infected in Texas — experiencing just conjunctivitis, or pink eye, while a third case involved some respiratory symptoms.
The man in Mexico, who had other chronic conditions, died from multiple factors, the WHO said on Friday.
The new findings in ferrets “are not surprising and do not change CDC’s risk assessment for most people, which is low,” the agency said.
“The results do reinforce the need for people who have exposure to infected animals to take precautions and for public health and agriculture communities to continue to work together to prevent the spread of the virus to additional dairy herds and people.”
Texas bird flu strain kills ferrets used to mimic disease in humans, US CDC says
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Texas bird flu strain kills ferrets used to mimic disease in humans, US CDC says
British prime minister heads to Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales to reset ties with UK’s 4 nations
Starmer, who said he has a “mandate to do politics differently” after his party’s landslide victory, will meet Scottish First Minister John Swinney in Edinburgh in an effort to “turn disagreement into cooperation.”
“That begins today with an immediate reset of my government’s approach to working with the first and deputy first ministers,” he said. “Meaningful co-operation centered on respect will be key to delivering change across our United Kingdom.”
While each of the devolved nations in the UK elects members to the House of Commons in London, they also have their own regional parliaments.
Starmer’s Labour Party trounced Swinney’s Scottish National Party for seats in Parliament. But the SNP, which has pushed for Scottish independence, still holds a majority at Holyrood, the Scottish parliament.
The trip to build better working relations across the UK is part of Starmer’s broader mission to work toward serving people as he tackles of mountain of problems.
The Labour government inherited a wobbly economy that left Britons struggling to pay bills after global economic woes and fiscal missteps. It also faces a public that is disenchanted after 14 years of chaotic Conservative rule and fiscal austerity that hollowed out public services, including the revered National Health Service, which Starmer declared broken.
Starmer said he wants to transfer power from the bureaucratic halls of government in London to leaders who know what’s best for their communities.
After his brief tour, he’ll return to England, where he plans to meet with regional mayors, saying in his first news conference Saturday that he would engage with politicians regardless of their party.
“There’s no monopoly on good ideas,” he said “I’m not a tribal political.”
Starmer continued to speak with other world leaders, having separate calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
He spoke with both about his priorities for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the return of hostages to Israel, and an increase in humanitarian aid, a spokesperson said.
He told Abbas that the recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a peace process was the “undeniable right of Palestinians” and told Netanyahu it was important to ensure the long-term conditions for a two-state solution, including ensuring financial means for Abbas’ Palestinian Authority to operate effectively.
On Tuesday, Starmer will jet off to Washington for a NATO meeting.
Meanwhile, his top diplomat, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, was due in Poland and Sweden Sunday after visiting Germany on Saturday for his first trip abroad to strengthen ties with European partners.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on the social media platform X that the UK was an indispensable part of Europe and they were working with the British government to see how it could move closer to the European Union.
Lammy reiterated Starmer’s pledge not to rejoin the EU single market after British voters in 2016 voted to break from the political and economic union.
“Let us put the Brexit years behind us,” Lammy told The Observer. “We are not going to rejoin the single market and the customs union but there is much that we can do together.”
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said Sunday on Sky News that the UK should look for ways to improve trade with the EU and that removing some trade barriers was sensible. But he said the Labour government was not open to the free movement of people that was required as a member of the union.
‘Miracles’ and hope: Deadly stampede spotlights India’s craze for godmen
- Hindu preachers and gurus in India are sought by millions of followers for miracle cures and spiritual advice
- Gathering addressed by Bhole Baba, an ex-policeman, last week drew a quarter of a million people in a crowded field
BAHADURNAGAR: Just a pat on the back by preacher “Bhole Baba” and Ramkumari said a stone in her kidney vanished. The 85-year-old gave no proof but this story and countless others of similar “miracles” led to Baba’s following rocketing in India’s northern states.
A gathering addressed by the former police head constable in a crowded field last week drew a quarter of a million people and caused one of the deadliest stampedes in the country.
Bhole Baba, or Innocent Elder, was born Suraj Pal Singh Jatav. He quit the police in 2000 to join a series of Hindu preachers and gurus in India who are sought by millions for miracle cures and spiritual advice. They are often called godmen, and many have been wooed by politicians for the influence they wield.
Their patrons have included international celebrities like the Beatles, who spent days in the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the late 1960s. Some of these gurus expanded beyond India, most famously Osho, who lived and preached in the United States in the early 1980s.
Almost all of them are credited by their followers with miraculous powers.
“I had gone to one of his early gatherings and told him I had chronic pain from a kidney stone for many months,” said Ramkumari, Baba’s former neighbor in Bahadurnagar village in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, where he was born and still has a home.
The village has only about 50 homes in all and is set amid fields which grow corn, wheat and rice. On the periphery is a sprawling, pearly-white ashram run by devotees of Baba.
“He smiled and blessed me with a pat on the back. The stone vanished soon after,” said Ramkumari, who gave just one name.
Another resident in the village, 55-year-old Surajmukhi, said Baba’s blessing helped her give birth to a son after seven daughters. Sons are sought after in many Indian families.
“We desperately wanted a boy,” said Surajmukhi. “Then I met Baba with my husband. He made me chant some mantras (verses), gave me some water to drink and patted me on my back. After nine months I had a baby boy.”
Lying on a cot next to her, Baba’s older sister Sonkali, thin and frail, said: “It was a miracle.”
Baba, formally known as Narayan Sakar Hari now, is estimated to be about 72 by his family and followers, who are spread across India’s heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.
LINE TO GOD
Two neighbors who have known him since his childhood, including Ramkumari, said he took the path after a dream one night about 25 years ago that a divine spirit had given him supernatural powers. He quit the police in the city of Agra and started preaching, they said.
Baba would later claim he had a direct line to God and could channel divine blessings to people.
“Soon after we saw a line of cars bringing Suraj Pal into the village and people said he would henceforth be called a Baba (elder),” Ramkumari said.
Reuters could not contact Baba. He told Reuters partner ANI that he was grieving and his aides would help the injured and the families of the deceased.
The stampede at his gathering on Tuesday killed 121 people, mostly women, and injured scores out of about 250,000 who had congregated in a canopied paddy field to listen to him, many trampling over one another as they ran after his car when he was leaving.
Police say authorities had allowed only 80,000 to attend, and have arrested six aides to Baba who were involved in organizing the event. The main organizer surrendered to police on Friday.
Police said that in the initial days of his rise to fame, Baba had claimed that he could bring the dead back to life and even tried to take away the body of a 16-year-old girl from a crematorium promising a miracle to the family. Police intervened and the matter was closed soon after.
Posters and videos posted on YouTube show him dressed in traditional Indian kurta tunics or pristine white suits and ties, often sporting sunglasses, a departure from the spartan image of most godmen.
Still, his clout is smaller than other gurus and godmen in India, including Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Sadhguru. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, runs the Patanjali consumer goods brand that has boomed in recent years.
Two godmen, Asaram Bapu and Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, were both convicted of rape in separate cases and jailed, after years of drawing thousands of devotees to their sermons and ashrams.
GIVE PEOPLE HOPE
Sociologists say such gurus are often believed to possess healing powers, and are especially popular among those who are poor, sick or feel underprivileged.
“People are insecure — economically, socially and otherwise,” said Dipti Ranjan Sahu, head of sociology at the University of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.
“Unemployment, deprivation, discrimination, ignorance, illiteracy — these things play a part. So they see hope in the godmen, maybe some miracle will happen.”
Surinder Singh Jodhka, who teaches social sciences at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and has researched on the subject, said “people are kind of looking for some meaning in their life” and that’s where godmen come in.
“People are feeling lost and they are looking for some sense through which they can identify with other people, they feel less lonely,” he said. “This gives them hope and they are willing to believe in it.”
Mango galore: Annual festival delights thousands of visitors in New Delhi
- With over 1,500 varieties of mangoes, India produces about half of world’s total
- New Delhi hosted 33rd edition of annual mango festival from July 5 to 7
NEW DELHI: Tens of thousands of people attended New Delhi’s annual mango festival over the weekend to see and taste hundreds of the fruit’s varieties from all over India.
The South Asian country grows over 1,500 varieties of mango, making it the world’s largest mango producer as it accounts for about half of global production of the fruit.
In the Indian capital, farmers and sellers from across the nation gathered to present more than 500 varieties of mangoes to lovers of the fruit and curious visitors as part of the city’s three-day festival that ended on Sunday.
“People love this and eagerly await this every year … This show hosts the largest number of mango varieties,” Maniksha Bakshi, public relations manager of the festival’s organizer, Delhi Tourism, told Arab News.
“Besides the private farmers, a number of agriculture universities and government organizations have also participated and displayed their hybrid varieties … The variety of mangoes on display has increased. People have come from Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana and different parts of the country.”
On the 33rd edition of the festival this year, Delhi Tourism also arranged side events to attract more visitors, including special sessions dubbed “master classes,” which involve chefs making mango-based dishes.
Organizers said they had expected about 30,000 people to attend, making it an opportunity for farmers to showcase the wide range of their produce.
“I want to display my variety of mangoes at the festival,” said mango farmer Azmi Rizvi, who is from Sitapur city.
“In my mango orchard, there are at least 120 to 130 varieties. Besides that, sweet mangoes and pickle mangoes are also there.”
Teppei Yamashita, a Japanese national, was surprised to discover the array of mangoes at the event.
“I never knew this many types of mangoes existed. I thought it was a joke. My staff was telling (me about) hundreds and hundreds of types of mangoes, and I now witnessed it as a fact,” he said.
Some Indians also attended out of curiosity about the different mango varieties, as many are not commonly found in the capital’s markets.
“The kind of mangoes that we see here, we generally don’t see in the market … Majority of them we never heard the name of … so it’s a wonderful experience to be here,” visitor Gaurav Narang said.
For Vikash Singh, who has been attending the mango festival throughout the years, the wide spectrum of choices was the event’s main appeal.
“The reason for coming here is that in one place you get to see … varieties of mangoes — all different colors, different pulp, different shapes, different sizes,” Singh said. “It’s great fun here because you can get to taste the mangoes. You can buy mangoes (too).”
The festival also attracted mango buffs like Rumi Garg, who was among those who took part in a mango-eating competition.
“I had to participate in the contest. I am an avid mango lover and I like all the mango products — mango cakes, mango shakes and all those mango puddings. I finished it all, hoping to win in the competition,” he said.
Dr. A.K. Singh, a professor at Pantnagar University in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, said he has been going to the festival for more than a decade.
“We (India) are the leaders in the case of mango production,” Singh said. “I have been attending this mango festival for the last 16 years and the response of the public is really good. They are very much interested.”
Chinese Premier Li congratulates new British PM Starmer
BEIJING: Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Sunday congratulated new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on his election, state media reported, the first senior leader in Beijing to do so publicly.
China is “willing to work with the new UK government to consolidate mutual political trust and expand mutually beneficial cooperation,” Li told Starmer, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Their call came after days of silence from top officials in Beijing, with the Chinese foreign ministry saying only that it noted the results of the UK election.
By comparison, Chinese leader Xi Jinping congratulated Iran’s incoming president Masoud Pezeshkian just hours after his election on Saturday.
China was Britain’s fifth-largest trading partner as of 2023, according to the UK Department for Business and Trade.
But diplomatic relations between the two countries have been icy in recent years, with Beijing and London sparring over tightening communist control in former British colony Hong Kong.
The two sides have also traded accusations of espionage, with Beijing saying last month that MI6 had recruited Chinese state employees to spy for the UK.
Xinhua on Sunday said Li told Starmer that the “strengthening of bilateral coordination and cooperation was in the interests of both sides.”
Russia says captured another village in east Ukraine
- Russian troops had “liberated the village of Chigari” in the Donetsk region
- On Saturday, Moscow said its forces had taken control of another small village in the same region
MOSCOW: Russia on Sunday said its forces had captured another village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the latest modest territorial gain for its advancing forces.
Russian troops had “liberated the village of Chigari” in the Donetsk region, the defense ministry said in a daily briefing posted on social media.
On Saturday, Moscow said its forces had taken control of another small village in the same region, where Kyiv says the fiercest fighting across the entire front line is taking place.
Russia has made a string of battlefield advances since the start of the year, beginning with the capture of industrial hub Avdiivka in February.
But its progress has been grinding as the conflict looks locked in an attritional phase, with neither side able to punch a decisive breakthrough and both saying they are inflicting heavy casualties on the other.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday repeated his demand for Ukraine to totally withdraw from the region, along with three others in the south and east of the country, if it wants peace.
