• Vaccine maker Moderna announced yesterday that it has begun dosing participants in a phase 3 randomized clinical trial of its H5 pandemic flu vaccine candidate, mRNA-108. The trial, which is expected to include roughly 4,000 participants in the United States and United Kingdom, will investigate the safety and immunogenicity of the mRNA-based vaccine for avian flu in adults, with a focus on those over age 65 and poultry workers. “H5 influenza, or bird flu, remains a pandemic threat. The start of our Phase 3 trial for an H5 influenza vaccine marks a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to strengthen global pandemic preparedness,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a company press release. The trial is being funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
• The Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research (IOI) has launched a new antifungal drug discovery program. The IOI program aims to establish a pipeline for discovering and advancing new antifungal agents and next-generation antifungal therapies that are less prone to resistance. There are currently only four major classes of antifungal agents in clinical use, and resistance to those agents is rising globally. Antifungal-resistant infections are estimated to play a role in more than 3.8 million deaths a year. “We need to treat infectious fungi with the same urgency as disease causing bacteria,” IOI director Kevin Pethe said in an IOI news release. “The limited number of antifungal drugs that currently exist are starting to fail, and we need to build capacity in fungal research.”
• Alabama is seeing a sharp increase in cases of untreated syphilis, AL.com reports. Statistics from the Alabama Department of Public Health show that rates of late latent syphilis, an asymptomatic stage of the disease that occurs when the infection goes untreated for more than a year, rose by 58% from 2022 to 2025. State health officials say a shortage of benzathine penicillin G, the medication used to treat syphilis patients and their partners, could lead to a further increase in latent syphilis cases in the state in the coming years.

With Delaware reporting its first detection of chronic wasting disease (CWD) yesterday, the fatal neurodegenerative disease has now been found in 37 US states.

The case was detected in a wild white-tailed deer harvested in Sussex County as part of routine surveillance efforts, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) said in a news release. The infection was confirmed by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL).

A second deer sampled in the same county during the hunting season has tested positive at the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System, and the result is awaiting confirmation by the NVSL, the DNREC said.

Sussex is Delaware’s southernmost county. Since 2003, the DNREC has conducted annual CWD surveillance, testing a total of 12,938 samples. The positive samples were two out of more than 600 samples from across the state tested during the most recent hunting season.

Deer check-ins to be required next season

Immediately after the CWD-positive confirmation, DNREC activated its CWD response plan. “DNREC established a CWD Management Zone based on Wildlife Management Zones within a 5-mile radius around where the deer was harvested and will begin cluster sampling in that area to look for any additional cases nearby,” the release said. “The CWD Management Area encompasses wildlife management zones 14 and 16.” 

DNREC established a CWD Management Zone based on Wildlife Management Zones within a 5-mile radius around where the deer was harvested and will begin cluster sampling in that area to look for any additional cases nearby.

Next hunting season, the DNREC will require deer check-in at wildlife health-check stations for testing within the management area and may pass legislation aimed at limiting CWD spread in wild deer.

CWD, which is caused by infectious misfolded proteins called prions, affects cervids such as deer, moose, and elk. It spreads via direct contact, environmental contamination, and vertical transmission from doe to fawn in utero or during birth. 

No treatments or vaccines are available. While CWD isn’t known to infect humans, health authorities warn hunters against consuming meat from sick or infected deer and urge cervid testing in CWD-endemic areas.