• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said yesterday that its investigation into a multistate outbreak of extensively drug-resistant Salmonella linked to Rosabella brand moringa leaf capsules has ended. The outbreak sickened 10 people in eight states, with three new case-patients reported since the CDC’s last update in February. Three people were hospitalized in the outbreak of Salmonella Newport, which was resistant to all first-line and alternative antibiotics commonly used to treat Salmonella infections. The CDC ended its investigation into a separate Salmonella outbreak tied to contaminated moringa powder in March.
• Taiwan’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) has reported its first locally transmitted human case of H7 low-pathogenic avian flu infection, according to Avian Flu Diary. The patient is a man in his 70s who works in poultry farming and was hospitalized with fever and pneumonia on March 22. Thirty-three of the man’s close contacts are being monitored, and three have been given preventive medication. Taiwan CDC said genetic analysis of the H7 virus, which is different from the H7N9 virus that circulated in mainland China from 2013 to 2019, found no genetic mutations that would increase the risk of bird-to-human transmission.
• The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is reporting several H5N1 avian outbreaks in commercial and backyard flocks in recent days, including two large outbreaks at commercial turkey facilities in South Dakota that have affected more than 72,000 birds and outbreaks at duck meat facilities in Pennsylvania and Indiana that involved nearly 24,000 birds. APHIS is also tracking smaller H5N1 outbreaks in backyard flocks in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and live bird markets in Kings and Bronx counties in New York. Over the past 30 days, H5N1 has been detected in 70 flocks (39 commercial and 31 backyard) and affected 5.2 million birds.

Hospitalization costs for adults infected with human metapneumovirus (hMPV) are comparable to those hospitalized with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection, researchers reported today on Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

The retrospective study, based on patient data from Kaiser Permanente Southern California, examined total hospitalization costs for adults who tested positive for hMPV or RSV and were hospitalized from July 2011 through July 2024. A total of 5,775 adults who tested positive for hMPV (2,810) and RSV (2,965) were included in the study. 

“Although the economic impact of influenza-, SARS-CoV-2-, and RSV-associated disease in adults has been studied extensively, there are limited data on hMPV-associated healthcare costs in adult populations,” researchers from Kaiser Permanente and drugmaker AstraZeneca, which funded the study, wrote. 

AstraZeneca makes the monoclonal antibody Nirsevimab, which protects infants against RSV, and is developing a vaccine for hMPV.

More than $20,000 in hospital costs

Adults hospitalized with hMPV had slightly shorter hospital stays than those with RSV (6.4 vs 6.8 days), similar proportions of intensive care unit admission (14.8% vs 16.5%) and respiratory support requirement (24.8% vs 25.7%), and a greater proportion of pneumonia diagnosis (66.7% vs 56.8%). The adjusted mean hospitalization costs were $20,188 for hMPV and $21,759 for RSV. 

The study authors say the burden of disease associated with RSV and hMPV infection in older adults is considerable. 

“The increasing proportion of older adults combined with the high cost of hospitalization for hMPV and RSV underscore the importance of the development of vaccines and therapeutics directed against both hMPV and RSV,” the authors wrote.