News Stories Mentioning Our Work

UTMB OH Newsletter article gets featured in newsletter for farmers.

How dangerous is it? Where did it come from? H5N1 influenza’s origins stretch back to the 1990s, and key events paved the way for the outbreak we’re seeing today. Dr. Gray provides insight.

Dr. Gregory Gray joined the Texas Standard to discuss the latest bird flu development – its jump to sheep in the UK. “Well, it’s odd in the sense that there’s been so many spillovers to new species, so the viruses have adapted characteristics that make that possible,” Gray said.

In new research developments, a team based at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, compared the virus characteristics of the bovine H5N1 strain with an older H5N1 strain collected from a wild bird in Mongolia in 2005. The findings appear in Scientific Reports. The investigators conducted their experiments using mice and panels of human lung cells. The cattle H5N1 strain showed superior growth and more rapid replication in the human lung cells. In mice, the bovine strain showed greater pathogenicity, rapid lung pathology, high virus titers in the brain, and high mortality following challenge via different infection routes. "In summary, this study demonstrates the profound pathogenicity and suggests a potential innate immune escape mechanism of the H5N1 virus isolated from a dairy cow in Texas," the authors wrote.

"It sure seems to me that we're going to have to start using vaccines if we want to start putting this fire out," UTMB’s Dr. Gregory Gray tells Reuters for a story on how the spread of the avian flu is affecting egg prices. Egg farmers are urging the USDA to approve the use of a vaccine to protect laying hens from the virus. This news was shared by outlets across the nation and internationally.

Bird flu continues to spread and farmers in Texas are worried, the Chronicle reports. So far, human cases have only involved workers in the poultry industry but that could change. "The concern is the virus might become highly transmissible among humans, with high morbidity and mortality rates," Dr. Gregory Gray tells the Chronicle. Similar stories ran in outlets across the country and internationally.

A new study shows that bird flu has silently spread from animals to some veterinarians, the AP reports. “This means that people are being infected, likely due to their occupational exposures, and not developing signs of illness and therefore not seeking medical care,” UTMB’s Dr. Gregory Gray said. This news was picked up by outlets across the nation and internationally.

After going quiet on bird flu, CDC scientists have published a report on its spread among veterinarians

"Now it looks like we have new strains of virus that may escape some of the immunity associated with the other strains of viruses that could exacerbate the epidemics among animals and wildlife," UTMB’s Dr. Gregory Gray tells Reuters after a new strain of bird flu has been detected in U.S. dairy cattle. This news was also reported in VOA, Dairy Herd Management, AgWeek, and other national and international outlets.