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Quick takes: CDC warning on raw cheese, H5N1 avian flu case in Cambodia, HIV drug access
News brief
Today at 5:08 p.m.
Chris Dall, MA
Topics
Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)
E coli
HIV/AIDS
Quick takes: CDC warning on raw cheese, H5N1 avian flu case in Cambodia, HIV drug access
News brief
Today at 5:08 p.m.
Chris Dall, MA
Topics
Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)
E coli
HIV/AIDS
- In an update yesterday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said consumers and retailers should not eat, sell, or serve Raw Farm–brand raw cheddar cheese that was sold from January 4 until now. The cheese, and other Raw Farm–brand raw dairy products, have been linked to a multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli that has sickened at least nine people in three states. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked the company to voluntarily remove its raw cheese from the market, but the company has not responded to that request. CDC, FDA, and state health officials continue to investigate the outbreak.
- Cambodia’s Ministry of Health (MOH) has reported its third human H5N1 avian flu infection of 2026, according to Avian Flu Diary. The infected patient is a 3-year-old boy from Oddar Meanchey province who was confirmed positive for H5N1 on March 29 and is currently hospitalized. MOH officials say there have been reports of sick and dead chickens and ducks in the boy’s village and home. It’s the 37th human H5N1 case in Cambodia in the past three years, most of which are linked to a new reassortment of an older clade of H5N1.
- Humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is calling out drugmaker Gilead for not selling its HIV preventative medicine lenacapavir directly to the group. In an open letter published yesterday, MSF said it asked Gilead if it could buy a limited supply of the drug for its humanitarian programs, but the company refused, instead directing the group to buy lenacapavir from the Global Fund, which has a limited supply that MSF says falls far short of the global demand. “Blocking humanitarian organizations from accessing a medical breakthrough puts vulnerable people in danger,” Tom Ellman, director of MSF’s Southern Africa Medical Unit, said in a news release. “Gilead must decide whether it prioritizes protecting people or protecting control and profit.”