Top 5 Infectious Disease News Stories Week of April 20- April 26

The FDA approved bepirovirsen (Hibsago; GSK) with nucleos(t)ide analogue therapy for chronic hepatitis B, based on B-Well 1 and 2 functional cure rates of 19% vs 0% with placebo.

A Yakima County resident exposed to infected dairy cattle has died of avian influenza. A third human case has also been confirmed as H5N1 spreads to 33 herds in the county.

Jean van Wyk, MBChB, MFPM, discussed the 5-year OPERA data from IDWeek 2026 as well as the anticipated CROWN study results.

Voceryq earned FDA accelerated approval for adults with RRP after 7 of 26 patients (27%) needed no surgery for 12 months in RRP-001; a confirmatory trial is required.

Cefiderocol MICs fell against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae, and the drug showed marked synergy with LL-37 against resistant Acinetobacter baumannii. Jacinda Abdul-Mutakabbir, PharmD, MPH, AAHIVP, discusses her team's findings around this therapy and these pathogens.

In a national survey of 959 US adults, 27.9% said they had exaggerated or made up symptoms to obtain antibiotics, most often cold-like symptoms, with implications for outpatient stewardship.

The CDC reports the Bundibugyo virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is now the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record. As of October 28, the agency counted 10,305 total confirmed cases and 4,996 total confirmed deaths. The overall risk to the American public and travelers remains low, and no cases tied to this outbreak have been confirmed in the US.

The latest CDC numbers show a 5.8% increase in measles cases from week-to-week, bringing the 2026 US total to more than double the amount seen in all of 2025 with 2 months left in the year.