1. New Blood Test Shows Promise for Detecting Johne's Disease in Cattle
The approach could offer a new way to identify MAP infection by detecting changes in the cow's blood rather than the pathogen itself.
By Andrea Bedford
Drovers.com
August 14, 2026
Johne's disease has a diagnostic problem that has persisted for decades: infected cattle can harbor Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) for years while showing few or no clinical signs, and conventional tests may miss animals during that period. Now, researchers at the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness have developed a blood-based diagnostic that uses a combination of host microRNAs and machine learning to identify cattle infected with MAP.
The study identified a three-microRNA signature that demonstrated an estimated diagnostic sensitivity of 92.8% and specificity of 94.8%. By comparison, the combined reference tests used in the study had estimated sensitivity of 75.5% and specificity of 96.0%.
Full text: https://www.drovers.com/news/new-blood-test-shows-promise-detecting-johnes-disease-cattle
2. Top USDA official says spread of New World screwworm slowing
By Alexandrea Bailey
MYRGV.com
August 14, 2026
The northern spread of New World Screwworm (NWS) in the Southern U.S. is slowing, according to the Associate Administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Admiral Michael B. Schmoyer.
Schmoyer, the lead coordinator of the USDA's screwworm response, points to data publicly available on screwworm.gov, which is updated seven days a week.
As of Wednesday, while there have been 45 total confirmed cases of screwworm in the U.S., only three are active.
It is an important distinction because inactive cases no longer require mitigation efforts, either because the animal has fully recovered or appropriate measures have been taken to prevent the spread, such as the carcass management of a deceased infested animal.
Schmoyer says that while the rate of new cases is currently slowing, the spike that was experienced in the first couple weeks of its U.S. confirmation was normal. The expansion of surveillance, public vigilance, and successful coordination between departments influenced the slowing - as well as the targeted release of sterile flies, which essentially collapses the screwworm fly population with time.
"We have enough flies right now for the cases that have been reported to be able to address Texas, while still having a modest amount of flies that are forming a biological barrier on the northern border of Mexico," said Schmoyer.
3. Unvaccinated Oregon Horse Confirmed Positive for WNV
EDCC Health Watch
TheHorse.com
August 17, 2026
According to the State Department of Agriculture, an unvaccinated horse in Union County, Oregon, tested positive for West Nile virus (WNV) on Aug. 11.
Full text: https://thehorse.com/1146579/unvaccinated-oregon-horse-confirmed-positive-for-wnv/
4. Delaware Adds New Deer Hunting Rules to Fight CWD
EasternShoreUnderCover.com
August 17, 2026
State of DE - Delaware wildlife officials have put new rules in place to try to stop Chronic Wasting Disease from spreading. The move comes after the disease was found in the state for the first time earlier this year, with deer hunting season set to start in less than a month.
The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, known as DNREC, activated its CWD response plan once the disease was confirmed. In July, the agency worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and local landowners to test more deer near the two areas where CWD was first found.
That testing checked 100 deer close to the original cases. None of them tested positive for the disease.
DNREC says the new rules are meant to slow the spread of CWD and keep it limited to the area in Central Sussex County where it was found. The rules focus on cutting down activities that bring deer together and limiting how infected deer or deer parts can move around.
DNREC Secretary Greg Patterson said the clean test results were good news, but the state cannot let its guard down. "While it comes as a relief that no additional positive samples were found during the focused cluster sampling, the measures in the new regulations aim to help us contain CWD while its range is limited in our state," Patterson said. "Now is the time to get ahead of CWD, because once CWD starts spreading it's much more difficult to manage."
The new rules took effect Aug. 17. They create a CWD Management Zone covering Wildlife Management Zones 14 and 16, which includes DNREC's Midlands Wildlife Area and Trap Pond State Park in lower Sussex County.
Full text: https://www.easternshoreundercover.com/article/delaware-adds-new-deer-hunting-rules-to-fight-cwd.htm
5. Deer Disease Creeps Into Williamson County, Puts Middle TN Hunters On Notice
By Alicia Jones
Hoodline.com
August 15, 2026
Chronic Wasting Disease, a fatal and incurable illness that attacks the neurological system of white-tailed deer, has now been confirmed in Williamson County, putting the always-fatal disease within reach of Nashville's doorstep. Deer in Williamson County tested positive for the disease this year, joining a growing list of Middle Tennessee counties now grappling with the same problem.
Williamson County is not alone. According to News Channel 5 Nashville, deer in Dickson, Humphreys, Wayne, Lewis, and Decatur counties have also tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease this year, a spread that Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency deer biologist Jeremy Denison and Southern Woods and Waters contributor Anthony Landreth have been tracking and sharing information about. The disease was first discovered in Tennessee back in 2018, when it turned up in Hardeman, Madison, and Fayette counties in West Tennessee, far from the Nashville area. Its arrival in Williamson, Dickson, and Humphreys counties this year marks a steady eastward creep the state has watched unfold over several hunting seasons.
6. Killer fungus: how a disease threatening bat species has spread to northern Canada
Bat experts were shocked at how fast white-nose syndrome had reached Canada's northernmost colonies from the US. Now, the race is on to find a cure before species disappear
By Trina Moyles
The Guardian
August 13, 2026
Crawling through a narrow passage in a cave beneath a boreal forest near Fort Smith in Canada's Northwest Territories in May, two biologists spotted a lifeless bat on a limestone ledge, its body covered in a spindly white fungus.
When they shone their headlamps to get a closer look, they saw another bat with the fungus on its forearms. "It hissed at us and crawled back into a crack," Jesika Reimer says.
For Reimer, an ecologist specialising in bat populations in northern Canada and Alaska, there was little doubt. For 20 years, white-nose syndrome, a lethal disease caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (known as Pd), has swept west across North America, spreading from bat to bat and cave to cave, killing more than 6.7 million bats.
Now it had reached Fort Smith, a town about 450 miles (725km) south of the Arctic Circle. "For 20 years, we've been tracking the spread of white-nose syndrome across the continent," says Reimer's colleague, Joanna Wilson, a biologist for the Northwest Territories government. "We always knew it would eventually get here."