Author: Claudinne Miller

Yes, Everyone Really Is Sick a Lot More Often After Covid

Bloomberg It’s not your imagination: At least 13 communicable diseases are surging past pre-pandemic levels. Since February, Kathy Xiang and her entire family have been under siege. Her 12-year-old daughter has had whooping cough, rhinovirus and parainfluenza: She’s missed more than five weeks of school in total. Xiang, a software developer in Shanghai, caught all […]

Jun 18, 2024

Bird Flu Is Infecting Cats (and the Occasional Dog). Here’s What to Know.

NYT A few “reasonable precautions” can help people keep their pets safe from the H5N1 virus, experts say. Over the past few months, a bird flu outbreak has spread swiftly through dairy cows in the United States, infecting more than 90 herds in 12 states. Along the way, the virus has caused collateral damage in several other […]

Jun 18, 2024

A critic of the U.S. response speaks out, and USDA tries to ‘corner the virus’

STAT Seth Berkley, the former head of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, gave voice last week to a point of view STAT has been hearing for a while about the U.S. response to the H5N1 bird flu outbreak in dairy cows. “It’s been shocking to watch the ineptitude,” Berkley, an American currently living in Switzerland, said at an event on […]

Jun 18, 2024

So far, officials have not detected infectious virus in any supermarket milk samples.

USA Today The finding comes as authorities are still identifying new infected herds in this year’s unprecedented outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in dairy cattle.  Infections have been detected in cows across farms in at least a dozen states, with most of the positive tests coming from raw milk samples that were teeming with the virus. Authorities have called […]

Jun 18, 2024

Infectious bird flu survived milk pasteurization in lab tests, study finds. Here’s what to know.

CBS News A “small but detectable quantity” of infectious H5N1 bird flu virus was able to survive a common approach to pasteurizing milk, according to new research co-authored by scientists at the National Institutes of Health.  The findings, published Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine, were based on experiments run at the agency’s lab. The researchers note […]

Jun 18, 2024

A Bird-Flu Pandemic in People? Here’s What It Might Look Like.

NYT There is no guarantee that a person-to-person virus would be benign, scientists say, and vaccines and treatments at hand may not be sufficient. The bird flu outbreak in dairy cattle has so far spilled over to just three farmworkers in the United States, as far as public health authorities know. All of them have […]

Jun 18, 2024

Flesh-Eating Bacteria That Can Kill in Two Days Spreads in Japan

Bloomberg A disease caused by a rare “flesh-eating bacteria” that can kill people within 48 hours is spreading in Japan after the country relaxed Covid-era restrictions. Cases of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS) reached 977 this year by June 2, higher than the record 941 cases reported for all of last year, according to the National Institute of Infectious […]

Jun 18, 2024

Epidemiologic Features of Recovery From SARS-CoV-2 Infection

JAMA Key Points Question  What variables are associated with time to recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection? Findings  In this cohort study of 4708 participants in a US meta-cohort, the median self-reported time to recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection was 20 days, and an estimated 22.5% had not recovered by 90 days. Women and adults with suboptimal prepandemic health, particularly […]

Jun 18, 2024

Japan reports record spike in potentially deadly bacterial infection

CNN Cases of a dangerous and highly fatal bacterial infection have reached record levels in Japan, official figures show, with experts so far unable to pinpoint the reason for the rise. As of June 2, Japan’s Health Ministry had recorded 977 cases of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS), which has a mortality rate of up […]

Jun 18, 2024

How hunters are helping researchers track the spread of tick-borne diseases

MedPageToday Tick-borne diseases are on the rise throughout the country — and a unique collaboration between hunters and researchers is helping to bring more information to light. Hunters are checking the animals they catch for ticks and then sending them to be tested for infections in a program with Baylor University and the Texas Parks and […]

Jun 18, 2024