Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
Brain eating amoeba found in Missouri resident after trip to Lake of the Ozarks
KSDK The deadly infection has been historically rare, but as climate change heats up waters and worsens flooding, research shows cases could become more common. A Missouri resident is in intensive care after officials confirmed they had contracted a rare and deadly infection after swimming at the Lake of the Ozarks. Missouri Department of Health […]
Aug 13, 2025
Idaho child contracts region’s first measles case in 30 years
KREM The health district says the confirmed infection was found in an unvaccinated child in Kootenai County. The case is the first in the region in more than 30 years. The Idaho Panhandle Health District (PHD) is reporting the first confirmed measles case in the region in more than 30 years. PHD says the infection […]
Aug 13, 2025
Ghana records first Mpox death as cases surge
Medical Express Ghana has recorded its first death from Mpox, health authorities confirmed Sunday, amid a sharp rise in new infections in the West African country. Twenty-three new cases have been confirmed in the past week, bringing the total number of infections to 257 since the virus was first detected in Ghana in June 2022. […]
Jul 30, 2025
Where Did Bird Flu Go?
American Scientific Bird flu was nearly everywhere in the U.S.—in chickens, cows, pet cats and even humans. Cases have gone down, but experts warn that it hasn’t disappeared. For months, bird flu was seemingly everywhere in the U.S.: news headlines reported the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus was rapidly sweeping through hundreds of herds of dairy cattle […]
Jul 30, 2025
The Invisible Toll of Bird Flu on Wildlife
Scientific American Bird flu fears have focused on the poultry and dairy industries and human health. But wild animals are threatened, too—at scales no one fully understands. 25,669 Northern Gannets in Canada.134 harbor and gray seals along the coast of Maine.21 California Condors in the western U.S. These are just a tiny fraction of the […]
Jul 30, 2025
What Would It Take for Bird Flu to Spread among Humans?
Scientific American H5N1 avian influenza has long been a concerning virus. Since its discovery in 1996 in waterfowl, bird flu has occasionally caused isolated human cases that have quite often been fatal. But last year H5N1 did something strange: it started infecting cattle. The absolute oddity of this leap may have been somewhat lost in the flood of […]
Jul 30, 2025
Avian Flu Wiped Out Poultry. Now the Screwworm Is Coming for Beef.
NYT The parasitic fly that attacks warm-blooded animals was eliminated from the United States in the 1960s, but it’s creeping toward the Texas-Mexico border. First came bird flu, which led to the culling of large swaths of the nation’s poultry flocks and the soaring egg prices that helped undermine President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s re-election. […]
Jul 30, 2025
Cambodia reports 14th human H5N1 bird flu infection in 2025
BNO News Cambodia has confirmed a new human case of H5N1 avian influenza in a 26-year-old man who is currently receiving intensive medical treatment, according to health officials. It is the country’s 14th confirmed human case of H5N1 this year. The man, from Kravan village in Siem Reap Province, tested positive for the virus on […]
Jul 30, 2025
COVID infection early in pandemic linked to higher risk of cancer death, CU study finds
Denver Post Cancer survivors infected with COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic had a higher risk of dying from dormant cells reawakening, Colorado researchers found, though they don’t know whether people who get the virus now face the same risk. Experiments in mice found that genetically modified animals were more likely to have signs of […]
Jul 30, 2025
Mainer hospitalized with tick-borne disease
Bangor Daily News A Hancock County resident has been hospitalized with the first human case of Powassan virus infection recorded by the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention this year. The adult was experiencing neurologic symptoms, according to the Maine CDC. The Powassan virus is spread through deer or woodchuck tick bites, and can […]
Jul 30, 2025