Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
Measles cases in Texas, New Mexico rise by 28 in five days as outbreak spreads
Reuters Texas and New Mexico on Tuesday reported an increase of 28 cases of measles in the last five days, bringing the total known infections to 256 in the two states since an outbreak began in late January. The outbreak, which started in West Texas, caused the first U.S. measles deaths in a decade. It […]
Mar 12, 2025
A Clearer Picture of Covid’s Lasting Effects on the Body
NYT Five years on, scientists are starting to understand how the virus can lead to long-term, sometimes invisible changes. Five years — and hundreds of millions of cases — after the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 pandemic, scientists are getting a clearer picture of how the virus can affect the body long after an […]
Mar 12, 2025
5 years since the pandemic started, long COVID patients are still hoping for a cure
NPR It’s been five years since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. But many patients with long COVID have yet to find meaningful recovery. Around 6% of adults in the U.S. — or roughly 18 million — are estimated to be living with the damaging aftermath of catching the virus, according to research and a long-running survey of U.S […]
Mar 12, 2025
Five years of Covid exacted a terrible toll. Another epidemic has claimed even more lives
STAT We lost sight of the fact that more young people were dying from drug overdoses than from Covid’ The 2020s have inarguably been Covid-19’s decade. Since the coronavirus outbreak was acknowledged as a pandemic exactly five years ago, the pandemic has killed well over 1 million Americans, derailed the global economy, and sparked political upheaval […]
Mar 11, 2025
COVID Broke the Rules of Virus Evolution
The Atlantic Why did this coronavirus change faster than scientists expected? In the early, uncertain days of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists delivered one comforting pronouncement: The virus that caused COVID mutates rather slowly. If that remained true, the virus would not change much to become more dangerous soon, and any vaccine could provide years of durable protection. What […]
Mar 11, 2025
Fighting the Flu
The Atlantic Behind the factory smoke and the roar of machinery for national defense there is another, greater defense for humanity being worked out these days in laboratories where influenza is being studied. Patient, persistent, brilliant experiments are being made in California, Puerto Rico, England, Malta, Minnesota, Suez, Pennsylvania, South Africa, Budapest, and New York […]
Mar 11, 2025
Tuberculosis Resurgent as Trump Funding Cut Disrupts Treatment Globally
New York Times The United States was the major funder of tuberculosis programs. Now hundreds of thousands of sick patients can’t find tests or drugs, and risk spreading the disease. Dalvin Modore walked as if there were broken glass beneath his feet, stepping gingerly, his frail shoulders hunched against the anticipation of pain. His trousers […]
Mar 11, 2025
His Daughter Was America’s First Measles Death in a Decade
The Atlantic Peter greeted me in the mostly empty gravel parking lot of a Mennonite church on the outskirts of Seminole, a small city in West Texas surrounded by cotton and peanut fields. The brick building was tucked in a cobbled-together neighborhood of scrapyards, metal barns, and modest homes with long dirt driveways. No sign out […]
Mar 11, 2025
Co-Circulating Viruses Causing Concern in Mpox Outbreak
IDSE.Net The mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spilled over into Uganda, which borders the DRC, according to reports at CROI 2025, which is ongoing in San Francisco (abstract 191). Surveillance has found co-circulating viruses, particularly varicella-zoster virus, with one person coming down with coinfections. That person died, according to Nicholas Bbosa, PhD, an assistant professor […]
Mar 11, 2025
Two domestic cats infected with H5N1 virus in Michigan
Detroit News Experts are urging cat owners to refrain from feeding their pets raw meat or unpasteurized milk after the bird flu virus was detected in two indoor domestic cats in Michigan. The Michigan State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory said cats appear to be highly susceptible to the HPAI A(H5N1) strain of avian influenza and “increased vigilance […]
Mar 11, 2025