Chrono list of posts

Nature But scientists say there are practical and ethical challenges to overcome before the strategy could be deployed in real-world settings. Mosquitoes that have been designed to carry vaccines in their saliva were used to inoculate bats against the rabies and Nipah viruses1. Scientists are investigating whether this technique could stop such viruses from ‘spilling… Read more: Using mosquitoes to vaccinate bats could curb the spread of deadly diseases

Univ of California, Davis Young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems face the greatest risk of serious illness (SACRAMENTO) If you came down with a respiratory infection this spring that wasn’t the flu or COVID-19, it may have been a virus you’ve never heard of: Human metapneumovirus or HMPV. The virus was first… Read more: A little-known respiratory virus, human metapneumovirus, surging in Northern California

Outbreak News Today The Madagascar Ministry of Health reported an additional 55 laboratory confirmed mpox cases since late February, bringing the the outbreak total to 387 lab confirmed cases and no deaths since the outbreak began in December 2025. Cases have been reported in 27 of Madagascar’s 114 health districts. Clade 1b was isolated from… Read more: Madagascar: Dozens more mpox cases reported

Fox Health officials are warning beachgoers to stay away from marine life after confirming the state’s first cases of bird flu in elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Park in San Mateo County. Infected seal pups are displaying symptoms including tremors and seizures, according to wildlife experts. The virus is considered highly contagious among animals.… Read more: Warning to stay away from elephant seals after bird flu detected at Año Nuevo State Park

The Guardian Royal commission says response led by Jacinda Ardern was broadly ‘appropriate’, in a wide-ranging report featuring recommendations for future pandemics. A royal commission into New Zealand’s Covid response has found it was one of the best in the world but acknowledged the period had left “scars”. The second of two inquiry reports on… Read more: New Zealand Covid response among world’s best but ‘scars’ remain, inquiry finds

NYT It takes backbone to solve an enigma like the “falling cat” problem. In 1894, the French physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey tried to resolve a particularly vexing question in science: How do cats always seem to land on their feet when they fall? Using the era’s rudimentary videos, Marey was able to definitively illustrate that cats, when… Read more: Why Falling Cats Always Seem to Land on Their Feet

Penn State Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) once again is threatening Pennsylvania’s poultry industry, but researchers, diagnosticians and extension educators in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences are at the forefront of efforts to slow the virus, support producers and provide science-based guidance. The United States Department of Agriculture reported that 27 flocks in Pennsylvania have tested… Read more: College of Ag Sciences, Penn State Extension, at forefront of avian flu response

MedPage Today System will replace safety databases monitoring drugs, devices, food, and more. “The FDA’s previous adverse event reporting systems were outdated and fragmented and made important data difficult to access,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, said in the release. “These clunky systems also wasted millions of taxpayer dollars and created blind spots in… Read more: FDA Launches New Combined Adverse Event Database

CIDRAP Contrary to prevailing belief, an evolutionary analysis finds no evidence that most viruses with epidemic or pandemic potential that jumped from animals to people were shaped by selection in a lab or prolonged evolution in an intermediate host—challenging claims that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was engineered in a lab.  A University of California (UC)… Read more: Recent pandemic viruses, including SAR-CoV-2, spread directly to people without adaptation, researchers say

Medical Express Severe COVID-19 and influenza infections prime the lungs for cancer and can accelerate the disease’s development, but vaccination heads off those harmful effects, new research from UVA Health’s Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology Research and UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center indicates. UVA School of Medicine researcher Jie Sun, Ph.D., and colleagues found that… Read more: Severe COVID-19 and flu can facilitate lung cancer months or years later

Science Alert COVID vaccines saved millions of lives, but months into the rollout, a small number of people began developing dangerous blood clots in unusual parts of the body. These only happened after vaccines that used a modified adenovirus to deliver their payload, such as the AstraZeneca vaccine. Why these blood clots formed was a… Read more: Scientists Can Finally Explain Rare Blood Clots Linked to COVID Vaccines

Discover Learn how researchers may have finally uncovered why some people experience long-lasting taste loss after COVID-19. A common symptom that many experienced during a COVID-19 infection was a loss of taste. While most affected individuals regained their sense of taste within a few weeks, some experienced a persistent loss over several months. If a… Read more: The Mystery of Losing Your Taste From Long COVID May Finally Have an Answer

Boston.com The child died between the week of Feb. 21 and Feb. 28, the state’s Department of Public Health reported. An eighth Massachusetts child has died from the flu this flu season, state data shows. As of Feb. 28, eight Massachusetts children have died from the influenza, as well as 298 adults, the state’s influenza data… Read more: 8 children have now died from flu in Mass. this season

ARS Technica On Tuesday, word spread that the National Institutes of Health was launching a series of what it’s calling “Scientific Freedom Lectures,” with the first scheduled for March 20. The “freedom” theme echoes one of the major concerns of the director of the NIH, Jay Bhattacharya, who feels he suffered outrageous censorship of his ideas… Read more: NIH director launches “Scientific Freedom” lectures with non-scientist

NYT Researchers have devised a new tool for discerning between naturally occurring viral outbreaks and those resulting from lab accidents. The Covid pandemic was an extraordinary moment in history. Starting at the end of 2019, a virus new to science swept across the planet, killed more than 25 million people and caused trillions of dollars in economic damage. But… Read more: Scientists Get a Glimpse of How New Pandemics Are Made

NYT Practitioners nationwide are striving to do what’s best for children’s health, while staying supportive in the face of mistrust and confusion. As she examined 11-day-old Asher, her eighth patient of the day, Alissa Parker talked to his parents about his sleep habits, the nub of his umbilical cord that had yet to fall off… Read more: In Talking to Parents About Vaccines, Pediatricians Navigate a Sea of Misinformation

Washington Post Some members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel have publicly questioned the safety and manufacturing of the shots, including raising a debunked theory that DNA contaminants in the vaccines are harmful. A key federal vaccine advisory panel has abandoned an attack on the covid-19 mRNA vaccines — a shift that comes as some… Read more: RFK Jr.’s advisers had a plan to target covid shots. Then it fell apart.

Seattle Times Getting word that out-of-state travelers may have brought in an extremely contagious virus. Scrambling to notify the public. Tracking exposures. Testing residents. Watching three cases become six, then 10, then 12.  The Snohomish County Health Department had again found itself hustling to save lives and prevent hospitalizations, this time in a race against… Read more: How one WA county is racing to curb the spread of measles

Medical Express In a new study published in Nature, University of Minnesota researchers have found that the Marburg virus, one of the world’s deadliest pathogens with an average 73% fatality rate, is unusually efficient at getting inside human cells. They also showed that the virus’s entry protein contains structural features that explain this efficiency and point to a… Read more: Marburg virus invades human cells far more efficiently than Ebola, study reveals

BBC While current flu shots need to be updated each season, scientists are finding new ways to make vaccine that could last much longer and cover more strains. Each year, roughly a billion people around the world catch the flu. You’ll know if you’ve got it – it can knock you out for a week or… Read more: Universal flu vaccine: How scientists are closing in on the virus’s ‘weak spots’

CIDRAP Federal investment in RNA vaccine research has supported nearly three decades of scientific work spanning infectious diseases, cancer, and vaccine development, but recent and proposed funding cuts threaten to stall that progress, according to a cross-sectional study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open.  Led by a team at Northwestern University, researchers identified 178 active National Institutes of… Read more: RNA vaccine funding cuts threaten decades of scientific progress

Forbes Despite entering the sixth year since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus has not disappeared and the long-term consequences of infection continue to cast a shadow. Long COVID, or post-COVID-19 condition, represents a complex health condition that has affected at least 20 million Americans, according to Yale Medicine. Here’s what to know about… Read more: Long COVID — Here’s What To Know And The Challenges Ahead

Discover Magazine Learn how researchers may have finally uncovered why some people experience long-lasting taste loss after COVID-19. A common symptom that many experienced during a COVID-19 infection was a loss of taste. While most affected individuals regained their sense of taste within a few weeks, some experienced a persistent loss over several months. If… Read more: The Mystery of Losing Your Taste From Long COVID May Finally Have an Answer

SF Gate Human metapneumovirus, or HMPV, typically spreads during winter and spring. If you notice that your office is emptying out, chances are it’s because a respiratory virus that few people have actually heard of is circulating throughout Northern California.  According to recent WastewaterSCAN data, concentrations of human metapneumovirus, or HMPV, are high in San Francisco, Marin,… Read more: A virus that isn’t COVID or the flu is pummeling Northern California

NJ.com More dead geese have turned up in New Jersey about two weeks after a suspected bird flu wave killed more than 1,000 geese across the state. The dead geese were reported in Woodstown in Salem County, the borough police department said in a statement on Tuesday. The geese were found near Woodstown Memorial Lake. No other… Read more: More dead geese found in N.J. after widespread reports of suspected bird flu

Gov.UK New targeted trial in turkeys will test vaccine efficacy as part of fight to protect wild and captive birds. Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) vaccine trials have started today (Thursday 5 March) in a major step forward in the fight against the disease.  New trials will explore the potential for the latest vaccines to protect birds, focusing on turkeys only in England, providing valuable insight into how well vaccines… Read more: New avian influenza vaccine trials begin in UK

Medical Express A new study led by researchers at the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill shows an urgent need for improved detection and treatment of Lassa fever, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Lassa fever—a severe Ebola-like illness designated by the World… Read more: Study warns of underrecognized Lassa fever threat with global implications

CIDRAP Analysis of a nationally representative sample of electronic health record (EHR) data shows aspergillosis diagnoses increased by more than 5% annually in the United States from 2013 through 2023, US researchers reported late last week in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. Aspergillosis is an infection caused by breathing in spores of Aspergillus, a common mold that’s ubiquitous indoors and outdoors.… Read more: US study shows rising prevalence of fungal infection

Axios New doctors are increasingly moving away from specializing in infectious diseases as the prevalence of vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles and whooping cough ticks up. Why it matters: The Trump administration’s cuts to public health funding and its overhaul of federal vaccine policy may be putting even more of a damper on a field that took the brunt… Read more: Why new doctors aren’t specializing in infectious diseases

Columbia University In 2022, mpox infections surged in the United States and other Western countries, showing that a viral illness long considered endemic in central and western Africa was capable of traveling far and wide. To treat patients, infectious disease physicians turned to an antiviral drug, tecoviromat, originally developed to treat smallpox in case of… Read more: An Antiviral Drug for Smallpox Didn’t Help Patients with Mpox. What’s Next?

The HIll Jay Bhattacharya, the recently appointed acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on Monday urged families to consider vaccinating against measles as outbreaks across the country continue. In a video statement posted on the social media platform X, Bhattacharya discussed the steps that the CDC is taking the address the measles… Read more: Acting CDC director Bhattacharya urges measles vaccines

Star Advertiser U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff will arrive in South Carolina next week to help the state contain the largest measles outbreak in the country in decades years, a state official said in a briefing on Wednesday. The first CDC on the ground assist comes some five months after the South… Read more: CDC deploys staff to curb South Carolina’s measles outbreak

NBC News The agency said it’s closely monitoring the situation and coordinating with public health authorities while the facility has been closed to visitors and attorneys. People who tested positive for the highly contagious disease at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, have been “cohorted and separated from the rest of the detained population… Read more: ICE confirms a measles outbreak in the nation’s largest detention facility in Texas

Gizmodo The Ebola virus, Cordyceps fungi, and even the stomach flu have helped inspire some of the most gruesome infectious diseases seen on the screen. As both a health reporter and avid horror fan, there are few things I love more than seeing a fictional contagious disease take center stage as a villain—especially when they’re… Read more: 6 Horrifying Fictional Diseases and Their Real-Life Inspirations

NYT Spartanburg County in South Carolina is ground zero for the largest measles outbreak since 2000. One school has a vaccination rate of 21 percent. The Global Academy of South Carolina, a public charter school, is housed in a glittering modern building on a sprawling campus, a 10-minute drive from the spunky downtown Spartanburg. It… Read more: Parents Tried to Shield Their Children From Vaccines. Instead They Got Measles.

Nice News Artificial intelligence imagery is getting harder and harder to spot. In the best case scenario, we end up simply laughing at a funny moment that never actually happened. In the worst case, we buy into misinformation that warps our perception of what’s actually going on in the world.  So, as technology continues moving… Read more: Real or Fake? Tips and Tools for Identifying AI-Generated Images

Infectious Disease Advisor In the United States, seasonal respiratory viruses such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and SARS-CoV-2 continue to substantially impact younger children and older adults, according to study findings published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) detailed respiratory virus activity between July 2024 and… Read more: CDC Details Seasonal Trends for Respiratory Viruses in the United States

NYT A highly anticipated meeting to review the United States’ measles elimination status has been postponed until November. An international panel of experts had invited the United States to a meeting in April to determine whether the ongoing spread of measles would cost the country its status, a designation granted to nations that have not… Read more: Meeting on U.S. Measles Status Is Delayed Until November

NPR In his role as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is changing how the United States approaches vaccines. But those changes aren’t limited to the United States. This episode, NPR global health correspondent Gabrielle Emanuel shares two examples of how the global public health landscape may be shifting. First, the United States’… Read more: The global fallout of RFK Jr’s vaccine policies

Washington Post Flu has overtaken covid in infections and hospitalizations during the winter respiratory virus season, and their virulence is becoming similar. Heard about a lot of people getting flu this winter but not much about covid? It’s not just you. For the second winter in a row, the United States has faced a punishing… Read more: Flu was again worse than covid this winter. Is that pattern here to stay?

Farm Progress A warmer-than-normal winter has enabled New World screwworm to overwinter in Mexico. As it inches closer to Texas, the U.S. is committed to preventing the pest from destroying its herd and wildlife. High cattle prices may be a dream come true for Texas cattleman Stephen Diebel, but the resurgence of the New World… Read more: Unseasonal New World screwworm migration spurs proactive measures

Indian Express Nipah virus was first identified in 1998 during an outbreak among pig farmers in Malaysia. Later, pteropus bat populations have been identified as its primary reservoir. How do factors like ecological disruption and wildlife–human interactions contribute to the rise of infectious diseases like Nipah virus outbreaks? Human health is shaped by several existential… Read more: What makes bats important reservoirs of zoonotic viruses like Nipah 

Science Alert An outbreak of the deadly Nipah virus in India has put many countries in Asia on high alert, given the fatality rate in humans can be between 40% and 75%. Several countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, have introduced new screening and testing measures, after at least two people died of Nipah virus in the Indian state of West… Read more: Nipah Virus Outbreak Has Asia on High Alert Amid Deaths in India

Medical Express Even a mild case of COVID-19 or the flu can impact the body long after the fever and cough fade, according to new Tulane University research that may help explain why some people struggle to feel fully recovered weeks or months later. Tulane researchers found that while both viruses can leave lasting lung… Read more: Long-term brain effects of COVID-19 vs. flu: Study reveals key differences

Vax Before Travel Spain, a favorite destination for international travelers in 2026, is currently facing a concerning rise in mpox (monkeypox) cases within the European Union. Health authorities have reported an increase in infections primarily linked to the more transmissible clade Ib variant of the monkeypox virus (MPXV). According to the latest update from the… Read more: Spain’s Mpox Surge Continues in Madrid Over Vaccination Gaps

IFL Science A dead squirrel, an outbreak in monkeys, and the trail of a virus. or the first time, researchers have captured direct evidence of the monkeypox virus (MPXV) jumping between two wild animal species. Detecting interspecies transmission in the wild is notoriously difficult, but this remarkable piece of scientific detective work offers insight into… Read more: Wild Monkeys Fall Sick With Mpox After Eating Squirrels: Is This How The Virus Jumped To Humans?

Watt Poultry A new report from the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) stated that the presence of HPAI was confirmed on February 23 in the province of Buenos Aires. The affected farm raised what WOAH referred to as “heavy breeding stock.” The operator of the farm reported to the National Service of Agri-Food Health and Quality… Read more: Avian influenza again confirmed in poultry in Argentina

Global Data Moderna has announced that the FDA will initiate the review of its seasonal influenza vaccine candidate, mRNA-1010. This announcement comes one week after the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) notified Moderna that it would not initiate a review of mRNA-1010, and a Refusal-to-File (RTF) letter was issued, citing concerns over… Read more: FDA reversal on mRNA-1010 could transform the seasonal influenza vaccines market

Nature Researchers summarize key insights from the world’s first comprehensive investigation into how a pandemic started. We are 23 of the 27 original members of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) for the World Health Organization (WHO). After nearly 3.5 years of deliberations, we concluded our independent assessment of the… Read more: COVID’s origins: what we do and don’t know

AOL News Have you ever tried making a strawberry dessert to satisfy your sweet tooth, only to end up with something disappointingly bland? It’s not you; it’s the strawberries. According to a 2021 study published in Horticulture Research (via Oxford Academic), participants said most strawberries they tasted weren’t sweet enough. This isn’t a case of underperforming strawberry… Read more: Why Strawberries Aren’t As Sweet Anymore

Bloomberg Researchers keep discovering more about the long-term neurological effects of SARS-CoV-2. Doctors call it Ondine’s curse—a catastrophic failure of the brain stem in which breathing no longer happens automatically, especially during sleep. It’s extremely rare, typically seen only in infants with genetic mutations or adults after severe trauma, and for a long time it wasn’t… Read more: How Covid Quietly Rewires the Brain

The Atlantic For years, the worst outcomes of measles were all but unknown in America. Now they look inevitable. Of every 1,000 people the measles virus infects, it may kill as few as one to three. In a way, this can seem merciful. But the mathematics of measles is also unforgiving. The virus is estimated… Read more: The Deaths Doctors Never Thought They’d See in the U.S.

KOMO News More than 100 people associated with Rainier Beach High School are being tested for Tuberculosis (TB) after one person was diagnosed and is now getting treatment for the serious, airborne disease. As a precaution, Public Health is recommending that about 130 people associated with the south Seattle school be evaluated, based on the amount of… Read more: Washington State: High School confirms active tuberculosis case, 130 people possibly exposed

Iowa News Officials confirmed the third and fourth cases of avian influenza, also known as bird flu, in Iowa this year. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) announced Wednesday that cases of avian influenza were detected in multi-species backyard flocks in Van Buren and Keokuk Counties. These are the third and fourth… Read more: Third, fourth cases of bird flu detected in Iowa

Reuters A bipartisan majority of Americans believe vaccines are safe and that children should receive them to attend school, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, illustrating the challenges President Donald Trump’s administration faces to win broad support for upending decades of ‌health policy. The six-day poll, which closed on Monday, comes as Health Secretary Robert… Read more: Poll: Americans trust vaccines, school mandates

Nature ChatGPT Health launched in January 2026 as OpenAI’s consumer health tool, reaching millions of users. Here, we conducted a structured stress test of triage recommendations using 60 clinician-authored vignettes across 21 clinical domains under 16 factorial conditions (960 total responses). Performance followed an inverted U-shaped pattern, with the most dangerous failures concentrated at clinical… Read more: ChatGPT Health performance in a structured test of triage recommendations

The Conversation Vaccines have traditionally worked by teaching the immune system to recognise a specific virus or bacterium – in effect, showing it a wanted poster for a single suspect. But what if one vaccine could protect against dozens of different infections at once? Researchers have now developed a potential candidate for such a vaccine,… Read more: Universal vaccine to treat colds, flu and COVID developed – and a new study suggests it just might work

MedPageToday Hepatitis B vaccination rates among U.S. newborns have fallen by more than 10 percentage points over the past 2 years, reversing 6 years of steady gains, according to an analysis of electronic health records. Among more than 12 million infants, birth-dose hepatitis B vaccination rates rose from 67.5% in January 2017 to a peak… Read more: U.S. Newborn Hepatitis B Vaccination Rates Plunge, Reversing Years of Gains

Washington Post When it comes to infectious diseases, measles is “the canary in the coal mine,” one expert said. There are more than 900 confirmed measles cases in the United States, as of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent weekly count. It’s less than two months into the year, “and we already have over… Read more: As measles cases climb, these 9 diseases threaten comebacks

KFF At around 2 a.m., 7-year-old twin brothers arrived at Mission Hospital in Asheville. Both had a fever, a cough, a rash, pink eye, and cold symptoms. The boys sat in one waiting room and then another. Two hours and 20 minutes passed before the two were isolated, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services… Read more: Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before

ABC 27 The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has recorded more than 7 million avian flu cases this year, which accounts for 80% of the cases nationwide. Why is the virus so much worse here? Governor Shapiro and Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding met with poultry producers and other industry leaders on Tuesday at a roundtable in Lancaster County, one… Read more: Why are Avian Flu cases so much higher in Midstate Pennsylvania?

LA Times The H5N1 bird flu virus that devastated South American elephant seal populations has been confirmed in seals at California’s Año Nuevo State Park, researchers from UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz announced Wednesday. The virus has ravaged wild, commercial and domestic animals across the globe and was found in seven weaned pups. The… Read more: Deadly bird flu found in California elephant seals for the first time