Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
New research chips away at COVID-19 blood clot myster
CIDRAP Doctors and scientists are still working to understand why COVID-19 can cause fatal damage to so many different organs. A potentially major piece of that puzzle was revealed today in research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitalized patients who weren’t sick enough to be in the intensive care unit […]
May 6, 2026
Will the USA lose its measles elimination status?
The Lancet The USA currently faces its largest measles outbreak in decades, with 2280 confirmed cases in 2025 and 910 additional cases reported in just the first 6 weeks of 2026.1 This re-emergence threatens one of the country’s major public health achievements: the elimination of measles in 2000, a feat reached after several years of extensive […]
May 6, 2026
Rabid beaver attacks 8-year-old boy, other park guests at New Jersey lake
NBC News 4 A beaver that attacked multiple people, including at least one child, at a lake in New Jersey has tested positive for rabies, according to town officials. Police in Mahwah responded to Lake Henry around 6 p.m. Sunday after a report of an animal attack. An 8-year-old boy had been fishing from the […]
May 6, 2026
A dangerous experiment is playing out on a cruise ship with hantavirus
Scientific American The tragic and fatal outbreak of hantavirus onboard a luxury cruise ship highlights the gaps in research and treatments for the rare and mysterious infection—including how the virus spreads among people. The fatal outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship is a tragic case study in how pathogens in this mysterious family of […]
May 6, 2026
Hantavirus, COVID, norovirus, legionnaires’: why are cruise ships so prone to disease outbreaks?
The Conversation Cruises are sold as floating holidays, but they are also useful for understanding public health. Cruise ships are carefully designed places where many people live, eat, relax and move through the same shared spaces for days at a time. They show how easily illness can spread when people are packed into a single […]
May 6, 2026
Spanish passenger on the ‘Hondius’: ‘There are 23 people who got off on Saint Helena and have been wandering around’
El Pais Health authorities only began contacting the passengers who left the ship on Tuesday. Twenty‑three passengers from the MV Hondius have been on land for more than two weeks. They disembarked on April 21 on the island of Saint Helena, 10 days after the first death on board, and began their journeys home. That is what a […]
May 6, 2026
As RFK Jr. Downplays Rabies, CDC Staff Tells Docs It’s a Daily Threat
MedPage Today Accurate risk assessment can spare patients from costly preventive care. Just a week after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. downplayed rabies during a Senate hearing based on the few annual fatalities, CDC staff held a call with physicians to emphasize that preventing further deaths requires millions of U.S. medical visits every year […]
May 6, 2026
UK Leads Global Bird Flu Vaccine Trial
MedScape The UK is recruiting 3000 of the 4000 volunteers needed for a major international trial of an mRNA vaccine against bird flu, as experts warn that H5N1 remains a credible pandemic threat. H5 influenza, or avian/bird flu, remains a pandemic threat, experts said. The virus has been circulating in wild birds — and domestic poultry — […]
May 6, 2026
How an H5N1 Outbreak in Elephant Seals Can Inform Pandemic Readiness
The Scientist Regular surveillance and rapid sequencing in coastal wildlife help researchers identify viral mutations and assess their pandemic potential. The first sign that something was wrong came during a survey walk in Año Nuevo State Park, a stretch of beach along the central coast of California. In January 2026, researchers at the University of […]
May 6, 2026
Surge in HPAI infections attributed to wild-bird spillover
AVMA Poultry losses alone surpass 200 million since outbreak started in 2022. The U.S. outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI, more specifically avian influenza type A H5N1), is experiencing a resurgence among commercial poultry operations, driven largely by spillover from migrating wild birds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The threat of infection […]
May 6, 2026