Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
The Evolving Danger of the New Bird Flu
NYT Podcast An unusual outbreak of the disease has spread to dairy herds in multiple U.S. states. TRANSCRIPT: From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily.” [MUSIC PLAYING] The outbreak of bird flu that is tearing through the nation’s poultry farms is the worst in US history. But scientists say […]
Apr 24, 2024
Why the WHO’s chief scientist is concerned about bird flu
Washington Post The World Health Organization’s chief scientist called the bird flu an “enormous concern,” citing critical questions over how the virus is transmitted. Jeremy Farrar singled out the recent outbreak in dairy cows in the United States — the first time the country’s dairy cattle have been infected with the highly pathogenic avian influenza. With H5N1 […]
Apr 24, 2024
Bird flu hits turkey flock in Newaygo County as virus spreads in Michigan
BridgeMI The bird flu continues to impact poultry flocks in Michigan as wild birds make their migration from the south. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported last week that highly pathogenic avian influenza had been detected in a commercial flock of turkeys being raised for meat in Newaygo County. News of the outbreak, which affected more than […]
Apr 24, 2024
W.H.O. Broadens Definition of Airborne Diseases
NYT After a drawn-out global controversy over the coronavirus, the W.H.O. has updated its classification of how pathogens spread through the air. In the early days of the Covid pandemic, a team of scientists called on the World Health Organization to acknowledge that the disease could spread through the air. Initially, the agency rebuffed them, despite growing […]
Apr 24, 2024
Lasers, Inflatable Dancers and the Fight to Fend Off Avian Flu
NYT Some poultry growers are turning to innovative tactics to protect their flocks, deploying deterrents like drones, air horns, balloons and decoy predators. Loren Brey, a poultry grower in Minnesota, walked onto the farm where his egg-laying turkeys nest in November to discover a handful of hens, dead from the highly pathogenic avian flu. Within […]
Apr 24, 2024
Man dies after 613-day COVID-19 infection that underwent 50 mutations
Scripps News Through the 613 days of infection, the virus evolved into a “novel immune-evasive variant” that had mutated over 50 times. A new report by Dutch scientists revealed a very peculiar case: On Feb. 2022, a 72-year-old man with a compromised immune system was admitted to Amsterdam University Medical Center with a COVID-19 infection. The virus in […]
Apr 24, 2024
Chronic wasting disease feared in deaths of 2 hunters who ate deer meat
USA Today The recent report of two hunters who developed neurological diseases after eating infected deer meat has scientists concerned that ‘zombie deer disease’ could pass to humans as mad cow disease did. Two hunters who ate meat from deer known to have chronic wasting disease − or “zombie deer disease” − developed similar neurological conditions and died, raising […]
Apr 24, 2024
First measles case confirmed in West Virginia since 2009
WV News A patient of WVU Medicine in Monongalia County has tested positive for measles. WVU Medicine announced Monday that a patient tested positive after visiting an outpatient clinic last week and is recovering at their home. The U.S. has seen an uptick in measles cases in 2024, but this is the first case confirmed in West […]
Apr 24, 2024
MSN The CDC is reporting an uptick in mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, cases across the United States. So far this year, they’ve reported almost 600 positive cases of mpox, which is nearly double the amount of cases reported in 2023. Dr. Wes Stubblefield with the Alabama Department of Public Health said mpox is a […]
Apr 16, 2024
4 Years In, a Sobering Look at Long COVID Progress
Medscape Four years ago in the spring of 2020, physicians and patients coined the term “long COVID” to describe a form of the viral infection from which recovery seemed impossible. (And the old nickname “long-haulers” seems so quaint now.) What started as a pandemic that killed nearly 3 million people globally in 2020 alone would turn into a […]
Apr 16, 2024