Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
CDC official overseeing COVID hospitalization data resigns in protest
CBS News A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who led the agency’s network to study hospitalization trends from infectious diseases like COVID-19 has resigned in protest following Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s orders to change the agency’s vaccine recommendations and the committee that makes them. Dr. Fiona Havers’ last day at the […]
Jun 17, 2025
India: With 11 deaths, current wave toll in country past 100-mark
Times of India The country’s death toll due to Covid-19 has crossed the 100-mark, reaching 108 after as many as 11 deaths were reported on Monday – the highest in a day in the current wave. Kerala reported seven deaths, while a death each occurred in Delhi, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.The seven victims from […]
Jun 17, 2025
North Korea’s Pandemic ‘Miracle’ Was a Deadly Lie, Report Says
NYT Officials drastically understated outbreaks and deaths, depriving citizens of help, two U.S. research groups report, citing interviews with people inside North Korea. North Korea has long claimed that it defeated the Covid-19 pandemic without vaccines, losing only 74 lives in what it called “a miracle unprecedented in the world’s public health history.” But a report released […]
Jun 17, 2025
Climate change leads to spread of infection-causing fungi, scientists say
ABC News Climate change may be putting millions more people at risk from an infection-causing fungi, which is likely spreading due to warming global temperatures, scientists say. There will likely be an increased risk of infection due to harmful fungi in the coming years due to climate change, according to researchers from the University of Manchester. The […]
Jun 17, 2025
A cattle disease and the tick carrying it are confirmed in Iowa for the first time
OPR The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship said the state’s first case of Theileria orientalis Ikeda was confirmed in a cattle herd in Van Buren County in the southeast corner of the state. The protozoan parasite infects the red and white blood cells of cattle, causing anemia and sometimes death. It’s carried by the Asian longhorned tick, […]
Jun 17, 2025
DC-area pediatrician on CDC urging summer camp operators to screen for measles immunity
WTOP As measles cases near record levels in isolated areas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging summer camps to check for documentation of immunity through vaccination or prior infection for all children. “I think there has been increased concerns about potential for additional outbreaks and spread, especially in the setting of waning or lowering […]
Jun 17, 2025
New ‘razor blade throat’ COVID subvariant quickly gains ground in California
SF Gate A new COVID-19 variant, nicknamed Nimbus, is rising around the world — including in California — and known for giving “razor blade throat” symptoms. Officially called NB.1.8.1, the variant was labeled a “variant under monitoring” by the World Health Organization on May 23, according to a recent report. That means it’s not currently a major threat; […]
Jun 17, 2025
Cambodian human avian flu infection linked to poultry outbreak
WATT Poultry In the Asia-Pacific region, recent outbreaks of HPAI in poultry are reported in Cambodia, the Philippines and South Korea. During the latter half of May, two highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks affecting village poultry were confirmed by the animal health authority in Cambodia. Presence of the H5N1 virus serotype was confirmed in a […]
Jun 11, 2025
Clothing—not agriculture—helped spread a tick disease 5000 years ago
Science New study of a pathogen’s Bronze Age spread challenges longstanding links between disease and early agriculture. A now-obscure cousin of Lyme disease called recurring fever was a scourge of early civilization. Caused by the bacterium Borrelia recurrentis, it results in crippling headaches and repeated bouts of high fever; if left untreated, it damages organs and […]
Jun 11, 2025
A rare tick-borne disease has started spreading into Virginia
WHRO The illness is caused by a parasite, which makes it different from many well-known tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme. A rare disease spread by ticks has slowly established a foothold in Virginia. Babesiosis, a parasitic infection similar to malaria, was traditionally limited to the U.S. Northeast and Midwest. But over the past decade, officials […]
Jun 11, 2025