All articles tagged with #disease outbreaks
The U.S. is nearing last year’s measles total as outbreaks spread across multiple states, driven by declining vaccination rates, misinformation, and public distrust, forcing doctors to relearn outbreak control and diagnosis in a disease many believed to be under control.
An Associated Press reporter recounts a month covering the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, detailing frontline realities, community responses, and the human toll of the crisis.
West Nile virus activity is starting earlier this year, with 48 reported cases and 38 severe illnesses—the highest in more than two decades—driven by warm weather and standing water; the CDC urges preventive mosquito-bite measures.
Warmer temperatures are extending the tick season across much of the United States, and Powassan virus—while still rare—has been on the rise as a tick-borne threat with potentially serious symptoms, underscoring the importance of tick prevention and public-health awareness.
Authorities say the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has surpassed 1,000 confirmed cases with at least 254 deaths, prompting intensified vaccination and surveillance efforts, especially in the Ituri region where communities fear further spread.
About 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas have contracted influenza over roughly three weeks, a major outbreak that follows Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s rollback of the yearly flu-shot requirement for service members.
Ancient DNA from teeth of 46 hunter-gatherers buried near Lake Baikal, Siberia, shows fragments of Yersinia pestis in more than one-third, marking two outbreaks beginning about 5,500 years ago—the oldest known plague. This challenges the view that mass disease outbreaks began with agriculture and suggests plague circulated in hunter-gatherer communities, possibly spreading via marmots.
The Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak has surpassed 100 deaths among roughly 550 cases. Ongoing fighting in eastern Congo is disrupting surveillance and response efforts, with displacement in Ituri complicating contact tracing, while WHO notes the global risk remains low and urges coordinated local action.
Health workers in the Ebola epicenter of Congo are laboring under dire conditions, often sleeping little and earning meager pay while supplies and access to affected areas run short; the outbreak is expanding faster than treatment capacity, with reports of families losing multiple members before help arrives, and aid agencies scrambling to boost resources ahead of a $518 million WHO plan amid security and access challenges.
Five passengers exposed to Andes hantavirus left the national quarantine facility in Nebraska after about three weeks of monitoring. They will continue to be watched by local and state public health officials for the remaining 21 days, while the other 13 remaining passengers complete the 42‑day quarantine. Two of the five returned to New York and one to Oregon, and the rest are undergoing ongoing health monitoring as public health authorities manage the response.
In Nanyuki, Kenya, residents demonstrated against a U.S. military field hospital at Laikipia Air Base meant to treat/quarantine Americans exposed to Ebola, with fires and clashes with police. A Kenyan court blocked operations pending a lawsuit alleging a lack of transparency and concerns about the country’s Ebola preparedness, while the U.S. says it’s in talks with Kenyan authorities to address concerns.
The U.S. military is building a field hospital in central Kenya to quarantine Americans exposed to Ebola, starting with 50 beds and expanding to 250, staffed by U.S. Public Health Service officers, with officials defending the plan not to transport infected patients back to the United States despite criticism from Ebola experts.
An American missionary physician evacuated from the Democratic Republic of Congo after Ebola exposure waits in a Prague hospital room for a possible diagnosis, recounting how Congolese colleagues are dying as he expresses gratitude for his care while lamenting the lack of safeguards for local health workers amid a severe outbreak.
A hantavirus outbreak linked to a Dutch cruise ship that departed from Argentina infected 11 people and killed three; 18 Americans are under a six-week quarantine, longer than guidelines for most contagious diseases. Experts point to Andes hantavirus’s longer incubation period and transmission via bodily fluids, meaning the overall risk to the U.S. public remains low even as authorities maintain extended monitoring to prevent further spread.
Residents of Uganda’s Bundibugyo district react to the Ebola virus type named after their area, arguing that the label fuels stigma and misperception, while scientists emphasize the taxonomy and history of Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV) and its role in regional outbreaks in Uganda and neighboring DR Congo.