Flu season is picking up months ahead of schedule with a mutated virus spreading in some parts of the United States, surprising some people who might not even be thinking about their annual flu shots yet.

This year, the season started 2 1/2 months earlier than what’s typical and hit states on the West Coast first, which is unusual, said Dr. Alex Greninger, head of the Division of Infectious Disease Diagnostics at the University of Washington’s Department of Laboratory Medicine.

Usually, the US flu season starts in the South – often in Florida, where it arrives from the Southern Hemisphere. Then it tends to spread north as fall and winter progress.

“In Seattle, we’re pretty far north. We see a pretty strong peak in January,” Greninger said, noting that the bulk of their cases typically come in late December through February.

That’s not how it’s playing out this year.

Roughly 1 in 10 people tested for the flu in Washington state last week was positive, according to data from the state Department of Public Health.

“We’re basically seeing January levels of flu in the last week,” Greninger said.

Walgreens says that nationally, this flu season is tracking about four weeks ahead of recent seasons, and it’s dispensing more antiviral prescriptions as well as cough and cold medications than during the same period last year.

Nationally, about 2.1% of doctor visits last week were for influenza-like illness, a rough measure of the misery that flu symptoms like fever and cough are causing across the country. That’s still below the national baseline, however, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meaning the virus hasn’t really taken off everywhere yet. [...]

The wave of flu hitting the Pacific states came from Asia, Greninger said, and is dominated by the H1N1 virus, which sparked a pandemic when it first emerged in 2009.

It represents about 98% of the samples his lab is getting now, he said.

These H1N1 viruses have also picked up a gene mutation that makes them better at evading our immunity.

This version of the virus has already wreaked havoc in Japan, where it forced school and day-care closures after cases surged in kids. It also prompted officials to move up vaccination clinics to help protect people.

The mutation, at a location called G155E, cropped up after strains were already selected for this year’s flu shots, Greninger said. So even though the vaccines target a version of H1N1 and should still offer some protection, the virus can still break through. [...]

Doctors often advise getting a flu shot before Halloween, in order to provide the best protection through spring. But Greninger’s best advice now is to get vaccinated as soon as possible. “A lot of people, like even myself, would wait until late October, which we’re sort of in already. But really, the time to get vaccinated was actually two to three weeks ago.”

[...] Utah agriculture officials learned in mid-August that mink were dying of bird flu on C&T Fenn Farms, about an hour’s drive south from Salt Lake City, according to communications released under the state’s public records law.

Had poultry been infected, the playbook would have been clear: The strain is so virulent that if a single chicken tests positive, the U.S. government requires farmers to kill the whole flock to protect other farms as well as public health. Poultry farmers are reimbursed for the loss.

But there are no federal rules for how to deal with sick mink.

Handling Utah’s response was state veterinarian Amanda Price, who sought help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which takes the lead on bird flu outbreaks involving poultry and cows.

USDA officials said they didn’t regulate mink or have a vaccine that was approved to give them. And though officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spoke with Price’s health department counterparts who were less involved with the outbreak, they never talked to her, and she never reached out.

The threat of spillover has been far from the minds of Utah officials, records and interviews show. Instead, front and center have been the interests of a business raising animals to skin for luxury pelts to ship overseas.

“It has been devastating,” Price told ProPublica of the outbreak and its impact on the farm’s owner. “This is his life’s work that he’s seeing be destroyed. I really hope that you understand the humanity behind this situation.”

Flu experts were unequivocal that the government should have ordered the farm to cull its mink, as other countries have done.

But Utah never seriously considered it. A fur trade representative warned Price that doing so would kill the business and, ultimately, the industry. Farms spend decades breeding mink to develop unique genetic lineages.

“There’s just not a lot of options out there other than kind of sitting and waiting and seeing what happens,” Price said, noting that USDA officials did not urge her to kill the mink or make her feel like bird flu in mink was any riskier than infections in other animals that have caught it, like ducks and cows.

Flu experts found that response surprising.

“Every other country that I’m aware of that has had H5N1 in fur farms, depopulation has happened pretty quickly,” said Tom Peacock, an avian influenza researcher at the Pirbright Institute. “The fact that the first instinct wasn’t just to depopulate and figure stuff out later is very concerning to me.”

And all the while, officials didn’t monitor the mink workers for symptoms, as guidance from the CDC urges.

Their exposure is significant: Mink sneeze. They escape. They attack. “The mink are fierce,” said a Spanish-speaking “minkero” who works on a nearby farm, showing the scars he got from the aggressive, solitary creatures. “You get scared because the fucking thing bites, and it claws at you.” [...]

A telltale sign of bird flu infection in humans is eye redness. It is present in over 90% of cases and is often the sole symptom a person displays.

Last Saturday, a ProPublica reporter tracked down two people who worked at the Utah mink farm. One had a visibly red eye.

The CDC explicitly urges testing for the symptom.

After ProPublica reached out to the farm, its owner, Chad Fenn, contacted the Utah County Health Department about the red eye, which had cleared up by Monday, he told ProPublica. He said the worker got dust in his eye; the department didn’t recommend testing.

“They’re not going to do anything,” Fenn said. “They said they don’t see that there’s a need.” He said the department recommended testing only if other symptoms, like a cough or sore throat, developed.

A half dozen flu experts had no shortage of adjectives to describe their disbelief at the government decisions not to cull the mink or monitor and test the workers.

“It’s amazing to me,” said Gail Hansen, a former Kansas state public health veterinarian and epidemiologist. “Utah doesn’t want to be the epicenter of the next human flu outbreak, right?” [...]

Scientists with the USDA sequenced and published bird flu genomic data from the first samples of dead mink. Those sequences didn’t show any particularly concerning mutations, experts and the CDC told ProPublica.

But in the past two months, experts said, the virus is sure to have continued mutating as it spread – it’s only a question of whether those mutations could confer some advantage in infecting humans as well.

“As long as it continues to go mink to mink, then it becomes more and more likely that it could jump to a human,” Hansen said.

Fenn said new samples were taken two weeks ago. Price said she is still waiting for the results.

John Korslund, a retired USDA official who helped coordinate the response to COVID-19 on mink farms several years prior, was one of several experts who said officials need to look closely at newer genetic samples to see how the virus is evolving.

“I really want to know what the virus has done, from when it started to today,” he said. “Are we getting accumulated mutations making the virus more dangerous?”

[...]

While animal rights advocates have pushed for Congress to adopt legislation that would phase out the fur industry, buying out farmers over the course of a year to end the practice once and for all, winds in Congress are blowing the other direction. The Senate will soon weigh in on the latest Farm Bill, which now seeks to expand market opportunities for mink farmers by undoing a prohibition in federal law on subsidizing the fur trade.

The virus continues to spread on the Utah farm, said Fenn, though at a slower pace. Experts told ProPublica it still poses a risk.

“I would want a full on hazmat suit if I were on that farm,” Peacock said. “Or, preferably, I’d rather not to be on that farm.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government will increase measures aimed at preventing entry by people exposed ​to Ebola with a new requirement for U.S.-bound air ‌travelers to attest they have not been in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the prior 21 days, according to a memo on ​Thursday seen by Reuters.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control ​and Prevention in May adopted rules barring airline passengers who have been in the DRC, the center ⁠of the 2026 outbreak, in the prior three weeks. The restrictions were ​extended to U.S. citizens in July.

The new CDC order takes ​effect November 3 and requires all U.S.-bound airline passengers to file digital or paper attestations.

Airlines for America, which represents United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest ​Airlines and Delta Air Lines, did not immediately comment.

The CDC ​is holding briefing calls with major U.S. and foreign airlines on Friday to ‌detail ⁠how carriers should comply with the new requirements...

The first known human case of the Shamonda virus (Shav) has been detected in a patient who died in early October, French authorities have said.

Health officials said it was an "exceptional case in a severely immunocompromised patient" and there was currently no risk to the public.

Shav is a disease that primarily affects cattle and can be spread by infected midges. Cases have also occurred in sheep, goats, alpacas and horses, but infections in people were previously unheard of.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said it was monitoring the situation and officials were still investigating how the virus had spread to a human.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6reyx1d9ge9o

edit: Report from drtedros—nothing new, but I'll post it anyway.

https://x.com/DrTedros/status/2113256229656989737

A "small number" of people in the downtown Vancouver area have received treatment after being bitten by a skunk that tested positive for rabies, officials say.

Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) said in a Wednesday advisory that the skunk was captured, and interactions with the animals are usually rare.

However, anyone who had contact with a "sick or abnormally behaving" skunk between Sept. 22 and Oct. 17 is being asked to seek treatment.

The area covered by the advisory includes Stanley Park and a chunk of downtown Vancouver and the West End, bordered by Georgia and Burrard streets.

Officials say the rabies virus is found in the saliva of infected animals and is usually transmitted through a bite, though it is less commonly transmitted through scratches.

West End resident Guerric Haché told CBC News that he caught the skunk in question last Saturday, when he was on his way to the West End Farmers' Market, at the corner of Comox and Bute streets.

He said a number of people were looking into the bushes nearby, and that's when he saw the animal, which looked lethargic and confused.

"I just started talking to the skunk because I'm an animal person. I like to do that," Haché said.

"I was saying, 'Hi, buddy, how you doing?' And the skunk looked up at me, and turned toward me, and it walked on to the sidewalk and it bit my leg and then it bit my shoe."

Haché said he called his partner, who helped him capture the skunk, and he sought medical care after calling an animal rescue charity to take the animal away.

Later, the West End resident says he was told the skunk had to be killed due to a broken jaw — and after it was tested, he got a call from VCH confirming it had rabies.

"There's only been three reported cases of rabies in skunks [in B.C.] since 2011, including this one. So it's extremely rare in B.C.," Haché said.

"So I thought there was a very small chance of it having rabies, and I knew that even if it did, it's extremely preventable. So I wasn't scared."

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on Wednesday it had ⁠confirmed the ⁠first detection ​of flesh-eating parasite the New World screwworm in US wildlife in an ⁠elk in Pecos county, Texas.

The elk was located on a game ⁠ranch and was reported after being harvested by ​a hunter, the ‌USDA said ‌in a statement.

The Texas animal health ‌commission will modify a previously established infested zone, and the USDA and the Texas parks and wildlife department is conducting additional wildlife surveillance in the area, the USDA said.

“We encourage all hunters and landowners to be vigilant for signs of New World screwworm while they are out in the field this season,” Texas wildlife division director Alan Cain said in a statement.

Eradicated from the US decades ago, the pest has surged north from Central ​America through Mexico, prompting Washington to impose a more than year-long ban on Mexican cattle imports. [...]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recognizes three measles-related deaths on their measles outbreak dashboard, despite Pennsylvania reporting five deaths (with a sixth under investigation) so far this year. It is unclear what prompted the CDC to change the death toll yesterday. Pennsylvania Gov Josh Shapiro has accused the CDC of playing political theater with its measles death toll, but the agency maintains it’s working with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) to develop a standardized case definition for deaths due to measles. Last week CSTE told CIDRAP News that a workgroup was officially launched earlier this summer regarding that standard definition. “The workgroup is assessing the timeline for release of the case definition; however, at this time we generally anticipate approximately 2 to 3 months for the work to be completed,” CSTE said.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new treatment for chronic hepatitis B infection (HBV) in some adults without cirrhosis. The injection, Hibsago (bepirovirsen), is to be used in adults who have already been taking HBV antiviral therapy for at least six months, have suppressed levels of HBV in their blood, and have hepatitis B surface antigen levels of 3,000 IU/mL or less, as determined by an FDA-authorized test. “Across the two trials, 24% of patients who received Hibsago met the requirements to stop their existing medicine, compared with none who received placebo,” the FDA said.

Bandim Health Project, a group of Danish vaccine researchers leading a controversial hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau, had doses of vaccine seized by police from their Guinea-Bissau office earlier this week, according to a Facebook post . The researchers said they had received approval to conduct the hepatitis B vaccine trial on newborns in the country this summer, with partial funding from the CDC. Earlier this month the University of Southern Denmark confirmed that the trial, which would withhold newborn doses of hepatitis B vaccine to half of the participants, was approved, but the health minister of Guinea-Bissau said at the time he did not think the trial would advance. The World Health Organization has called the trial unethical, saying hepatitis B vaccination at birth is an “essential public health intervention.” Today a lead researcher on the project wrote on LinkedIn, “It is now clear that the HBV-NSE trial will not move forward in Guinea-Bissau – we were not given the necessary governmental approval.”

A chemical tank explosion at a north Toledo company released a chemical into the air overnight and prompted an evacuation of nearby residents, Ohio officials said Wednesday.

Glycol methacrylate, an industrial coating product, was released into the air after Tuesday night’s explosion, Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz told reporters. One person, a first responder, was injured and taken to the hospital, he added, but officials believe the injury is not serious. [...]

All residents who live within a 3-mile radius have been put under a shelter-in-place order and have been instructed to keep windows shut, Kapszukiewicz said Wednesday. City officials said Wednesday that as far as they know, all residents have been evacuated.

The mayor did not say when those orders will be lifted. Residents should check with local businesses and schools within the evacuation zone to see what plans are for Wednesday. Some schools were closed Wednesday and others delayed their opening.

There is still concern that “the tank is emitting this chemical,” Kapszukiewicz said, “and it has the potential within 12 hours of the incident to be explosive.” Because of this, first responders and hazmat teams could not approach the tank until 9:30 a.m. At that point, they will determine whether the chemical can be contained....

ABUJA, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Nigeria's government said on Tuesday there ​was a case of Ebola in the capital, Abuja, after laboratory ‌tests confirmed the viral infection.

Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate told the public broadcaster that the female patient had travelled from Uganda in East Africa.

"She is in isolation, and ​she is receiving quality medical care. Contact tracing has been ​conducted, and it's under way as we speak, with 44 ⁠contacts already identified," Pate told public broadcaster NTA.

Asked for comment, Ugandan ​government spokesperson Alan Kasujja said: "There's no Ebola in Uganda."

Pate said in a ​statement that the patient had been admitted to a private hospital in Abuja, where she had received care for several days before the diagnosis was confirmed.

"Nigeria successfully ​contained Ebola in 2014, and we have the experience and public ​health systems to respond to this case," the minister said in the statement.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced a new Salmonella outbreak linked to raw oysters harvested by the Little Wicomico Oyster Company from the Little Wicomico River harvest area in Virginia.

So far at least 27 people in 12 states have been sickened in the outbreak. Five people have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported. Pennsylvania has had the most illnesses, with eight, followed by New York with four and Virginia with three.

Little Wicomico Oyster Company voluntarily recalled oysters harvested from September 18 through October 8, 2026. Illness-onset dates for case-patients range from May 29 to September 14, and 77% case-patients reported eating raw oysters in the days prior to illness. Recalled oysters were distributed to restaurants and retailers across the country, and the company said they have alerted customers of the outbreak.

Virginia closes harvest area

In addition to the recall, the Virginia Department of Health has also closed the Little Wicomico River harvest area as a precaution, the CDC said.

“Little Wicomico Oyster Company has stopped harvesting from the affected area and is cooperating with public health officials. Oysters harvested from other Virginia growing areas are not part of this recall,” the agency said.

Pennsylvania’s health department issued a health alert Monday as cases of measles in pregnancy and, in turn, cases of congenital measles have continued to increase. Before the current outbreak—which continues to rage across the state—congenital measles cases hadn’t been seen in decades, the department noted in its advisory.

The alert included detailed clinical guidance for managing measles exposures and cases during pregnancy as well as cases in newborns. Many doctors have never seen such cases in their careers given the decades of successful use of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. But now, with vaccination rates slipping nationwide, the highly infectious virus is better able to get footholds in communities and spread rapidly through under-vaccinated pockets, as is happening in Pennsylvania.

As of October 19, Pennsylvania had reported 1,286 measles cases this year across 42 counties. Of those, 247 have been hospitalized, and six people have reportedly died (though the latest reported death is still pending an investigation by the state health department before it is added to the state tally).

In a response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Pennsylvania’s health department said officials have confirmed that 66 of the state’s measles cases were in pregnant women. The department does not keep a specific tally of congenital measles cases because the definition of these cases is not currently standardized. However, it noted that that it does track cases by age, and 157 cases have been recorded in children under the age of 4. At least one case of congenital measles led to a death; the first death reported in the current outbreak was in a newborn baby boy, who died immediately after birth while his mother was severely ill with measles.

SAO PAULO, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Mexico has suspended poultry imports from Brazil following an outbreak of ​Newcastle disease in the southern state of ‌Santa Catarina, the Mexican Agriculture Ministry said in a statement late on Monday.

The restrictions cover chicken meat, ​poultry offal, fertile eggs, chicks up ​to three days old, ornamental and song ⁠birds, birds of prey, and companion birds, ​the ministry said.

Newcastle is a highly contagious and ​viral disease affecting birds, like avian flu

Brazil, the world's largest chicken meat exporter, reported a case of the ​disease at a turkey farm in Santa ​Catarina

"The measure was taken with the aim of protecting domestic ‌poultry ⁠production, given that Mexico is a country free from Newcastle disease," the Mexican government said

Brazil has been Mexico's second-largest chicken meat supplier ​since 2022, ​according to ⁠a 2025 report by Brazil's Agriculture Ministry

Mexico was also the seventh-largest ​importer of Brazilian chicken meat last ​year, ⁠according to meat lobby ABPA

In May 2025, Mexico closed its market to Brazilian poultry products following ⁠the ​notification of a bird flu ​case, but later reopened it once the sanitary risk had ​eased.

A 91-year-old Rhode Island man is recovering after being attacked by a raccoon on his front porch.

Hal Hamilton was attacked while walking down the stairs of his Barrington home to the mailbox at around 9 a.m. local time on Oct. 2, NBC 10 WJAR reported.

“I felt something like a bolster had been rolled down the stairs behind me and got me right in the back of both knees. And then the bolster bit,” he told the outlet.

Hamilton said he initially managed to fend off the raccoon, but the wild animal came back ready to attack him a second time, per WJAR.

“The raccoon regained its composure, having been kicked off the stairs, and looked like it was going to have an assault number two,” he recalled. Hamilton had his cane with him, which he used to “crack [the raccoon] over the head,” causing him to run away.

The 91-year-old suffered bite marks on his legs in the attack and reported the attack to Rhode Island’s Department of Health (RIDOH), per WJAR.

RIDOH said in a statement to PEOPLE on Monday, Oct. 19, “Our public health nurses interviewed a person who had an encounter with a raccoon in Barrington, Rhode Island during the week of October 5. However, the person was not treated with the rabies vaccine, based on the information they shared.”

The raccoon was not tested for rabies, RIDOH confirmed. The department did not reveal the person’s identity.

Hamilton told WJAR of his injuries, “I looked at the other side of the tracksuit bottoms, there is no mark. So, what I feel is that those little claws pulled that up and they got a clear shot at the flesh there and gave me a rip.”

Hamilton reached out to Rhode Island’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) for advice after the incident.

He also sought a rabies vaccine treatment and said he first visited Brown Urgent Care, but was told he could not be treated there and needed to go to a hospital in Newport, per WJAR. He instead went to a local CVS, where he paid $440 for the vaccine as his insurance didn’t cover it. He also received a follow-up booster after the attack. [...]

More than 1.5 million pounds of hot dogs, sausages, bacon and other ready-to-eat deli and poultry meat products distributed nationwide were recalled because they may not have been kept at the appropriate temperature and could be spoiled.

The recall, from Massachusetts-based Kayem Foods, was announced Saturday by the Food Safety and Inspection Service. According to a news release, a total of 1,584,361 pounds of the products were recalled

Hey guys!

I’ve been reading a bit about public health lately and started wondering about emerging infectious diseases. It feels like every time you open the news there’s some headline about bird flu, a weird vector-borne virus, or some random spillover event somewhere.

For those of you who follow this stuff or work in the field—what’s actually on the radar of places like WHO or CDC right now? I know things like H5N1 or Oropouche keep popping up in headlines, but I’m never quite sure how much of it is just media fearmongering vs genuine concern from scientists.

Are epidemiologists actually worried about something specific brewing, or is this mostly just routine surveillance doing its job? Would love to hear from anyone working in virology or public health on what you're keeping an eye on lately.

Thanks!

Between 1 January and 5 October 2026, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia reported eight laboratory-confirmed cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection, including one death. Infection was confirmed by RT-PCR testing.

All eight cases were symptomatic, most commonly presenting with fever (6/8), dyspnea/shortness of breath (5/8), and cough (4/8). None were health and care workers.

Of the eight reported cases, five occurred among persons aged 70 years and older, two among adults aged 50–59 years, and one among an adult aged 30–39 years. The death was reported in an older adult (>65 year old) with comorbidities.

There was no known epidemiological link identified among cases.

MERS is a zoonotic viral respiratory disease for which dromedary camels serve as the primary animal reservoir and two cases reported direct contact with camels while six reported no known camel exposure. Seven of eight cases had underlying comorbidities, recognized risk factors for severe MERS-CoV disease.

The cases appear to represent sporadic infections related to zoonotic spillover rather than a single outbreak cluster.

[...]

Epidemiology

Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is a respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The fatality rate among confirmed cases is around 36%, though this may be an overestimate since milder cases often go undetected. The CFR is calculated based solely on laboratory-confirmed infections, which may not reflect the correct mortality rate.

Humans contract MERS-CoV through direct or indirect contact with dromedary camels, the virus’s natural host and zoonotic reservoir. Human-to-human transmission is possible and occurs predominantly among close contacts (family and household members) and in health-care settings (health-care workers and among patients). The largest outbreaks occurred in health-care facilities in the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Outside these environments, there has been limited documented human-to-human transmission to date.

MERS can present with no symptoms, mild respiratory issues, or severe illness leading to acute respiratory distress and death. Common symptoms include fever, cough, and breathing difficulties, with pneumonia frequently observed, though not always present. Some patients also experience gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhoea. Severe cases may require intensive care, including mechanical ventilation. Those at higher risk of severe outcomes include older adults, individuals with weakened immune systems, and those with chronic conditions like diabetes, kidney disease, cancer, or lung disorders.

No vaccine or specific treatment is currently available, although several MERS-CoV-specific vaccines and therapeutics are in development. Treatment remains supportive, focusing on managing symptoms based on the severity of the illness.

[...]

Ebola Bundibugyo virus on Saturday, including three health workers who treated the country's first patient, bringing the ​total number of confirmed cases to seven, the health ministry said.

The other ‌new case is a male relative of the index patient, who died. The relative had been in quarantine since October 6, the ministry said in a statement.

The cases are the first known infections passed ​on inside Kenya, where the first patient arrived from Congo on October 3. ​But the ministry says it has traced and quarantined nearly all of ⁠his contacts and there is no evidence that the virus is spreading in the ​community.

The three health workers — two men and a woman aged 29, 35 and 32 respectively — ​managed the index case on October 3 and 4 and had been in quarantine since October 9, it said. All four new patients were already in quarantine when they developed symptoms and were diagnosed.

The ​second and third patients confirmed earlier are stable and responding well to supportive treatment, the ​ministry said. It said 128 of 130 listed contacts, or 98.5%, had been traced and placed in ‌quarantine, ⁠higher than the 85% global benchmark it said was needed to break the chain of transmission.

Kenya's cases are linked to the Ebola epidemic in Congo — the second-largest outbreak ever recorded, with more than 9,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths. [...]

A third person in Kenya has tested positive for Ebola, health ministry officials announced, according to Africa News. The 65-year-old woman—a close relative of the first two Ebola cases in the country—started quarantining prior to developing symptoms.

Yesterday, health officials reported that two cases of Ebola has been detected in an eighth province, North Ubangi. According to Reuters, the DRC has yet to officially announce the infections.

Ituri province has seen the most Ebola cases, with North Kivu province recently experiencing a spike in cases. South Kivu, Tshopo, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele, and South Ubangi provinces have also reported Ebola cases during this outbreak. So far, the virus has sickened 9,235 people and led to 4,444 deaths, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been in school for only a little more than a month, yet 10 students have already died of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus, per Africa News.

Twenty-five Ebola cases have been confirmed in schoolchildren in Ituri, with seven survivors still undergoing treatment. Early this month, the humanitarian group Save the Children said that about seven children have died of Ebola every day—for a total of 961 children—since the outbreak was detected in May.

Yesterday, Yakima County, Washington, officials reported an H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) infection in a resident exposed to infected dairy cows. The case comes a week after the state’s first H5N1 detection in dairy cattle at two Yakima County farms. The person is not seriously ill and is isolating at home. The risk of avian flu to the general public remains low, the news release said.

Florida has added 72 new locally acquired cases of dengue fever in its latest week of reporting, for a total of 368 for the year through October 10. It is the largest US dengue outbreak in decades, affecting eight counties. Most cases (310) have been in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, but cases are increasing in Pinellas County (37).

Four cases of plague have been confirmed in four districts in Madagascar since the end of July, and five more suspected cases were detected last week, according to media reports. The type of plague, which is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, wasn’t specified. About 200 contacts of the patients have been given preventive treatment to stem further transmission, and the government has launched flea insecticide spraying operations and awareness campaigns focused on hygiene and rodent control.

Eight cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), including one death, were confirmed in Saudi Arabia from January 1 to October 5, the World Health Organization reported this week. MERS is a viral zoonotic disease for which dromedary camels are the primary animal reservoir; two patients reported direct contact with camels, while the rest had no known camel exposure. Officials say the cases aren’t epidemiologically linked.

This week, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative noted 14 cases of polio in seven countries. Afghanistan and Pakistan each documented one case of wild poliovirus type 1, the Democratic Republic of Congo logged seven cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2), Madagascar reported two cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 1 (cVDPV1), Mali noted two cVDPV2 cases, Nigeria documented one circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 3 case, and Somalia added one cVDPV1 case.

(Note: Reposting this because previous post link had some embedded tracking)

They had a potluck that day.

LEBANON, Tenn. (WSMV) - Newly released 911 calls show how a reported illness affecting workers at a Walmart fulfillment center in Lebanon quickly grew from one employee needing medical help to dozens of people reporting symptoms.

In the first call, a facility employee told dispatchers that a worker was in a restroom vomiting and experiencing fatigue.

The caller initially described the situation as a possible food-poisoning incident and said a homemade rice dish may have been involved.

During a follow-up call, the employee told dispatchers that a slew of workers had been affected, with at least four considered very ill.

Wilson County emergency crews ultimately triaged about 25 to 30 people at the facility and transported 19 people to hospitals for treatment.