How Winter Gives Flu a Boost Could Be Key to Prevent Flu

Linsey Marr, a professor in the Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, is obsessed with flu transmission. This time of year, she’s not alone. Hand sanitizers and cough drops abound, and banners outside drugstores and doctors’ offices proclaim, “Get your flu shot.” But this year, that vaccine will only reduce your risk of ending up in the doctor’s office with the flu by about 23 percent. The vaccine...

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Got Bees? Got Vitamin A? Got Malaria? Risk of Malnutrition

A new study shows that more than half the people in some developing countries could become newly at risk for malnutrition if crop-pollinating animals — like bees — continue to decline. Despite popular reports that pollinators are crucial for human nutritional health, no scientific studies have actually tested this claim — until now. The new research by scientists at the University of Vermont and Harvard University has, for the first time, connected...

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Measles Outbreak Was Inevitable but Can Be Halted, UAB Dr Says

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – An ongoing, multistate measles outbreak linked to a California amusement park has already caused 68 confirmed cases between Jan. 1 and 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One University of Alabama at Birmingham pediatric infectious diseases specialist says this outbreak was inevitable, and it is likely to worsen. “We’ve been seeing increasing numbers of cases — last year the numbers nationally...

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Ebola Virus Appears Tied to Increasing Human Population Density

Researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center have found an apparent link between human population density and vegetation cover in Africa and the spread of the Ebola virus from animal hosts to humans. Michael G. Walsh, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics in the School of Public Health at SUNY Downstate, notes that there is significant interaction between population density and green vegetation cover in the parts of Africa...

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Liberia Fights Back, Only 5 Ebola Cases in Entire Country

Just five confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease remain in Liberia, a West African country that has seen more than 3,600 deaths from the outbreak of the deadly virus, Reuters quoted a senior health official as saying Friday. “It means that we are going down to zero, if everything goes well, if other people don’t get sick in other places,” said Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, who leads Liberia’s Ebola task force. Three...

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Ebola Care Centers in Liberia nearly empty as Outbreak fades

Liberia, once the epicenter of West Africa’s deadly Ebola epidemic, has just five remaining confirmed cases of the disease, a senior health official said on Friday, highlighting the country’s success in halting new infections. “We have five confirmed Ebola cases in Liberia as of today,” said Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, who heads Liberia’s Ebola taskforce. “It means that we are going down to zero,...

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Why you should worry less about Ebola and more about Measles

Officials stressed the Ebola epidemic in Africa was going to be contained. Then it mushroomed to the worst Ebola outbreak in history and jumped an ocean, as a Liberian man named Thomas E. Duncan brought the disease to Texas. It’s clear the United States has already messed up several times in the fight against Ebola. There will probably be blunders in coming weeks, too. Of course, a mass Ebola outbreak in the United States never materialized. But...

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Ebola Deaths Parallel with Devastating Medieval Plague

As Ebola Deaths Rise, Researcher Sees Parallels with Devastating Medieval Plague If you think that Ebola is bad – and it is – the current outbreak in West Africa is small compared with another deadly epidemic that engulfed much of the globe centuries ago. It is realistic to estimate that during the Middle Ages, plague – also known as the Black Death – wiped out 40 to 60 percent of the population in large areas of Europe, Africa and Asia, according...

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Measles Outbreak: Unvaccinated Visitors Told to Avoid Disneyland

Forty-nine of the 66 confirmed cases of measles have been traced back to the resort. There’s an outbreak of measles linked to the theme park, and one of California’s top public health officials recommended that children under 12 months and people who’ve never had a measles vaccination stay away from the park while the disease event continues. Dr. Gil Chavez, deputy director of the state’s Center for Infectious Diseases,...

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Disneyland Measles Outbreak Continues to Spread

The measles outbreak is growing with 59 confirmed cases in California—18 more than last week—and some 42 of those illnesses have struck people who were exposed at Disneyland in December, California health officials said Wednesday. State health departments in California, Colorado, Utah and Washington and have confirmed cases of the extremely contagious virus, the Los Angeles Timesreported on Wednesday. Taken together, the cases would account for...

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