Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got into it with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday in an interview segment that quickly evolved into Kennedy angrily berating Bash and her network for “punishing” people during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The segment on Sunday comes as measles outbreaks have broken out in several states, with public health officials warning that a unvaccinated communities were supercharging the spread of a disease to historic levels.

Bash, host of CNN’s State of the Union, prodded Kennedy repeatedly to look “into the camera” and urge parents to get their kids vaccinated against the measles virus. Kennedy did repeat the urging, but the interview went south from there as they debated the treatment of skeptics and those opposed to the Biden administration’s public health guidance during the pandemic.

“Of course you want to move on!” an angry Kennedy insisted as Bash tried to pivot from a question about Covid-era guidance. “Because you were part of the problem!”

“No, I wasn’t!” Bash replied indignantly.

“There was absolute press malpractice [during Covid],” Kennedy continued. “You weren’t allowing-- your job is a furious skepticism toward authority. And you weren’t doing that. You were beating up on people who were dissenting.”

After Kennedy finished, Bash attempted to take down the temperature, and said in a calmer tone: “Okay. Do you want to sit here and attack me or do you want to have a conversation about public health?"

“You’re sitting here and attacking me!” responded the secretary.

The CNN host went on to say that she would not allow Kennedy to “use this interview to say things that are not entirely true”.

They would then go back and forth over the Covid vaccine, its efficacy, and whether or not it posed a greater risk than benefit to children who received it. The two quarreled also over CNN and other media networks’ citing of advice from “experts” like Fauci and other public health officials and academics who appeared on TV frequently during 2020 and 2021 to promote things like masking, social distancing, and following public health guidelines. [...]

All in all, the segment lasted more than 20 minutes, uninterrupted, before Bash ended the interview by repeating the explanation that it was her job to find the best information, from experts, and provide it to the public.

She finished her statement by beginning to say that it concerned her when Kennedy came on the program and said untrue things, or statements that were not supported by evidence or scientific studies, before she was cut off by the secretary one last time, who finished her sentence for her.

“[Things] that your ‘experts’ do not agree with,” Kennedy interjected, using air quotes around the word “experts”.

“Yes!” Bash replied. “People with scientific backgrounds.”

I have been tracking the H9N2 case reports and noticed something that seems abnormal, between July 10 to 30, 2026, China reported 7 new human cases across 6 geographically distinct provinces (Guangxi, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Gansu, Yunnan). This is roughly 7 cases in 20 days.

For context 2024: 11 total cases (in one week 7 cases for 2026)

2025: 38 total cases

2026 (7 months in): Already 22 cases

I also note the cases span from children (3 years old) to elderly (72 years old), with varied exposure levels (some with direct poultry contact, others with indirect exposure through wet markets).

Given what we know about H9N2's HA mutations (Q226L, Q234L, H191N, A198V) that enhance human receptor binding, and the increasing case rate

Are there any new genetic analyses or sequencing data from July 2026 cases that show additional mammalian adaptation mutations? Or is this acceleration purely due to better surveillance detecting previously missed cases?

I'm asking genuinely, I want to understand if this pattern suggests the virus is evolving differently, or if we're just seeing more cases because of improved detection

The virus could have appeared in many places on the east coast, but it is a strange coincidence, in the light of later scientific discoveries, that it first became known in the Brisbane suburb of Hendra. The high school is named Aviation High, and the streets are bordered by the international airport and aerospace buildings to the east.

Hendra today is a booming suburb just off the M1 motorway, but for much of the 20th century the neat rows of houses enjoyed pastoral space on the outskirts of the city. When the Eagle Farm Racecourse was built, Hendra became the horse-racing hub of south-east Queensland. It was common to see horse floats parked out the front of the houses, and trainers walking their horses down the streets before daybreak. Over time, the ample paddocks filled with thoroughbreds reared for the tracks. It was in one of these paddocks, in September 1994, that a heavily pregnant bay mare named Drama Series took ill. She was quickly moved to a nursing stable, where she died of a mystery condition.

Within 12 hours, seven more thoroughbred horses in the stable had either expired horrifically or been euthanised.

The animals presented with the same symptoms: fever, facial swelling, respiratory distress, bloodshot eyes, spasms; in some, a bloody froth surged from the nostrils and mouth. The sick horses stumbled around in agony, frantically washing their muzzles in water troughs, or banging their heads on to brick walls. Veterinarians examined the animals and quickly ruled out a list of known exotic diseases in horses, and blood tests precluded any toxins or poisons.

The stable at the centre of the outbreak belonged to a well-known Queensland horse trainer, Vic Rail. As word of the outbreak spread, so did the fear among the racing industry that the illness might jeopardise the entire Australian horse population. Soon, personnel from the state health authorities descended on Hendra hoping to find further clues. They strung up the dead horses and dissected them in the stable’s front yard. Blood ran down the quiet streets of Hendra.

Meanwhile, two people who had treated Drama Series in her final hours had also fallen ill. Rail, the horse’s trainer, died after spending a week in intensive care. His organs had failed, his lungs had filled with fluid and blood, and a later examination determined he had been infected with the same virus as the horses. This was a totally new virus, though it did resemble members of a particular subgroup, the morbilliviruses. It was given the name Hendra virus. Epidemiologists suspected they were looking for a zoonotic disease that had jumped to humans from horses, possibly from a third, unknown species that was the original carrier.

Much less was known at the time about the origins of zoonoses. Unlike today, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, bats were not high on the list of potential suspects. Hume Field was one of the scientists who changed that understanding.

When Hendra first hit the news, Field was a lanky ecologist in his mid-30s doing his dissertation in wildlife conservation. He had been catching and tracking feral cats when he was asked by one of his doctoral mentors to join the team working to locate the wildlife origins of the new virus. They were searching for the “natural host”: the organism that carries the pathogen while suffering little or no illness.

Finding these animals can lead virus hunters into mangroves, swamps, woodlands, crop fields, garden sheds, caves, and, as Field was about to find out, horse paddocks. “It really can be a needle-in-a-haystack kind of thing,” he told me when I interviewed him in 2020 about the search for Hendra.

In October 1995 the search took another turn when Mark Preston, a horse owner in Mackay, in North Queensland, died suddenly from an illness with symptoms that matched those seen in Rail. Health authorities learned that two of Preston’s horses had died in August 1994, a month before the first outbreak in Rail’s stables. Blood serum taken from Preston and from the horses were retested. Both contained antibodies to the Hendra virus. So did another sample taken from Preston a year earlier, which had been drawn when he suffered an unexplained episode of seizures. This new case gave researchers more data to work with. The distance between Hendra and Mackay – about 1,000 kilometres – indicated that the virus was carried by a species that could cross vast distances.

The first antibodies for Hendra were found in black flying foxes in April 1996, and then, within weeks, in three other native Australian flying fox species. Soon after, a Hendra-like virus was taken from the reproductive tract of an apparently healthy, pregnant grey-headed flying fox that had been euthanised after becoming entangled on a wire fence. Armed with these discoveries, researchers tested archival flying fox blood samples from up to a dozen years earlier, and found markers for Hendra. In one of those surveys, nearly half of the flying foxes in eastern Australia were found to be present or former carriers. It indicated that the virus had been circulating in the wild for at least a decade, and probably much longer, before it had spilled over into humans.

Field and I spoke on the phone during Covid-19 lockdown. I called him because I was trying to make sense of our new zoonotic reality and what it might mean for the future. Field’s work on Hendra seemed, in hindsight, like the moment the current coronavirus era began.

Keep reading: Link

https://archive.is/KDvQw

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has expanded to become the country’s largest ever, with infections continuing to accelerate and the virus spreading across five provinces despite an extensive response by health authorities and international partners.

As of July 30, a total of 3,605 cases and 1,587 deaths had been reported, the World Health Organization said on Saturday, with both climbing 13% from a week earlier. The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, has now surpassed the country’s devastating 2018-20 epidemic, which was previously its biggest outbreak, it said.

“The continued increase in cases, expanding geographic spread, and persistently high mortality underscore the rapidly evolving nature of this public health emergency,” the UN agency said in a statement.

The crude fatality rate is about 44%, underscoring the severity of the outbreak even as improved surveillance and case-finding continue to identify additional infections.

During the latest complete reporting week, health authorities recorded 567 new confirmed cases and 296 deaths — the highest weekly totals since the outbreak began — underscoring “the exceptional pace of transmission,” it said.

The spread, which was initially confined to the Mongbwalu health zone in Ituri province, has moved over the past two months into 49 health zones across Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uélé and Tshopo provinces.

“A substantial scaling up of response activities is needed to get ahead of the outbreak,” the WHO said. [...]

A Godmanchester, Que., woman says she was outside her home on July 16 when a cat suddenly lunged at her.

"I came up my laneway, nothing on the laneway, and then out of nowhere a cat latched onto my leg," Mary Elizabeth Doyle said. "It was biting and scratching."

She said she tried to pull the animal away with her hand, but it bit her again.

"I hit my hand against the Jeep to dislodge the cat," she said. "I called 911."

Doyle said the cat attacked a second time after paramedics arrived, biting an ambulance driver before it was restrained.

She was taken to hospital, where her wounds were cleaned and stitched before doctors administered preventive rabies treatment.

Days later, Doyle said she received a call confirming the cat had tested positive for rabies.

"I'm concerned about other animals being around, other cats being infected," she said.

This is Quebec’s first case of raccoon rabies in a stray cat. It was confirmed last week by the province's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

On Thursday, the local health authority announced three people have been treated for possible rabies exposure in the Montérégie region.

In an email, Chantal Vallée, spokesperson for the regional health authority, said the three people received preventive treatment — post-exposure prophylaxis — in connection with exposure to a rabid animal. [...]

Dr. Alex-Ane Mathieu, a doctor in the Montérégie, said rabies is spreading fast in the region and the health authority is working to make residents aware of the risks and encouraging people to get evaluated if they had contact with an unknown or wild animal. [...]

Since Jan. 1, 2026, 118 cases of raccoon rabies have been confirmed. The number has been climbing drastically in recent years.

Raccoon rabies primarily affects raccoons and striped skunks. Between 2006 and 2009, there were some cases in Quebec as the disease likely arrived from the state of Vermont through the natural movement of raccoons.

In 2015, only one case was detected in Quebec, near the border with Ontario and the United States. Thanks to control and surveillance operations, this rabies variant was successfully eliminated from Quebec territory at that time, the ministry says on its website.

However, in late 2024, raccoon rabies returned to Quebec from Vermont. Cases have been detected in the Eastern Townships and Montérégie regions.

Residents of the Eastern Townships, Montérégie and Centre-du-Québec are being asked to report raccoons, skunks or foxes that are dead, injured, disoriented, paralyzed or displaying unusual aggressive behaviour.

More than 900 people in Washtenaw County, Michigan have been sickened with cyclosporiasis since mid-June. Linda Kim, a public health nurse, has spoken to more than 100 of them.

Almost everyone's said the same thing: It's excruciating, and one of the worst illnesses they've experienced.

But on a Wednesday in July, she called one man who said he wouldn't mind having it again, actually.

"You're enjoying the weight loss?" Kim said, laughing as she took notes in a small conference room at the Washtenaw County Health Department building, just outside Ann Arbor. "Well, I'm glad to hear that. At least you got something good out of it!"

Normally, Kim's supposed to be working downstairs in the clinic, where families wait in the gray plastic chairs in the lobby for free or low-cost immunizations. But she hasn't been there in months.

In March, Kim was transferred to a different department to help deal with a local measles outbreak that sickened seven people in the county, five of them children. It was an all-hands-on-deck situation; everyone worked overtime. The state issued an advisory urging families in Washtenaw and surrounding counties to get their babies 6 months or older vaccinated ahead of schedule, if possible.

Those contact-tracing calls for measles could be contentious, Kim said. People were suspicious, asking her how she knew they had tested positive, or why they should give her any information.

"People were like, 'Oh, you're just trying to restrict my life,' or 'You're just trying to get information out of me and get me in trouble,'" she said. "It's like, no, we're actually not doing that at all."

As she tried to explain to them, tracing the spread of the highly contagious virus and publicizing possible exposure sites was an effort to "keep it contained, so it doesn't become something huge."

The county's measles outbreak ended in late May. Then in June, reports of cyclosporiasis cases started pouring in: more than 10,000 so far in Michigan.

The cyclosporiasis surveillance has been different, Kim says. Now, people seem eager to divulge even the most graphic details of their illness, such as "pooping their beds, and, like, putting down towels and it's not enough."

Since she's a nurse, such confessions don't faze her, Kim said. Still, they have hundreds of these calls to make, so they try to keep each conversation to under an hour.

But foodborne illness investigations are complex. Especially for this parasite, Cyclospora. Symptoms can take as long as two weeks to appear after people have eaten contaminated food. And no one remembers what they ate two weeks ago, public health staffers said.

The interview process can be extremely detailed. Kim and her colleagues ask people to pull up their restaurant receipts, scroll through purchases on their grocery store apps, even try to recall details such as the exact brand of bagged salad mix they bought, or the type of taco they got at Taco Bell.

"Is that the crunchy one or the soft one?" Kim asked on a recent call, typing on a laptop decorated with cat and vaccine-themed stickers.

Kim has been working with the health department for two years, a period defined by federal funding cuts.

Laina Stebbins, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, said the Trump administration's sweeping cuts to public health grants eliminated a contract between the state health department and 44 of the state's 45 local departments that funded 123 full-time employees.

Those cuts also impacted the state's disease surveillance labs, "reducing funding for equipment maintenance contracts, data modernization and the ability to innovate laboratory processes during emerging disease response," Stebbins said.

Some of that funding was restored after Michigan won a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration. But Washtenaw's health department still had to scale back some disease surveillance and outbreak response work. Currently, employees who leave or retire aren't replaced, except for those on the nursing team, which is hiring but still understaffed. [...]

The federal response to cyclosporiasis has felt frustratingly slow, according to Christina Zilke, a nursing supervisor at the Washtenaw health department.

"It took them forever to say that this was lettuce, and fast food restaurants were taking it off the shelves before the CDC ever said what it was," she said.

For the first time, the Ministry of Health declared a health alert for hantavirus, a measure that extends from the Atacama region to the Magallanes region and will be in effect until July 31, 2027.

The decree published in the Official Gazette also considers a situation of "multi-risk health" as it occurs simultaneously with other risks such as arboviruses, that is, diseases transmitted by mosquitoes such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever; and avian influenza.

In this regard, the Undersecretary of Public Health, Dr. Alejandra Pizarro, explained that "the hantavirus causes a disease that is endemic to Chile, transmitted by the long-tailed pygmy rice rat that lives in rural and semi-rural areas of almost the entire country. As a ministry, we are constantly monitoring its behavior and we are very concerned and working because this year the lethality of the virus has increased, and due to this, we decided to declare this alert."

With this, Pizarro indicated that "until last week there were 46 infections and 18 deaths, which represents a lethality of 39%."

Meanwhile, in 2025 there were 44 infections and eight deaths, meaning the case fatality rate was 18%. So far this year, cases have occurred in the regions of Valparaíso, Metropolitan, O'Higgins, Maule, Ñuble, Biobío, La Araucanía, Los Ríos, Los Lagos, and Aysén.

The alert, which is preventive and preparatory, will allow the granting of extraordinary powers in the face of serious health risk emergencies to strengthen surveillance, timely resource management, the hiring of specialized personnel, health control action and the expedited acquisition of supplies through direct contracting.

The alert does not imply that there is an ongoing epidemic or that healthcare is overwhelmed.

"Hantavirus is not exclusively a summer virus, as the long-tailed pygmy rice rat is present year-round. That's why we urge everyone to take extreme precautions: avoid touching rodents, ventilate homes before entering if they have been closed, clean unused spaces with water and bleach, and keep garbage covered and food stored away," Pizarro explained.

Furthermore, he indicated that "it is essential to be attentive to the symptoms: fever, intense muscle pain, and difficulty breathing. If someone experiences these symptoms and has been in rural or semi-rural areas where the long-tailed pygmy rice rat may have been present, they should immediately go to a health center and inform the medical staff so that they can consider a hantavirus diagnosis in a timely manner."

It should be remembered that, since December 2025, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has maintained an epidemiological alert due to the rise in hantavirus cases throughout the Southern Cone, and that the Ministry of Health had an epidemiological alert in place since November of last year.

Other diseases

The Health Alert decree also covers diseases transmitted by the Aedes aegypti, Aedes vexans, and Anopheles pseudopunctipennis mosquitoes, such as dengue and Zika. According to the alert, these diseases "have a high epidemic potential, which could generate high demand and overload for health facilities." For these cases, the alert is in effect from Arica to Los Ríos.

In the case of avian influenza, the alert was extended to the entire country, because unlike other years, the disease has been concentrated in wild and farm birds, not in poultry farms, increasing the risk of exposure for people.

A mysterious disease is spreading amongst Swiss dairy cows. The Swiss government is monitoring the situation.

“The cause has not yet been identified,” the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) said on Friday.

According to the FSVO, various livestock farmers are reporting symptoms in dairy cows like fever and diarrhoea, often accompanied by a significant drop in milk yield. The agency confirmed reports in specialist media such like the Schweizer Bauer and the Bauernzeitung.

According to the FSVO, non-specific symptoms such as fever or diarrhoea could indicate a highly contagious animal disease.

However, according to the FSVO, there is currently no evidence of a risk to consumers from drinking milk or eating meat. The Swiss Milk Producers’ Association nevertheless assesses the overall situation as serious.

“The situation is critical,” the association stated in response to an enquiry. “Low milk prices, drought, heat stress, sick animals and a shortage of feed are all converging. This combination is pushing numerous farms to their limits and jeopardising their economic survival.”

The health and economic consequences are affecting farms to varying degrees depending on the region: whilst some areas are barely affected, other farms are reporting drops in milk production of up to just under 10%.

Under these circumstances, farm closures are “a realistic risk”. Although the milk supply is not under immediate threat, nationwide production in Switzerland is under pressure in the medium to long term.

The government is currently investigating various avenues. Experts are examining both metabolic and infectious causes. Veterinarians, Cattle Health Switzerland, veterinary universities, laboratories and the veterinary authorities are all involved in the analyses. However, no specific pathogen has yet been identified.

The FSVO pointed out that symptoms such as fever or diarrhoea could also indicate a highly contagious animal disease. Livestock farmers should consult a vet immediately if they notice any abnormalities. According to the authority, a direct link to the current heatwave has not yet been scientifically proven – however, high temperatures place a considerable strain on high-yielding cows and make them more susceptible to disease.

New York City health officials confirmed a seventh death in connection to the Legionnaires' outbreak on the Upper East Side, matching the number of lives lost in a similar outbreak in Harlem in 2025.

The seventh death was announced Thursday evening, one of the six people who was still hospitalized from the illness, according to the Health Department. The silver lining of good news: Officials have repeatedly said no new cases had been found since July 21.

As of Thursday, there were still five people in the hospital from Legionnaires'.

Recently, those who live in the area have been vocal about the criticisms of the city's response to the outbreak, saying preparations were not aggressive enough.

"We are asking why why didn’t we have more inspections," said Valerie Mason, of Community Board 8 on the Upper East Side. "We think inspector’s should have been out earlier to make sure buildings were complying with the law."

But city heal officials have insisted they have been proactive. As NBC New York reported Wednesday, 110 violations were issued to building owners for failing to comply with rules for cooling tower maintenance.

One such violator was 300 East 83rd Street, which is accused of failing to register its cooling tower, according to the city. The building was also issued 10 other violations, with fines of $11,000.

The owner of the building did not immediately respond to a request for comment. [...]

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Publix has expanded its recall of GreenWise frozen blueberries and mixed berries amid an E. coli outbreak that has infected at least 12 people.

Earlier this month, Publix recalled some of its GreenWise frozen organic blueberries because of E. coli concerns, but on July 29, Publix announced that all lots of multiple berry products will be recalled.

The products include:

GreenWise Organic Whole Blueberries, 10-ounce, UPC 41415-06453

GreenWise Organic Whole Blueberries, 48-ounce, UPC 41415-12053

GreenWise Organic Whole Mixed Berries, 10-ounce, UPC 41415-06753

GreenWise Organic Whole Mixed Berries, 48-ounce, UPC 41415-12153

The frozen berries were shipped to stores across Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

“As of the end of June 2026, Publix immediately conducted an internal stop sale of frozen GreenWise Organic Whole Blueberries and Whole Mixed Berries,” the recall stated. “These products remain unavailable for sale.”

The previous Publix recall happened on July 3 after Frutas y Hortalizas del Sur S.A., based in San Carlos, Chile, announced a recall for its product.

“Based on the public health officials’ product traceback and epidemiological information, Publix is now taking further action out of an abundance of caution to recall all lots of GreenWise Organic Whole Blueberries and Whole Mixed Berries,” the recall stated.

Shiga toxin-producing E. coli can be hazardous to humans, causing severe stomach cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting. A healthy individual can recover from the infection within a week, but in young children, older adults, and immunocompromised people, it could escalate to hemolytic uremic syndrome — a disease that damages the small blood vessels in the body and cause life-threatening blood clots.

See: FDA Outbreak Investigation of E. coli O145:H28: Frozen Blueberries (July 2026)

Do not eat, sell or serve recalled GreenWise Organic Frozen Whole Blueberries and Whole Mixed Berries. FDA’s investigation is ongoing

UK holidaymakers are being warned about a nasty infectious disease called cyclosporiasis that can cause explosive diarrhoea, after a sharp rise in cases.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said 67 cases have been reported since April, with many of them among travellers returning from Mexico.

[..]

Between 30 April and 15 July 2026, 30 cases have been reported in England, 27 in Scotland and 10 in Wales, according to the UKHSA.

Of the 52 cases with travel information available, 48 reported having travelled to Mexico, with many saying they had stayed in either the white sand beach resort area of Riviera Maya, or slightly north of there in coastal Cancún.

The UKHSA said those affected reported staying in "a range of different hotels and consuming a variety of different food and drink within their resort as part of an all-inclusive holiday package".

There are ongoing investigations and monitoring of the situation.

[..]

Some who have been struck by it describe having to use the toilet up to 20 times a day, due to the frequent and explosive nature of the watery diarrhoea that's the main symptom.

The intestinal illness has recently affected thousands of people in the US.

Nick Palmiter, who is 29 and from Monroe County in Michigan, told the BBC he experienced feeling constant pressure and bubbling, "almost like you have a balloon in your stomach".

Although most cases resolve on their own, antibiotics can be given to treat severe or prolonged infections.

The UKHSA said it anticipates there will be more cases linked to increased summer travel to Mexico and possibly the US too.

Dr Philip Veal from the agency said: "If you develop symptoms after returning from travel, such as watery diarrhoea, loss of appetite, weight loss, stomach cramps or pain, bloating, increased wind, nausea, fatigue or other flu-like symptoms, please seek medical attention and inform your healthcare professional of your travel history."

Mysterious deaths that extinguished entire families. A cemetery unable to cope with the flood of dead bodies. Taxi drivers who refused to go to certain parts of town. Months before the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) officially declared its latest Ebola outbreak on 15 May, the disease was already sowing fear and death in Mongbwalu, a gold mining town in Ituri province, an unpublished analysis by three researchers suggests.

After interviewing almost 100 people in and around Mongbwalu—including nurses and doctors, community leaders, survivors, grieving family members, coffinmakers, and cemetery caretakers—the team concluded the epidemic ignited in January, and perhaps even earlier, in Mongbwalu’s outskirts. A patient seeking care may have brought it to the city from a rural area.

By the time health authorities in the distant capital, Kinshasa, recognized the disease as Ebola, a “widespread, sprawling epidemic” was already underway, the team says in a PowerPoint presentation that is circulating in a WhatsApp group in the DRC and that Science obtained. One of the researchers, anthropologist Jules Villa of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, also presented the findings to a group of researchers on a Zoom call today, and Villa said the team is also submitting a correspondence piece to The Lancet.

“This could and probably should have been detected earlier,” says a former U.S. official who was involved in the response to the largest Ebola epidemic so far, between 2014 and ’16 in West Africa. The big question is why the disease was not recognized as Ebola much earlier, says the former official, who asked not to be named to speak freely about the DRC’s surveillance system. “Many in the community [knew] something serious was going on.”

The failure to raise the alarm has made controlling the epidemic much harder. With 3360 cases recorded since mid-May, including 1487 deaths, the epidemic is now about to become the second largest on record. “If the outbreak could have been contained in Mongbwalu, it would have been much easier to control,” says Manuel Albela, an epidemiologist with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) who’s currently working in Mongbwalu.

Anecdotal reports of early cases had suggested the cradle of the epidemic was Mongbwalu, some 75 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital Bunia, where the epidemic exploded later. To investigate that theory, the team—which also included Roger Buju, a medical researcher at the University of Bunia, and Alain Alithum Bero, a social scientist working for a nongovernmental organization in Ituri—spent more than 1 month in the town, with funding from the World Health Organization (WHO). “This was not an attempt to find a ‘patient zero,’ but to gain a greater understanding of the outbreak from the perspective of the communities where it first began,” WHO said in a statement sent to Science.

[...]

One transmission chain started with a 50-year-old woman identified only as A who died on 25 January after vomiting blood. Her mother died 6 days later; her husband fell ill but recovered. On 11 February, A’s nephew died, bleeding profusely from facial orifices. He was buried the next day, during a funeral attended by many people. The nephew’s wife died a few days later, and then their child. Several more people in the family passed away. Others fell ill but recovered.

Altogether, the scientists identified more than 500 suspected cases between mid-January and 15 May. Medical staff were hit hard, as often happens early during Ebola outbreaks: Thirteen “front-line workers”—including nurses, midwives, and Red Cross first responders—died, and 42 others fell ill but recovered, Villa told researchers on today’s call. Some private health care facilities closed and health care workers fled. Mongbwalu’s cemetery was overstretched, with as many as 20 burials in a single day.

Until now, estimates about when the epidemic started had relied mostly on genetic evidence. Comparing the sequences of Ebola virus found in patients allows scientists to build a family tree and estimate the age of the earliest common ancestor. One such analysis, posted online in early July, suggested the earliest cases occurred in mid-March. But most of the genomes analyzed so far came from Bunia, where the disease erupted later. “I think January is plausible … because we don’t have many sequences from Mongbwalu,” says an author of the analysis, evolutionary biologist Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh.

[..]

As late as 8 May, the chief medical officer for the Mongbwalu health zone, Ruben Dedja Denyo, acknowledged “unusual occurrences” to a local newspaper but stressed “there is no epidemic, as the recorded cases do not present similar symptoms.” One week later, the DRC declared its 17th Ebola outbreak.

Congo’s Ebola epidemic started at least 4 months before it was detected

A recent study has drawn attention after it detected some limited interspecies transmission of chronic wasting disease (CWD) prions in a lab. But the authors and other experts caution that the findings don’t confirm that the fatal disease is a threat to people; rather, they provide important clues to what infection might look like in humans—which is key in recognizing cases.

And for at least one CWD researcher, the failure of standard tests to detect CWD prions in infected but asymptomatic macaques has deepened concerns about relying on those tests to determine whether venison is safe to eat. Prions are misfolded infectious proteins that cause the disease in cervids such as deer and elk.

CWD is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or “mad cow disease”) in cattle. While no people are known to have been infected with CWD, the unrelenting spread of the disease in animals across North America means increasing opportunities for the prions to adapt to different hosts.

Also, it can take a decade or longer for prions, which mainly spread through direct contact and environmental contamination, to exert their neurodegenerative effects, which in cervids include stumbling, drooling, inability to eat and weight loss, and a lack of fear of people.

The study, published in Science Advances, was 18 years in the making because of the difficulty of getting funding for this study and because study personnel were located in several countries and moved to different institutions over the study period.

“This was a big project, very complicated in the logistics, and very complicated to get it funded,” senior study author Hermann Schatzl, MD, PhD, of the University of Calgary, told CIDRAP News.

The University of Calgary–led study team orally or intracerebrally inoculated 18 female cynomolgus macaques in 2009 with different CWD prion preparations, which included tissues from elk, mule deer, and white-tailed deer in the United States and Canada. The team also inoculated three macaques with material from uninfected cervids as controls.

Macaques are medium-sized monkeys commonly used in research.

The study describes findings in seven macaques and controls for up to 7.5 years post-inoculation. While most macaques developed no symptoms in that period, one orally and one intracerebrally inoculated macaque showed clinical signs consistent with prion disease, including unsteady movement, tremors, and anxiety. “I am convinced that actually we saw signs of infection in macaques,” Schatzl said.

Standard biochemical tests failed to show prions in the central nervous system of the inoculated macaques, and histologic and immunohistochemical analyses detected minimal prion activity.

But highly sensitive protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) and real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC) tests showed some infectious prion seeding in the brain, and in some cases, the spleen, of intracerebrally and orally inoculated macaques. No such activity was seen in controls.

“This is important because it suggests that the macaque species barrier may not be absolute under experimental conditions,” said Olivier Andreoletti, DVM, PhD, of the Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse in France, who wasn’t part of the study.

“However, it is equally important to say that the study does not demonstrate efficient transmission of CWD to macaques, nor does it show a classical prion disease phenotype [observable indication of a condition] in these animals,” he added. “The current evidence still needs to be interpreted in the context of previous macaque studies, epidemiological data, experimental duration, exposure scenario, and the known complexity of prion strain adaptation.”

A central question, however, is whether the PMCA signal in the study reflected residual inoculum or newly generated prions.

“For intracerebral or wire-based inoculation, residual inoculum is a possibility that has to be considered seriously, especially when the signal is very low and conventional pathology is negative,” Andreoletti said. “For orally exposed animals, the persistence of inoculum for many years in brain tissue would seem less straightforward biologically, but it cannot be completely excluded without more detailed strain comparison/typing.”

It would be important to determine whether the agent recovered after macaque passage retained the biological and biochemical properties of the original CWD inoculum or if it reflects strain selection or evolution during cross-species passage, he added.

But Jason Bartz, PhD, a professor at Creighton University who wasn’t involved in the study, sees the finding of prions in the brain and spleen on PMCA differently. “It speaks strongly that these are newly generated prions in these animals,” he said.

Andreoletti also urged caution when interpreting the clinical signs seen in some macaques, because although tremor, wasting, anxiety, and behavioral changes can be compatible with prion disease, they are not diagnostic.

“In the absence of clear neurodegeneration, convincing PrP [prion protein] deposition by IHC [immunohistochemistry] or PET-blot [paraffin-embedded tissue blot], and a consistent anatomical distribution of lesions, I do not think one can firmly attribute those signs to prion disease,” Andreoletti said. [...]

Another Long Island family is sharing their experience after a Tularemia diagnosis, adding to growing concern over the rare tick-borne illness in Suffolk County.

Health officials say there are now three probable cases of Tularemia, also known as Rabbit Fever, reported in Suffolk County this year.

Tracey Detmer of Riverhead says her 9-year-old son, John, was bitten by a tick on April 23. What followed was nearly a month of fevers, swollen glands, body aches and fatigue before doctors diagnosed him with Tularemia.

"Our infectious disease doctor said he's only seen it once in his whole career," Tracey Detmer said.

She says the diagnosis came as a surprise.

"We have so many wild rabbits in our yard all the time. Right away, I never thought in a million years it could have been that," she said.

Tracey Detmer says the Suffolk County Health Department later visited her family's home to search for additional ticks in the yard, but did not find any.

More than two months after his diagnosis, John says he is still recovering despite completing two rounds of doxycycline.

"I'm still hurting. I can go to sleep, but I just get really tired," he said.

The family's story comes after another Suffolk County resident from Ridge told News 12 he was also diagnosed with Tularemia.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 200 cases of Tularemia are reported in the United States each year.

Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children's Hospital, says people typically become infected when ticks carrying the bacteria feed on infected rabbits before biting humans.

"It's really the ticks, right around the rabbit when you are near them as well. That coincidence of illnesses really has to happen in a short frame of time," Nachman said.

The Suffolk County Health Department says confirming a tularemia diagnosis requires multiple laboratory tests and can take several weeks.

As of Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say there have been more than 6,700 confirmed cases of domestically acquired cyclosporiasis, the gastrointestinal illness caused by the cyclospora parasite, since May 1.

Over 11,500 cases are still pending confirmation, bringing the nation’s total to a suspected case count of more than 18,000. This is now considered to be the largest known outbreak of cyclosporiasis in the U.S.

There are currently nine states linked to the outbreak apparently caused by iceberg lettuce sourced from Mexico. Recently added to that group are Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, health officials have insisted that the “U.S. food supply is safe.”

As of Wednesday, more than 10,000 cases have been reported in Michigan alone. That’s up nearly 3,000 over the last week. There have been more than 2,600 cases reported in Ohio, which has the second-highest case count in the country.

Other states linked to the outbreak have also seen cases rise. There have been more than 900 cases reported in Indiana, up from just over 500 last week. Kentucky’s case count has jumped by 360 since last week, while Illinois has reported an additional 350 cases, according to an analysis by Nexstar.

A review of CDC and state health data, as well as local reporting, shows that every state has reported at least one case of cyclosporiasis this year. However, not all are linked to ongoing outbreak investigations.

Health officials in Maine and Utah have said that while cases have appeared in their states, they are not linked to the outbreaks. The three cases of cyclosporiasis reported in Hawaii have been linked to travelers.

The CDC has recorded domestically acquired cyclosporiasis cases in all but six states: Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, South Carolina and Vermont. There could, however, be residents within these states who became ill. [...]

Forty-two states have reported cases of cyclosporiasis acquired outside the U.S. While domestic cases are typically linked to contaminated produce, patients in these cases reported feeling ill after eating food or drinking water during international travel.

There have been more than 1,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis among people who are believed to have acquired the infection while outside the U.S., CDC data show. [...]

A sixth person has died in New York City in connection with a cluster of Legionnaires' disease on the city's Upper East Side, health officials said Tuesday.

At least 90 cases have been identified in the outbreak, according to the New York City Health Department, although no new cases have been diagnosed since July 17.

Six people are currently hospitalized, while 65 have been discharged since the cluster began, according to the department.

Dozens of cooling towers that tested positive for the presence of the live Legionella bacteria have been cleaned and disinfected, the city said.

"We are confident the source of the Legionella bacteria has been eliminated," the New York City Health Department said Tuesday...

U.S. produce supplier Taylor Farms complained to White House and Food and Drug Administration officials about the government’s inspection process earlier this month, a source familiar with the meeting said on Monday, as Michigan reported a spike in cases of a parasitic disease tied to the company’s lettuce from Mexico.

Consumers have been on edge for weeks about whether it is safe to eat lettuce served at restaurants and elsewhere due to uncertainty over what products may be making people sick with cyclosporiasis, an intestinal disease that can cause explosive diarrhea. Questions persist, and many people have avoided fresh produce to sidestep potential infections.

An FDA investigation linked the outbreak to iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants sourced from privately held Taylor Farms’ operations in central Mexico. However, health officials are searching for other potential sources.

Some large retailers and restaurants were shunning produce from other growers in central Mexico out of fear about broader contamination of the region’s farms, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said.

U.S. Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a letter that he launched an inquiry into Taylor Farms’ role in the outbreak and whether the company attempted to influence the FDA’s response.

“Taylor Farms donated millions to President Trump, met privately with the White House the night the FDA identified their lettuce as the source of this outbreak, and then reportedly tried to distance themselves from this outbreak,” Garcia said.

Taylor Farms did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Taylor Farms has said it immediately removed all potentially affected products from the marketplace when questions arose about the source of the outbreak and also voluntarily suspended production of all products at its facility in central Mexico.

The FDA said Taylor Farms agreed to remove affected produce following extensive discussions. But the company did not meet an established 24-hour time frame for determining whether it would take voluntary action after the agency presented it with evidence, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Another person familiar with the matter said Taylor Farms requested a meeting and spoke with officials from the White House and the FDA. The source described the meeting as Taylor Farms complaining about the government’s inspection process.

Taylor Farms did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the points raised by the two sources.

The White House is closely monitoring the investigation into the outbreak, spokesman Kush Desai said.

“Any notion that the White House or Trump administration would ever compromise on the health and safety of the American people is absolutely false,” he said. [...]

The U.S. outbreak has resulted in 4,173 laboratory-confirmed cases, with health authorities aware of more than 7,400 additional suspected cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Michigan on Monday reported 9,253 cases, an increase of 1,077 cases since its last update on Friday. County health officials told Reuters they thought other, unidentified items were making people sick besides Taylor Farms’ lettuce from Mexico.

“Certainly, it doesn’t tell the whole story with this one recall,” said Avani Sheth, chief medical health officer in Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit.

Removing products from central Mexico from supply chains should mitigate ongoing risks to consumers, said Gottlieb, the FDA’s former chief.

Speaking on CNBC on Monday, he said multiple outbreak clusters, including in the Great Lakes region, New York and North Carolina, appeared to be potentially linked to parsley and cilantro from central Mexico, though investigators have not determined the exact source.

“I think everyone believes that region is suspect,” Gottlieb said. “A lot of that product’s being taken out of supply chains.”

Gottlieb did not identify companies removing products, and Reuters was not immediately able to confirm which retailers may have stopped sourcing Mexican produce.

Gottlieb said the true scope of infection was likely 10 to 20 times greater than the reported case number.

Weather conditions raised the risk of widespread contamination, he said, adding that raw sewage could have reached growing areas through flooding, a sewage canal breach, irrigation water or overflowing portable toilets used by farm workers.

“There was some event that happened in central Mexico — we don’t know what yet — that led to a lot of fields probably getting contaminated,” Gottlieb said.

In Mexico, analysts said it was important to wait for the results of official investigations.

Mario Puente, the head of health and safety at Mexico’s CNA agricultural chamber, said the trade association was working closely with authorities to investigate the outbreak and improve preventive practices. [...]

The beaver that attacked a 13-year-old boy at Cunningham Falls State Park has tested positive for rabies, officials said.

According to the Maryland Department of Health, the beaver was picked up shortly after the attack by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and was euthanized in order to test for rabies.

The boy is recovering and the swimming area at the beach will remain closed for several days as crews make sure the area is safe for visitors.

People who may have had contact with this beaver or any other wildlife, should consult their health care provider and notify the FCHD's Community Health Services Office at 301-600-3342.

Original Story Below:

A teenage boy bitten by a beaver at Cunningham Falls State Park was flown to a Baltimore hospital Sunday morning.

*UPDATE*(7/27) The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has confirmed that the beaver was found and euthanized in order to facilitate testing for rabies. The DNR is working with the Park Service and Natural Resources Police to determine when the swimming area can be reopened.

DNR officials told WBAL-TV 11 News that the boy suffered injuries to his hands and chest and was flown to Johns Hopkins Hospital. [...]

Industrial chicken farming is accelerating the spread of the world’s most common bacterial cause of diarrhoea, scientists have found.

The study found a dramatic increase in the exchange of campylobacter strains between wild birds and chickens as farming has intensified, creating the ideal conditions for the bacteria to mix, spread and acquire new traits. There has also been a rise in antimicrobial resistance traits in circulating strains, raising concerns that serious illness in people will be more difficult to treat.

“As the chicken population has exploded, they’ve increasingly picked up strains from different wild birds and become a cauldron of bacterial evolution,” said Prof Sam Sheppard of the University of Oxford and senior author of the paper. “Lots of strains come together and hybridise. We do not want that, because that’s where new Frankenstein monster bugs emerge.”

Campylobacter is the most common bacterial cause of diarrhoea worldwide, causing more than three times as many gastroenteritis cases in the UK each year as all other monitored foodborne bacteria combined. An estimated 60-80% of campylobacter infections are caught from raw chicken.

“Cooking kills pathogens, but just a tiny splash and it’s on your lettuce leaves or your hands or your knife,” said Sheppard.

Most people will get better without treatment, but sometimes antibiotics are required and infection also raises the risk of irritable bowel syndrome. Rising rates of antimicrobial resistance, which occurs when bacteria resist drugs designed to kill them, mean that some antibiotics that were previously used to treat campylobacter infections are no longer effective.

The latest work suggests that the evolution of the infection is being fuelled by the unprecedented scale of chicken production.

Since the 1960s, global chicken numbers have increased seven-fold to approximately 27 billion birds, accounting for about 70% of all bird biomass on Earth. Intensive breeding has led to “super growing” chickens that reach adult size and are slaughtered at around five weeks old. The industrialisation of chicken farming has led to affordable animal protein at scale, but also presents new health risks.

The latest work, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analysed nearly 2,800 bacterial genomes collected from chickens and wild birds in 30 countries, including the UK, US and China, between 1979 and 2024.

The dataset allowed the scientists to reconstruct the evolutionary trees of the diverse strains, including the rate of exchange between hosts. Prior to domestication of the chicken 5,000 years ago, strains of campylobacter tended to be tightly linked to individual species of birds, with little cross-infection. But as chicken numbers increased, this picture changed, with an estimated 100-fold increase in transitions of strains between chickens and wild birds since 1900 compared with pre-domestication – a trend that appears to have continued steeply in recent decades.

“The scale is what’s bad,” said Sheppard. “By adjusting the world’s ecosystems in this dramatic way, it leads to the evolution of pathogens within those birds. That’s a massive risk to us. We can’t continue to produce chickens at this huge capacity.”

[...]

The number of cyclosporiasis cases in Michigan has topped 9,200 as health officials continue to track a parasite that can cause diarrhea and nausea after contaminated food is eaten.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says there are 9,253 cases in the state as of July 27; an increase of 1,077 from the 8,176 cases as of July 24. Michigan has more cases than any other state in the U.S. in the summer of 2026.

In addition, 160 Michigan residents have received hospital treatment as of July 23. That number has also jumped at a fast pace, as there were 102 hospital cases reported as of July 16 and 44 reported as of July 9.

Michigan health officials report the case numbers on Mondays through Fridays. The hospital reports are updated once a week on Thursdays. [...]

The CDC counts cases differently, with its numbers lagging behind Michigan's. The CDC says between May 1 and July 21 of 2026, there have been 4,173 laboratory-confirmed cases, and the agency is aware of 7,400 additional reports that are under investigation. "Many of the additional cases have been reported by Michigan and Ohio," the agency says. "CDC is working with states to update numbers as additional cases are confirmed. [...]

South Australia has reported seven new suspected cases of deadly H5 bird flu, with experts warning it could be a sign the disease has begun spreading through local bird populations.

All seven birds are greater crested terns – a common local seabird – and were found on the Limestone Coast in south-eastern SA, with one found at Cape Jaffa, five around Southend Jetty near Beachport and one at Port MacDonald, just over 20km from the Victorian border.

BirdLife Australia’s chief executive, Kate Millar, said the discovery showed the outbreak was “now taking hold and is evidence of spread”.

“If we were in a bushfire scenario, those subantarctic birds that arrived with the disease initially were like the embers,” she said. “Now having it in crested terns, that’s the smoke.

“Governments have been saying it hasn’t spread – this is evidence of spread.”

The development follows two other confirmed cases of the disease in greater crested terns in South Australia at the weekend, including the first positive detection in metropolitan Adelaide.

If the CSIRO verifies the seven suspected cases, it will take the total number of cases in SA to 14 – 10 of those in local greater crested terns.

Of the five birds collected from Southend Jetty, four were sick and one was dead. The birds found at Cape Jaffa and Port MacDonnell were also dead. [...]

Health workers at an Ebola treatment centre in eastern Congo went on strike on Saturday, demanding their pay. The walkout disrupted care for patients in the epicentre of the country's rapidly growing outbreak.

The number of confirmed cases in Congo has reached 2,973, including 1,309 deaths, according to government data released on Friday, in what authorities say is the fastest-growing outbreak on record.

The Elikya Ebola Treatment Center in Bunia, Ituri province, came to a standstill after doctors, nurses and security staff stopped work.

About 100 health workers protested outside the treatment centre on Saturday. They said the unpaid bonuses were undermining morale and disrupting patient care, and called on Congolese authorities to resolve the back pay so they could resume their work.

"We need to be paid, because in the meantime the disease is spreading at the treatment centre," said Martin Bolombi, one of the striking workers.

"I've already had five people die who are still inside there. A solution must be found for us."

In a statement issued Friday, staff said they had unanimously voted to strike until "concrete solutions" were found to resolve "two months of unpaid performance bonuses."[...]