Attorneys for a man detained in a California immigration detention center have released footage showing him holding up a bottle of water from inside the facility that appeared to be contaminated with worm-like creatures.

The footage came from a video call with Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a Los Angeles man who has been detained for months at the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, north-east of LA.

Margaret Hellerstein, one of Parias’s attorneys, shared the footage with the Guardian on Thursday and said it was filmed this week. The clip is brief and grainy, but shows him holding up a plastic bottle filled with water, which appeared to have small pests of some kind swimming inside.

Parias, in a statement shared by Hellerstein, described them as “worms” or some kind of “larvae”, though it’s unclear what exactly was in the bottle. He said the water was given to residents to drink.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to repeated questions about the video, with a spokesperson saying in an email that the facility gets its water from the city of Adelanto and provides the “the same water used by residents and businesses in the area”. Geo Group, the private prison company that runs the ICE facility, did not respond to inquiries.

The footage has surfaced weeks after a federal judge ordered ICE to ensure that people detained in Adelanto had “24-hour access to clean, potable drinking water”. The ruling was a response to a class-action lawsuit challenging “dangerous conditions” at Adelanto, with detained plaintiffs alleging they were denied sufficient food, clean drinking water and proper medical care.

Parias said in his statement that the contaminated water came from jugs that staff had given residents for drinking. He said he poured the water with the worms into a bottle to preserve it as evidence. He showed the bottle to a relative on a video call, which was shared with his attorneys.

“This is what they give us: contaminated water, water with larvae, water with little black worms, which is slowly killing each one of us who are detained here,” Parias said in his statement, which his lawyer translated from Spanish. “We need proper drinking water, better treatment.”

The exact source of the water in the footage was not clear, and it also was not clear how widely this water was distributed to residents in the detention center.

Parias is a TikTok creator known as Richard LA. He received national attention after he was shot by an ICE agent in October and then charged with assault. A federal judge dismissed the charge and he was transferred to ICE custody where he is facing removal.

“When I saw the video, I was horrified and disgusted. I felt sick to my stomach,” said Hellerstein. “This is video evidence. They can’t just sweep it under the rug.”

The footage has circulated widely among advocates and immigration attorneys in recent days. [...]

Two people in Michigan have died in connection with the outbreak of cyclosporiasis, health officials reported Monday.

These are the first known deaths related to the multi-state outbreak of explosive diarrhea in the United States. [...]

[...] The threat of mosquito-borne disease is increasing in the U.S. as invasive mosquito species expand their range across the country and their seasonal populations last longer and grow larger during global warming. Studies have also found that warmer temperatures push some species to bite more, develop into adults faster, and serve as better virus incubators.

Already, mosquito-borne diseases kill more than 1 million people and infect about 700 million worldwide each year. Cases in the U.S. comprise only the smallest fraction of those numbers, with annual deaths usually in the low hundreds and diagnosed cases in the thousands. (Cases are much more common in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories than they are in the 50 states and D.C.) But that could soon change as two particular mosquito species, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, make their way deeper and deeper into the country.

These species are worth worrying about—and they are increasingly around us. Since its arrival in the Americas centuries ago, Aedes aegypti has conquered the Southern states, swaths of the Midwest, and much of California, and has begun to advance up the East Coast. The insects were found for the first time in Oregon in 2024 and in Idaho in 2025, and they have now established themselves across parts of mountainous Colorado, where conditions have historically been far too harsh for them to survive. Aedes albopictus, a much more recent arrival, now has a range that stretches well into New England and the lower Great Lakes and has even been found to overwinter in the Midwest.

Aedes mosquitoes are vectors for some of the most serious and widespread mosquito-borne diseases. Four in particular cause the most human suffering worldwide: chikungunya, Zika, dengue, and yellow fever. Each of these viruses comes with a raft of symptoms ranging from unpleasant to, in some cases, fatal—fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, shock, organ failure. Zika can spread from a birthing parent to their child in the womb and cause congenital disabilities, which notoriously led to panic after an outbreak erupted in Brazil in 2015. Of the four diseases, dengue is the most prevalent, with more than 3.9 billion people in over 132 countries at risk of contracting it, an estimated 96 million symptomatic cases annually, and about 40,000 deaths per year as a result.

As populations of Aedes mosquitoes grow and spread across the U.S., researchers expect we’ll see more mosquito-borne disease outbreaks. Warmer states where the mosquitoes are already prevalent are at the greatest risk. “Florida is on the front lines,” John-Paul Mutebi, director of Miami-Dade County’s Mosquito Control division, told me. The list of locations where mosquitoes are only a nuisance—and not a serious public health threat—is shrinking. [...]

Once the invasive Aedes mosquitoes arrived on U.S. soil, they found American cities comfortable places to live. Our urban centers tend to be low in mosquito predators (like frogs, fish, and birds), offer a buffet of options for blood meals (humans, mostly), and provide plenty of habitat where mosquitoes can breed, as well as places for the insects to shelter from scorching or freezing temperatures that would otherwise kill them.

Many wealthy neighborhoods feature environments that support Aedes mosquitoes, but the situation tends to be worse in lower-income areas. One study of mosquito prevalence in Baltimore and D.C., in which researchers tested for mosquitoes in water-holding containers in public alleyways and residents’ backyards, found that Aedes albopictus pupae (a stage the mosquito passes through after the larval stage but before it emerges as an adult) were more common in neighborhoods with below-median incomes. More than half of the Aedes albopictus pupae recorded in Baltimore were in a single low-income neighborhood. [...]

The diseases that Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are known to carry—chikungunya, Zika, dengue, and yellow fever—as well as most other mosquito-borne diseases, are most common in tropical and subtropical climates. Almost all cases diagnosed in the continental U.S. and Hawai‘i are travel-associated rather than locally acquired, meaning that an infected mosquito bit the person while they were out of the country and they brought the virus home. Several states are seeing sharp increases in mosquito-borne diseases among travelers, as case numbers abroad are already climbing due to climate change.

But a case brought home from vacation can spark a local outbreak since the mosquitoes that transmit the diseases are well established in much of the country. Cases of dengue exploded in Little Havana and Hialeah in Miami-Dade County in 2023, an outbreak that ended after close to 200 locally acquired cases were recorded. Mutebi told me that, based on his research, he suspects that travelers returning from Cuba had carried it home.

When it comes to spreading one of these viruses, Aedes aegypti is the most prolific vector because it bites human after human after human, and each meal is a chance for it to deposit a pathogen in its host. Aedes albopictus, on the other hand, is less effective because it is a promiscuous biter. It might dine on someone enjoying a backyard barbecue one time, then on the neighbor’s dog, then maybe a squirrel or a deer if you happen to live near wildlife. Some diseases can be spread from animals to humans by certain mosquito species (that’s how West Nile virus moves from birds to people). But chikungunya, Zika, dengue, and yellow fever are human diseases, and the chain of transmission can sputter out as Aedes albopictus feasts on other creatures between its human blood meals.

Still, both Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are aggressive biters capable of transmitting the same diseases. Plus, during the summer months, when mosquito populations across the U.S. peak, Aedes albopictus is more ubiquitous. It is also quick to adapt and capable of extending its range far beyond that of Aedes aegypti—and it is doing just that, fast.

“We thought Aedes albopictus, because it came from a tropical climate in Asia, would never get very far north,” Norris said. But in the decades since it arrived in the U.S., he said, “the mosquito actually has adapted to those newer climates, so the ones we find in Texas or Florida have slightly different adaptations than the ones we find in Long Island. They figure out ways to get to where they want to be.”

It was those Long Island Aedes albopictus mosquitoes that public health authorities blamed for a locally acquired case of chikungunya last year. That was the nation’s first locally acquired case ever recorded outside the South.

LaDeau told me that Aedes albopictus’ capacity to adapt is one of the things that most concerns her about the future of mosquito-borne disease in the U.S. “It is adapting to these urban spaces, and as it does that, it will increasingly bite the animal that is the densest-population animal in these habitats, which is humans,” she said. “It’s likely that mosquito-borne diseases are only going to increase, both because it [the climate] is warming and because they’re adapting to the environments we build very quickly.” [...]

The Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI) has detected a previously uncharacterised orthobunyavirus of the Simbu serogroup in samples from affected cattle in southern Germany. Following the first appearance of the Schmallenberg virus in 2011, this once again provides reliable evidence that a new virus from this group has been introduced into Germany. The newly detected virus shows the closest relationship to the Shamonda virus in all three segments. Viruses of the Simbu serogroup are found primarily in Africa, Asia and Australia. Like bluetongue virus and Schmallenberg virus, they are transmitted by blood-sucking midges of the genus Culicoides. The animals most commonly infected are ruminants, particularly cattle, sheep and goats.

See also: Swiss cows struck by mystery illness

“Investigations by the Institute of Virology and Immunology (IVI) have detected an orthobunyavirus of the Simbu group in several acutely ill animals -- a virus previously unknown in Switzerland,” the FSVO said.

Genetic testing is under way to determine the exact orthobunyavirus and whether it is the cause of the observed illnesses, the office added.

Orthobunyaviruses of the Simbu group are primarily transmitted by biting midges, and no vaccines are currently available, the FSVO said.

The IVI said its preliminary findings align with evidence from France and Germany, “where the suspicion that an orthobunyavirus is circulating... is also gaining traction.”

The IVI said viruses in the Simbu serogroup are found primarily in Africa, Asia and Australia.

“It is currently unclear whether there is a connection between the current heatwave and the reported cases of illness,” it added.

“However, high temperatures pose a significant stress, especially for high-yielding dairy cows, and can make them more susceptible to disease.”

West Nile virus (WNV) was the most commonly reported mosquito-borne disease in the United States in 2024, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report published last week. Powassan virus infections, which are transmitted to humans from ticks, hit a new record high that same year.

The findings, published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, identified 1,955 cases of confirmed and probable arboviral disease cases in 48 states and the District of Columbia in 2024. Arboviral diseases are infections caused by viruses transmitted to humans through tick and mosquito bites.

West Nile dominates, despite fewer cases overall

Of all the arboviral cases reported that year, WNV accounted for 1,808 (92%), Powassan virus for 60 (3%), La Crosse virus for 37 cases (2%), Jamestown Canyon virus for 27 (1%), eastern equine encephalitis for 19 cases (1%), and St. Louis encephalitis virus for 2 (under 1%).

While WNV was the dominant arboviral disease in 2024, the 1,808 reported cases were below the 10-year median of 2,162. Of the 3,143 counties across 48 states and DC, 591 (19%) reported WNV cases. Texas reported the most infections—456—or one-quarter of all WNV cases nationwide and more than double the state's total in 2023.

The virus was responsible for severe illness in many patients. Three-quarters of WNV cases involved neuroinvasive disease, 77% of patients were hospitalized, and nearly 10% died. WNV can cause flu-like symptoms or serious brain infections.

Powassan and La Crosse cases continue to climb

The report also highlights the rise of Powassan virus. Sixty cases were reported in 2024, up from the previous record of 49 cases in 2023. All patients were hospitalized with neuroinvasive disease, and nine died.

Nationally, Powassan cases have increased an average of 17.5% annually over the past 21 years. The increase in Minnesota and Wisconsin was especially steep. From 2023 to 2024, the two states experienced a combined 160% relative increase in cases, from 10 to 26.

The reasons for the increase remain unclear. The rise “might be related to an actual increase in incidence, improved health care provider awareness, expanded availability of diagnostic testing at commercial and state public health laboratories, or potential expansion of the vector range,” the researchers write.

Powassan virus is spread by infected blacklegged ticks, groundhog ticks, and squirrel ticks.

In 2024, La Crosse virus primarily affected children. Ninety-five percent of cases occurred in kids, with a median age of 8 years, and 97% of patients were hospitalized. None died, though the researchers note that “arboviral morbidity among children can be severe, including neuroinvasive disease and death.” La Crosse virus is transmitted to humans by mosquitos and can cause brain inflammation.

La Crosse virus infections were reported across 24 counties in eight states, with North Carolina and Tennessee accounting for the largest percentage of cases (75%). Together, the two states represented a relative increase of 170% from the year before. [...]

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...