U.S. health and agriculture officials pledged nearly $200 million in new spending and other efforts Friday to help track and contain an outbreak of bird flu in the nation’s dairy cows that has spread to more than 40 herds in nine states. The new funds include $101 million to continue work to prevent, test, track … Read more
KINSHASA, Congo — Congo is struggling to contain its biggest mpox outbreak, and scientists say a new form of the disease detected in a mining town might more easily spread among people. Since January, Congo has reported more than 4,500 suspected mpox cases and nearly 300 deaths, numbers that have roughly tripled from the same … Read more
A large staffing firm that performed COVID-19 contact tracing for Pennsylvania and exposed the private medical information of about 72,000 residents will pay $2.7 million in a settlement with the Justice Department and a company whistleblower, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday. The Pennsylvania Department of Health paid Atlanta-based Insight Global tens of millions of dollars to … Read more
Dairy cattle moving between states must be tested for the bird flu virus, U.S. agriculture officials said Wednesday as they try to track and control the growing outbreak. The federal order was announced a day after health officials said they had detected inactivated remnants of the virus, known as Type A H5N1, in samples taken … Read more
HOWELL, Mich. — Days after a routine injection to ease back pain, Donna Kruzich and a friend drove across the border to Canada in 2012 to see end-of-summer theater in Stratford, Ontario. The 78-year-old Michigan woman suddenly became ill and returned home. By early October, she was dead. “Most of the time she could not … Read more
A poultry facility in Michigan and egg producer in Texas both reported outbreaks of avian flu this week. The latest developments on the virus also include infected dairy cows and the first known instance of a human catching bird flu from a mammal. Although health officials say the risk to the public remains low, there … Read more
BANGKOK — Thailand’s government has ordered officials to closely monitor livestock along the border with Laos after more than 50 people were reported to have contracted anthrax in the neighboring country. Thai authorities have been working closely with those in Laos after receiving reports of the outbreak and have prepared vaccines in case of infections … Read more
BOSTON — Two former officials of a veterans home in Massachusetts where at least 76 people died in one of the nation’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks in a long-term care facility settled their criminal case Tuesday without having to go to jail. Bennett Walsh, the former superintendent of the Veterans’ Home in Holyoke, and Dr. David … Read more
Milk from dairy cows in Texas and Kansas has tested positive for bird flu, U.S. officials said Monday. Officials with the Texas Animal Health Commission confirmed the flu virus is the Type A H5N1 strain, known for decades to cause outbreaks in birds and to occasionally infect people. The virus is affecting older dairy cows … Read more
BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo — The Republic of Congo has recorded its first cases of mpox in several regions, the health ministry said, an indication of how the disease may be spreading across Africa since sexual transmission was first confirmed on the continent last year. Mpox is a virus that originates in wild animals and … Read more
