Several of the El Nino health risks are due to water contamination, either from flooding or drought. Malnutrition due to food insecurity was the top threat.
PAHO officials say they are seeing changes in the timing and magnitude of cases that are likely related to the effects of climate change and unplanned urbanization.
A scientific literature review for empiric examples of impacts from 10 climate hazards influenced by greenhouse gas emissions found that more than 58% of human diseases caused by pathogens—such as dengue, pneumonia, and Zika virus—are made worse by the climate-related hazards. A team based at the University of Hawaii at Manoa reported the findings today in Nature Climate Change.
More than 2 million American workers called in sick in a single week in mid-April, causing the highest absence rate on record and leading to suspicions that COVID-19 cases were substantially undercounted, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Public Health England (PHE) today confirmed that a person in the southwest of England has been diagnosed as having monkeypox, likely contracted after a recent visit to Nigeria.
The United Kingdom documented its first cases of the rare virus last year, in two patients who also likely contracted the disease in Nigeria, plus a case involving a healthcare worker—the first instance of spread of the disease in the country.
One more Ebola case was reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) outbreak today, raising the overall total to 3,292 cases, which includes 118 listed as probable, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO's) online Ebola dashboard.
Outbreak responders are still investigating 527 suspected cases. Meanwhile, the number of deaths held steady at 2,192.
Could climate change have played a role in the emergence of the multidrug-resistant fungus Candida auris?
The national preparedness index score was 6.7 out of 10 in 2018, a 3.1% improvement.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported a new MERS-CoV case over the weekend in an update to its epidemiologic week 15 report.
On Apr 13, the MOH noted that a 75-year-old woman from Khafji had contracted MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) as a secondary case, meaning likely not from another MERS patient. It's unknown if she had camel contact.
New research presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) annual meeting suggests an association between antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and climate change.
