Yesterday Liberian health officials warned of a monkeypox outbreak in the southern county of River Cess, according to China's state news service, Xinhua.
So far, officials have confirmed four cases of the smallpox-like virus, which is not typically deadly but can last several weeks. Officials are also monitoring some suspected cases. The incubation period for monkeypox can be up to 10 days, with lesions lasting 2 to 5 weeks.
The pace of new infections in Nigeria's Lassa fever outbreak is starting to slow, but the epidemic is far from contained, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said yesterday in a statement.
Death rates dropped 18.7% from 1980 to 2014, with the largest decline in men.
The $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by the US House of Representatives today to fund the government through the end of September contains increases for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to official and media sources.
The move is praised by some experts, but Redfield comes with a controversial past.
The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) announced a new case of MERS-CoV over the weekend.
A 56-year-old Saudi man from Jeddah diagnosed as having MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) is in stable condition. The MOH said he had direct contact with camels, a known risk factor for contracting the disease.
In an update on an ongoing intravenous saline bag shortage, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, said yesterday the situation is improving, and the agency expects that the problems will be resolved well before the next flu season begins.
This season's flu vaccine was from 25% to 52% effective against influenza in Europe, according to interim results published today in Eurosurveillance, based on data from five surveillance systems from groups that looked at mid-season vaccine effectiveness (VE) across Europe.
Even an epidemic in a far-off country could do major damage to the US economy, experts say.
The Trump administration yesterday released its budget proposal for the 2019 fiscal year, and it would cut the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget by about $900 million, with some increases for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
