News: How El Niño—& Climate Change—Kill People with Virus Epidemics
Using mathematical modeling, researchers suggest weather and warming created the "perfect storm" that drove the Zika outbreak in 2016.
Using mathematical modeling, researchers suggest weather and warming created the "perfect storm" that drove the Zika outbreak in 2016.
A baby with severe Zika-related birth defects was born in San Diego County this week, prompting officials to urge pregnant women to avoid disease hotspots.
US blood banks have assured the American public that they have the tools to prevent a Zika contamination, despite the rapid spread of the disease.
An older man dies of Zika. A younger man who cares for him catches Zika — but doctors cannot pinpoint how the disease was transmitted. While proximity to the patient is sufficient explanation for the rest of us, for microbe hunters, it is a medical mystery. Why? Zika is not known to transmit from person-to-person casually.
Reports of Zika-related birth defects are coming in at shockingly low rates in Puerto Rico. While that might be something to cheer, one former US government official is saying there could be a nefarious reason for the low numbers.
Phase 2 of a Zika vaccine trial began in the United States this week, along with Central and South America.
As summer mosquito season approaches, researchers are warning people with previous exposure to West Nile virus to take extra precautions against Zika. A new study found that animals with antibodies to West Nile in their blood have more dangerous infections with Zika than they would normally.
To much of the United States, Zika seems like a tropical disease that causes horrible problems in other countries but is nothing to be worried about stateside. It may make you rethink your beach vacation abroad, but not much more than that. However, if you live in Florida or Texas, the possibility of getting a Zika infection where you live is real — and local outbreaks are more and more a possibility.
Even as health authorities describe the symptoms of Zika infection in the general population as mild, a new surveillance study finds serious side effects are more common, and serious, than previously thought.
There could be a fresh outbreak of the Zika virus in the Americas as the weather heats up and the mosquito population blooms.
As summer heats up, new maps from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gives us our best guess at where Zika-carrying mosquitoes could be hanging out this year in the US.
Findings from a mouse study suggest that the Zika virus infection may have serious reproductive consequences for men.
An advance in the race to stop birth defects caused by Zika-infected mothers has been made by a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. They have identified the process Zika uses to gain entry into the placenta, and published their findings in the journal Biochemistry.
Future mothers hoping to use donated semen might want to think twice before using any samples from the Miami-Dade Country area of Florida. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning that sperm from as far back as June 2016 may be infected with the Zika virus. Damn those mosquitoes.
A deadly type of brain tumor and Zika-related brain damage in developing fetuses are devastating brain conditions that, at first glance, may seem unrelated. However, thanks to new research, their paths seem to cross in a way that could benefit patients. A new study has shown that Zika kills brain cancer stem cells, the kind of cells most resistant to treatment in patients with glioblastoma, a deadly brain tumor diagnosed in about 12,000 people in the US each year.
After a brief reprieve, Zika fear is back with a vengeance as the US mosquito population booms. And we're just now seeing the true impact of this devastating virus, as babies of mothers infected with the virus are being born.
A new study shows the Zika virus is present in saliva — but it may not be enough to make you sick. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes there is "no evidence that Zika can be transmitted through saliva during deep kissing." Given the results of research published in the journal, Nature Communications," the agency may need to revise its guidance.
We might think of Zika as a mosquito-borne virus that effects developing fetuses, but, it also can be passed through sex by either a man or a woman, just like herpes and other STD viruses. New research has shown that vaginal bacteria can inhibit sexually transmitted Zika virus and Herpes Simplex Virus-2 in women.
When just floating peacefully in the water with their brood mates, the Culex mosquito larvae in the image above does not look very frightening. But in their adult form, they are the prime vector for spreading West Nile virus — a sometimes mild, sometimes fatal disease.
Responding to the rapid emergence of dangerous pathogens around the world, a new initiative to prevent or contain pandemics was announced in Davos, Switzerland, yesterday. If you ever worried that a highly contagious pathogen could take down your community, or the country, this news is for you.
Las Vegas is known as the city of sin, a place for gambling, fine dining, and decadence. Now, you can add another notable characteristic to that list: West Nile. You may want to hold off on scheduling your trip to the Sin City — or at least stock up on bug spray — because health officials have reported that mosquitoes in Southern Nevada have tested positive for the virus.
Responding to the emergence of Zika in the US, researchers investigated what type of repellent works best to reduce your odds of a mosquito bite from Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species that spreads the Zika virus.
Colorado State University scientists have developed new tech that quickly identifies the presence of Zika virus in mosquito populations — and in human body fluid.
Yellow fever has emerged again in Brazil, causing death and disease to people unprepared for this mosquito-borne illness.
Zika is a threat to unborn babies — the virus can cause neurological damage if it infects a mother during pregnancy. But as with many things, our solutions to the problem aren't always all that much better than the problem itself.
The mention of Zika can strike fear in the hearts of pregnant women. With infections increasing around the world, including in the US, researchers are fighting the clock to figure out how the virus can have such horrific effects in some people.
Dengue fever is a danger to anyone living or visiting tropical or subtropical regions. It can be hard to detect the infection in its earliest and most treatable phase, especially in children. Luckily, new research highlights better techniques for triaging the disease in infected children with more severe symptoms, potentially saving lives.
Researchers have been studying the blood meals of flies to understand the flow of infectious pathogens in wild animals.
A recent study underscores a connection between climate change and infectious disease, raising concerns about our quickly warming planet.
The year was 1947. Scientists had isolated a virus from a pyrexial rhesus monkey in Uganda and named it after the forest where the monkey lived — Zika.
For a company more associated with debugging computer programs, Google's parent company, Alphabet, is making a name for itself by taking on the real thing — mosquitoes.
The beauty of southern Europe won't protect it from invasions of disease-carrying ticks and mosquitoes—in fact, the Mediterranean climate and landscape may be part of the reason the bloodsuckers are expanding there, bringing unique and terrifying diseases in their wake.
A case of West Nile virus recently confirmed in a person in Barton County, is the first human case of 2017 in Kansas. State health officials confirmed the appearance of West Nile this year in a press release on June 9th.
Rising on the world stage, dengue fever is transmitted by mosquitoes — and apparently air travel too.
Transmitted by ticks, Lyme disease is a serious infection that is probably headed your way. A recent study confirms the pathogen that causes Lyme disease is now established in nine national parks in the East, including Acadia and Shenandoah National Parks.
The herpes simplex virus (HSV) can cause devastating complications for infected newborns whose mothers have genital herpes. Understanding risk and research can help you, and your baby, when the time comes.
What do Leo Tolstoy (writer), Beethoven (composer), Paul Gaugin (artist), and Adolf Hitler (politician) have in common? They are all considered to have suffered from the sexually transmitted disease syphilis.
When the mosquito that carries the malaria parasite (Plasmodium falciparum) bites someone, the parasite must travel to the liver where it undergoes part of its lifecycle before infecting red blood cells and spreading to its next host. Until now, the first step of how the parasite gets to the liver hasn't been clear.
Celiac disease is a digestive disease in which the affected person cannot tolerate gluten. Gluten is a protein that is found in foods like wheat, rye and barley. In this health-minded how-to, you'll learn how to diagnose and treat the various symptoms of Celiac disease. For more information, and to learn about treatment options, take a look.
Check out this instructional science video that demonstrates how to detect disease using Nanotechnology. From the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, this is a demonstration about a new technology that lets us detect diseases earlier and faster than we could before. Science has invented this new technology that can test for several diseases at the same time.