With 42 news measles cases, US total tops 1,700 Last year the United States had 285 measles cases. www.cidrap.umn.edu/m...

Nov 12, 1994, at age 54

Wild-type polio detected in German sewage—this is *actual* polio, not vaccine-derived virus. This will probably be a one-off event, but it shows the real potential for polio reintroduction into under-vaccinated communities.

Former USAID official Dr. Atul Gawande says tens of thousands have died since Trump shut down the agency: “We had the cure for death from malnutrition, and we took it away”.

The UK’s new £850M pledge to fight AIDS, TB & malaria hides a 15% funding cut. Global health budgets keep shrinking while crises grow. www.reuters.com/business/hea...

Update on the wild #polio discovery in Germany: The virus was found in wastewater in Hamburg. @rki.de, the German public health agency, says the virus sequence is very similar to some isolated in Afghanistan, so the likely source was an infected human. (page 10 here: www.rki.de/DE/Aktuelles...)

Reports of a suspected viral hemorrhagic fever in Ethiopia: 8 suspected cases, including 2 healthcare workers, and 6 deaths. HCW infections raise concern for direct person-to-person spread or a shared exposure source. www.afro.who.int/news/ethiopi... www.addisinsight.net/2025/11/13/s...

I’ve been in Toronto at the #astmh meeting these past few days and last night some very good news was presented here: A new malaria drug has proven efficacious in a large trial and could soon be approved.🧪 My story in @science.org (and 🧵on why it's important to come): www.science.org/content/arti...

🚨 Ethiopia has announced an outbreak of viral hemorrhagic fever with 8 suspected cases in Jinka. Health authorities are scaling up surveillance, testing, and contact tracing. This is a clear reminder: early detection and strong surveillance save lives.

Request for information (RFI): Eight suspected hemorrhagic fever cases reported in Jinka, South Ethiopia. RFI on diagnostic testing results, symptoms and common exposures beaconbio.org/en/report/?r... via @beaconbio.bsky.social

Tickborne disease cases are rising in the UK, thanks to climate change

Access to vaccines is not a privilege — it is a human right. In @statnews.com today, Stefan Peterson and I write about using a human rights-based approach to deal with vaccine denialism and the return of measles, whooping cough and diphtheria www.statnews.com/2025/11/12/c...

New York magazine: Working at the CDC Is a Living Hell /Gaslighting, surveillance, and layoffs under the RFK Jr. regime bit.ly/3WQhdPh

Trial showing ivermectin safety in small children could spur progress against several neglected tropical diseases, including scabies www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Hepatitis C is curable with pills for 8-12 weeks. The pills are just expensive. Not enough programs have made treatments available and accessible for all; that's why babies are still born with Hepatitis C.

It’s officially potluck season withoffice parties galore. 🦃🥘 If, like me, you harbor an irrational fear of food poisoning, I’ve got you covered. Here’s your ID doctor–approved guide to surviving the season’s buffets w/out ending up in the ER. 🧤🍽️💀 open.substack.com/pub/bktitanj...

It's official: Canada has lost its measles elimination status because of an outbreak that has persisted for more than 12 months. Country can regain status only if on-going spread is of measles interrupted for more than a year. www.cbc.ca/news/health/... via @cbcnews.ca

The Idaho Medical Freedom Act, which makes it illegal to require almost anyone to take a vaccine, test or other “medical intervention,” comes amid a national measles outbreak larger than the U.S. has seen in decades. By @audreydutton.bsky.social

As expected, Canada has lost its measles-free status because of the long-running outbreak there. With it goes the #measles elimination status of the entire zone of the Americas, the only division of the #WHO to ever have achieved measles elimination. www.statnews.com/2025/11/10/m...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Canada has lost its measles elimination status because of continued spread, international health experts say.

"Photo 51" was the X-ray diffraction pattern that revealed the internal structure of DNA, produced by PhD student Raymond Gosling working under Rosalind Franklin's direction at King's College in London in 1952. Let's talk about how CORK & a PAPERCLIP played a central role in DNA's discovery.

Trump’s funding cuts to international efforts to end the global threats of malaria, TB and HIV, will result in millions of preventable deaths. Each death is someone’s son or daughter, husband, wife, parent or friend.

Do they think people have forgotten about Omicron and how South Africa was treated when they told the world about that variant?

How we’re tracking avian flu’s toll on wildlife across North America theconversation.com/how-were-tra...

“Before 2023, it was impossible to think that a healthy population like the one in Peninsula Valdés could become endangered from one year to another," says biologist Valeria Falabella…”This is a warning," she adds, noting that climate change brings additional risks and uncertainties for the species”

A fascinating new Lancet ID paper offers the strongest comparative evidence yet between infection-induced and vaccine-induced immunity against mpox. The study followed people for up to 2 years after infection with monkeypox virus or vaccination with MVA-BN. #IDsky www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Infant botulism: 13 cases since August linked to ByHeart brand powdered infant formula have been reported across 10 states (6 confirmed type A). FDA has recalled 2 lots. Details: fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/outbreak-investigation-infant-botulism-infant-formula-november-2025

The new US official: in exchange for restarting foreign aid, the US gets other countries’ genomic data on diseases. No promise to share the benefits of that IP, though - in contrast to WHO agreements that are under negotiation. www.reuters.com/business/hea... 🛟🧪🩺

Thinking only of Rosalind Franklin today, and what was stolen from her (and so many other female scientists alongside her).

Migrating wild birds are spreading the bird flu virus to domesticated flocks, increasing the risk of eventually seeing a human outbreak. Scientists are troubled by the muted federal response. www.npr.org/sections/sho...

LLMs frequently exhibit sycophancy, prioritizing agreement over accuracy when given illogical medical prompts. This tendency can amplify misinformation. New work shows prompting and fine-tuning can reduce this behavior. Lots of work still to go, but this is a step in the right direction. #MedSky

What’s really pro-life? Keeping listeria out of grocery carts. Listeria is dangerous in pregnancy—and CDC cuts made it worse. -> www.cdc.gov/listeria/out... -> www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...

The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.

“Modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), this board would investigate outbreaks across all food categories, free from agency silos and political pressure… The status quo is simply too dangerous to continue. Investigations can lack coordination and timeliness in response”

Turning a blind eye to gender-based violence isn’t just a moral failure — it’s a public health one. Rape and sexual violence amplify disease transmission in crisis after crisis.

If you read and watch one thing today it should be this pice accompanying @agawande.bsky.social documentary. "As of November 5th, it estimated that U.S.A.I.D.’s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children." www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

What we see isn't always all there is. Not all H5N1 infections show symptoms — 18 asymptomatic human cases found through enhanced surveillance and contact tracing. Stronger, more systematic data collection needed. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion, according to our analysis, which found the sepsis rate for women hospitalized as they miscarried in the 2nd trimester shot up by more than 50%. (Published February)

“Alberta’s top government doctor was stopped from speaking publicly about the problem, according to interviews. Emails obtained through a public records request show the doctor urging the government to ramp up its messaging weeks before the virus arrived” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/w...

“They think, ‘Well, the vaccine didn’t prevent me from getting covid, so the vaccine didn’t work..And what they’re not seeing is that the vaccine prevented them from getting severely ill, which is ultimately the most important thing.” www.cnn.com/2025/11/05/h...

“The network of veterinary labs that's responsible for testing ceased its regular meetings because of the shutdown, Poulsen says. "The shutdown just kind of pours gas on a smoldering fire and makes us vulnerable," he says. "It's a national security issue."

"* A commission is meeting this week to review the Americas’ measles and rubella elimination status. * The region could lose its measles-free status because of a Canadian outbreak that has lasted longer than a year." www.healio.com/news/infecti... via @gohealio.bsky.social

“While borealpox has only been identified in Alaska, the small mammal species..have broad geographic distributions..Clinicians in the Circumpolar North should become familiar with borealpox and the potential that it may lead to severe disease” www.healio.com/news/infecti...

By suddenly cutting funding, the US administration has put “20 million Africans on death row” AIDS activist Zackie Achmat, speaking @pihcanada.org event

"Based on this large Czech review, it seems that recommending routine vaccination in all patients with CIN2+, regardless of previous vaccination status, should be examined in an effort to prevent recurrence." - #ObGynSky + #MedSky. via idsainfo.bsky.social - www.idsociety.org/science-spea...

How will population shifts affect the future burden of #AMR? 👶👩‍🦳 🧫 We use a new modelling framework to explore future projections of #AMR by age and by sex, as well as interventions for control, building on our earlier findings that AMR isn’t uniform across demographics. doi.org/10.1371/jour...

As aid dries up in Kenya, millions are threatened by the climate-driven disease kala-azar. grist.org/health/kala-...

When sequence databases can unilaterally cut off access to analytic platforms, we are left unprepared for the next pandemic. In @thinkglobalhealth.org, @colincarlson.bsky.social and I highlight the severity of the situation, and what it means for @who.int negotiations on the Pandemic agreement. 🧪😷🧵

Swab-based molecular tests for tuberculosis using near-point-of-care platforms New, large, multi-country study shows that Truenat MTB Ultima and MiniDock MTB have strong potential to exceed WHO minimum accuracy targets for a near point-of-care TB diagnostic www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is a great time to get your Covid booster shots!