This is Nathan Wolfe. Nathan is a virus hunter. Nathan has a bit of a reputation. Through the years, I've told multiple journalists stories I've heard, like "Nathan thanks Jeffrey Epstein in his book." Somehow no one ever wrote anything up. Want to see what Nathan was up to in today's Epstein files?

noting that @sdnsolidarity.bsky.social is collecting donations for on the ground mutual aid orgs here: www.sudansolidarity.com

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. Maybe many of us won't be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.” Arundhati Roy

Global solidarity in genomic surveillance improves early detection of acute respiratory virus threats. "Importantly, these benefits cannot be attained by siloed expansion in countries that already possess strong capacity." Well done to the team! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A few updates on the deeply unethical study to probe "non-specific" effects of the birth dose HepB vaccine in Guinea-Bissau by Danish investigators. 1️⃣ The study was canceled as per AfricaCDC - HHS disputes this. 2️⃣ Full protocol was leaked and it's bad. Quick 🧵 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I am very glad to share the preprint for our latest study on the 2024-2025 chikungunya virus outbreak on Réunion island, with primary data produced thanks to the massive efforts performed by Marie-C Jaffar and Etienne Frumence and analyses led by Simon Dellicour. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our latest study dedicated to the massive 2024-2025 chikungunya virus outbreak on Réunion island is now available as a preprint on medRxiv: doi.org/10.64898/202.... With more than 54,000 confirmed cases this is the second major chikungunya outbreak on the island, following the 1° one 20 yrs ago. 1/9

We find that subclade K viruses are antigenically advanced; however, this year's flu vaccine surprisingly elicited antibodies in many individuals that efficiently recognized these viruses. The implications are clear: go get this year’s vaccine if you haven’t already! www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Fantastic opportunity!

I rarely ask for things, but I will make an exception for my colleague and friend, Augustine Goba, who dedicated his life to saving others. Augustine was Director of the hemorrhagic fever lab in Kenema, Salone, and is struggling with PSP. Please consider donating. www.gofundme.com/f/augustine-...

So, El Fasher looks like one of the worst single event atrocities to happen this century so far, but the evidence has come in such a trickle it seems to only now be getting verified

Amazing novel mpox recombination between epidemic clade 1 and 2 in returning traveller detected in UK: virological.org/t/inter-clad...

This #GivingTuesday, become a monthly donor at World Central Kitchen. $50 will be added to your first month’s gift, thanks to a $1 million match. Together, we can ensure WCK is first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to crises around the world. bit.ly/3KjB2vD

We are in peak French heist season.

1/ 🚀 Pathoplexus now supports Marburg virus (MARV) and Ravn virus (RAVN) (sister viruses in the same genus). MARV has two main clades and causes severe disease with reported fatality rates of 24–88%. You can read more detail about adding Marburg here: pathoplexus.org/news/2025-11...

A nice article, highlighting the important work our collaborators in South Africa are doing using wastewater to surveil a bunch of different vaccine preventable diseases (and finding a lot more of them than other reports would make you believe…). 💪🇿🇦 www.nature.com/articles/d44...

When people celebrate the individual genius of folks in science, they should also mourn the collective loss of genius of folks who were actively discouraged or disadvantaged from a career in science because of the same person(s)

I want to spell this out in case the implications aren't clear: This means all public tools/webapps of GISAID data (all the ones you've been used to seeing thru the pandemic, as far as we can tell) are prohibited. The file allowed this. Cut that - cut off all tools the public & others were using.

GISAID on providing data to @Nextstrain.org: "After consulting with our staff and advisors on the feasibility of keeping your global tree up-to-date, there was a clear consensus that continuing to generate, zip and move big files back and forth is not sustainable and a waste of resources." 🙃

“Sudan's Death Toll Could Exceed Gaza’s. Here’s Everything You Need to Know” Important convo on the genocide there from me/Zeteo, with 2 Sudan experts who offer actual solutions to stop the fighting & put pressure on outside actors like the UAE & Saudi:

Sudan hospital bombing kills 460 patients and healthcare workers buff.ly/SJnIcle

I’m so honored to be a guest on the last episode of Science in Action after a decades-long run. I only wish it were ending on a happier note, but if science were in a better place, it wouldn’t be ending.

The count down to the end of the Ebola outbreak in the DRC has officially begun. The last patient in the treatment center has be released. 42 days need to elapsed without any new cases for the end of the outbreak to be official. Fingers crossed. www.cidrap.umn.edu/ebola/last-e...

Happy to see this out finally -- my thanks to the brilliant team!

The role of climate variability in shaping the 2023/24 outbreak of Dengue in Brazil (📉 in north regions; 📈 in southern populous regions). Brazil recorded the largest outbreak on record which coincided with the warmest ever reported temperatures in the Americas. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Vaccination of frontline health workers and contacts of people infected with #Ebola has begun in the #DRC’s Kasai Province where an outbreak of the disease has been declared: www.afro.who.int/countries/de...

As always, the deepest admiration for INRB and Placide's work: The 16th Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Bulape Health Zone, Kasai, Democratic Republic of the Congo: A new spillover event from an unknown reservoir host virological.org/t/the-16th-e...

DRC just declared an Ebola outbreak with 13 deaths so far.

Congratulations, @arambaut.bsky.social !!! royalsociety.org/news/2025/08...

Join us 08/27 @ 11 AM ET for our next Biosecurity Game Changers Seminar topic: Regional Policies for Mitigating Risks Associated with AI-enabled Biodesign 🗣️ Moderated by Jon Arizti Sanz w/ panelists Rik Bleijs, Sarah Carter, & Suryesh Namdeo Register here: brown.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Really excited to have been a part of this study, lead by @willharv.bsky.social on how reassortment of H5N1 in birds has lead to a 'specialist' genotype that thrives in seabirds and drives summer/spring (rather than winter) waves of poultry outbreaks www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

“Gaza’s healthcare system is a broken shell, barely functioning…” Dr Mughaisib shares with us the horror of being a medical doctor in Gaza, as he sees so many patients that could be treated if only proper treatment was available in the Strip:

Just to give the TL;DR on this one: *The* main purpose of the EO is to move funding priorities and decisions away from experts and career professionals over to political appointees. With the ultimate power held by Vought / OMB.

📢New job posting!📢 Are you excited by the idea of building global infrastructure to make pathogen sequencing more accessible, interpretable, and equitable? 🧑🏻‍💻🧬 My group at @swisstph.ch has an opening working with ARTIC2, @pathoplexus.org, & Loculus - read on! 1/5

Babies starving to death and hospital staff too weak to treat them. As a deliberate policy. What even is left to say at this point? www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Slow-motion denialism — our leaders are allowing the HIV response to collapse. South Africa is staging a sequel to Mbeki-era denialism, only this time the science, solutions and costs are clearer. www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025...

Nearly 800,000 mpox vaccine doses that the US gov had promised to donate to African countries experiencing an outbreak of the disease cannot be shipped because they’re expiring in less than six months.

This is quite late but our lab has a preprint out about a SARS-CoV-2 situation we had in mink in Lithuania back in 2021. It's a doozy with re-emergence of extinct lineages, a country-wide test of all mink farms in Lithuania & some interesting dynamics in mink. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/5🧵

Are you looking for a Postdoc or Research Programmer position? Want to work as part of highly collaborative infectious disease programs that have direct relevance to global health? Well, we got you covered! Learn more 👇 andersen-lab.com/about/

I'm always happy to speak about how unique and enriching the Brown Pandemic Centre's Biosecurity Game Changers fellowship and the wider network is -- and how edifying it has been to work with the team at IBBIS!

Great news - The global fund has reached an agreement w Gilead to purchase 2M doses of lenacapavir for PrEP for low and middle income countries. Access will be prioritized based HIV epidemiology, national prevention strategies, + available resources www.theglobalfund.org/en/news/2025...

If we allow the Trump administration’s assault on empathy to define our global health agenda, or ourselves, we won’t just be turning away from the world — we’ll be turning away from who we are. My latest for @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/o...

Delighted that our Research Briefing on our paper on the origins of the Clade IIb Mpox outbreak and the continued emergence risk in West Africa is out! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This silent genocide in the #GlobalSouth by means of #starvation & lack of (medical) #care is the direct consequence of #Trump & #Musk gutting #USAID! Cc: @altusaid.altgov.info

@stephanienolen.bsky.social's piece on the destruction of the South African biomedical research effort by the Trump Administration is a must-read. Please circulate. This is a disaster for South Africa AND the world. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/h...

"The incident was the latest in nearly daily mass deaths of Palestinians who were seeking aid in past weeks, including near sites operated by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation."

This network supported our outbreak science and support, and allowed many of us to train and train with the greatest minds in the field. Pure fascist fuckwittery.

In 2019, NIAID proposed an ambitious scientific network focused on pandemic preparedness, research, and response - the "CREID Network". Ten centers kicked off just as the pandemic was taking off, playing critical roles throughout. We were just notified the whole network is terminated. Reason? 👇

Interested in using phylogenetics to study arboviruses? Our new review in @natrevgenet.nature.com‬ by @viralverity.bsky.social‬, @sdellicour.bsky.social‬, and Marta Giovanetti has you covered! 📖 👉 rdcu.be/epH2U Short 🧵