#microbial-transmission

#microbial-transmission

"This is a surefire way to spread germs in such a small space. Closing the lid also mutes the loud flush and leaves the lavatory looking tidier for the next passenger."

Antibiotics are essential for modern medicine, but bacteria are evolving and developing resistance, turning routine infections into life-threatening conditions. A global analysis estimates that antibiotic-resistant infections could cause over 39 million deaths by 2050.

GOARN, which includes more than 310 national public health agencies, United Nations agencies, academic institutions, and nongovernmental groups, helps identify and manage infectious disease outbreaks worldwide. Since it was established in 2000, GOARN says it has helped manage more than 175 global health emergencies across 114 countries.

From ultra-processed foods to hidden chemicals, we ask whether what's on our plates is making us ill. From ultra-processed foods to chemicals linked to cancer and chronic disease, this episode unpacks what's really inside everyday supermarket products. We examine how mass production and convenience culture reshaped our diets, why some ingredients are banned in parts of the world but legal elsewhere, and what FDA-approved actually means.

DNA variants near a gene called MSRB3 - which is important for hearing in humans - could determine whether a dog's ears are pendulous like a basset hound's or stubby like a rottweiler's. Researchers analysed the genomes of thousands of canines and found that small, single-letter changes to DNA in a region of the genome near MSRB3 could boost the gene's activity. The boost can increase the rate at which ear cells proliferate, resulting in longer ears.

The strain the animals have contains a mutation allowing it to more easily transmit between mammals. It is also a different variation than the ones found in dairy cows and commercial poultry. This one is Eurasian in origin, first seen in 2022. It has been detected in birds that fly along the Pacific Flyway, and is responsible for a mass mortality event in 2023 in northern fur seals on an island in eastern Russia.

I am open-minded; I believe in integrative practices, and I agree that the medical establishment can be arrogant and unduly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, which now funds so much of medical research. But I fully understand Scherer's frustration with his interminable discussions with Kennedy about scientific articles.

The U.S. is no longer part of the World Health Organization. After the Trump administration declared its intention to pull the country out of the global public health agency one year ago, on Thursday it formally followed through, ending its commitment to the organization after 78 years. Withdrawing the U.S. from the WHO was one of Trump's day one priorities. Now, after the required one year notice period, the deed is done.

Risks of outbreaks with pandemic potential rise with increasing land-use change, biodiversity loss and climate change. The Pandemic Agreement adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2025 marks a historic shift that establishes the One Health approach as a legally binding obligation for pandemic prevention.

In children below the age of five, whose immune systems are still developing, the infections can lead to malnourishment; they cause up to 42,000 deaths annually. Soon there may be a vaccine to protect against these infections. In the Lancet Infectious Diseases last month, scientists shared the results of the first study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of an ETEC-controlling vaccine in a large pediatric population in Gambia.

Bats carry a lot of very deadly pathogens like Ebola virus, Nipah, Hendra, coronavirus, and also rabies virus. People are finding more and more bat-borne viruses. When such viruses are transmitted to humans, the results are often fatal so there's a lot of interest in trying to prevent spillover in the first place.

In a study published in Science Advances, researchers in China fed Aedes aegypti mosquitoes blood that contained either a vaccine against Nipah virus or the rabies virus. The viruses, contained in the vaccines, replicated inside the insects and reached their salivary glands, allowing them to pass on the vaccine when feeding on bats or when the bats ate the insects.

For the first time, cameras in Africa captured a 'dynamic network' of wildlife interacting with thousands of infected bats believed to be carrying the Marburg virus, which is a rare but extremely dangerous disease that belongs to the same family as Ebola. The new videos revealed at least 14 different types of animals, including leopards, hyenas, monkeys, birds and rats, actively hunting herds of Egyptian fruit bats.

Temperature and rainfall influence where malaria-carrying mosquitoes such as Anopheles species can survive and how well malaria parasites, such as Plasmodium falciparum, develop in them. Past predictions have been inconsistent and have often focused on where malaria might spread, rather than on how severely it could intensify where it already exists.

Each day, they pore over reams of data about how the virus is evolving worldwide, how well last year's shot performed, and which strains might be easiest to mass produce for a vaccine. The meeting, convened by the World Health Organization twice a year, is a critical moment for the WHO's Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System.

Veterinarians found leptospirosis in two dogs within the encampment around Eighth and Harrison streets, both in November, one of which died, and later detected the illness in rats for the first time in five years in Alameda County. As of the Jan. 12 announcement there were no known human cases. City officials did not respond to Berkeleyside's inquiries, sent Thursday, as