#tick-borne-illness

#tick-borne-illness

Alpha-gal syndrome is an emerging public health concern in Massachusetts, driven by the northward spread of the lone star tick, which is most commonly associated with the condition.

NHS figures show that there were 100 hospital admissions in 2025 linked to spider bites - up from 47 in 2015. Experts are blaming the trend on a sharp increase in the noble false widow spider, which has been described as 'the most dangerous spider breeding in Britain.'

"We have not seen them go away altogether like they have in previous years," said Susanne Kluh, general manager for the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District.

We have now identified from some of the testing that it seems to be the group B meningococcal strain that is causing outbreak in Kent. We have a meningococcal vaccine covering four different strains in teenagers. Usually it is given at the age of 13 or 14 years of age. It covers four main groups A, C, W and Y.

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.

Hawaii is the hot spot for rat lungworm disease in the U.S., with more than 80 cases that were laboratory-confirmed from 2016 to 2026. Still, it's considered a highly underdiagnosed disease. The largest number of rat lungworm cases occur on the island of Hawaii.