epidemic

Two independent groups suggest the suite of recent unexplained hepatitis cases may stem from coinfection with an adeno-associated virus and a helper adeno- or herpesvirus, a duo which may be especially virulent in children with a particular genetic variant.

A study traces the effects of a mite outbreak from the earth to the heavens.

Genetic testing of people who died in Kyrgyzstan eight years before plague reached Europe reveals an ancient strain of the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

Experts are scrambling to understand clusters of the normally rare disease that have been reported in Europe and North America in the last month.

Officials have ruled out known hepatitis viruses as the cause of a rash of illnesses in Europe and the US.

So far this season, tens of millions of birds have died of disease or been culled, driving up prices of eggs, chicken, and turkey meat.

Ebola virus was detected in samples from a child who died last week, the World Health Organization and Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ministry of Health announce.

Surveillance networks set up to detect outbreaks among pets could one day have public health uses too.  

Some of the blood specimens collected in the United States for the NIH’s All of Us research program starting on January 2, 2020, have antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

Genetic analyses suggest that the virus came from a patient who survived the 2013–2016 West African outbreak.

The woman may have had a link to another person, who was married to an Ebola survivor and who died a few days previously in Democratic Republic of Congo.

A study of people in Sierra Leone suggests that the virus can lie in hiding from the immune system before re-emerging later and sparking a new response—although researchers didn’t examine whether this could make people infectious again.

A model scenario concludes that frequent testing with fast turnaround is key to avoiding campus outbreaks of COVID-19, even if the tests are imperfect.

Reports of the infection—including one death this month—recently shook up social media. But, unlike COVID-19, plague is a disease that countries have more or less got under control.

The medical scientist made important contributions to polio treatment and Australian environmental policy—despite substantial resistance.

Milder, cold-causing members of this pathogenic viral family long remained under the radar, although they aren’t entirely harmless.

Abbott’s ID NOW test missed the most positive samples among five products given the green light by the FDA to use during the pandemic.