There's a good chance you've seen headlines about HMPV recently, with some touting "what you need to know" about the virus, aka human metapneumovirus. The answer is: not much.
It's a common, usually mild respiratory virus that circulates every year, blending into the throng of other seasonal respiratory illnesses that are often indistinguishable from one another. (The pack includes influenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenovirus, parainfluenza virus, common human coronaviruses, bocavirus, rhinovirus, enteroviruses, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae, among others.) HMPV is in the same family of viruses as RSV.
As one viral disease epidemiologist at the US Centers for Disease Control summarized in 2016, it's usually "clinically indistinguishable" from other bog-standard respiratory illnesses, like seasonal flu, that cause cough, fever, and nasal congestion. For most, the infection is crummy but not worth a visit to a doctor. As such, testing for it is limited. But, like other common respiratory infections, it can be dangerous for children under age 5, older adults, and those with compromised immune systems. It was first identified in 2001, but it has likely been circulating since at least 1958.
The horrific Guinea worm once infected millions of people a year. Thanks to Jimmy Carter and others, the leg-infesting parasite is now on the brink of eradication.
President-elect Donald Trump dispelled rumors Monday that his administration would seek to ban the polio vaccine, telling reporters Monday, "that's not going to happen."
Questions about how Trump's nominee for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has made a name for himself challenging the efficacy of vaccines, and on Friday the New York Times published a report that raised concerns he will attempt to ban the polio vaccine. According to the report, a lawyer assisting Kennedy with staffing the department, previously petitioned to pause the distribution of 13 vaccines while working for nonprofit Informed Consent Action Network, including a vaccine for polio.
When asked by reporters during a press conference from Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort whether his administration would ban the vaccine, Trump replied "No," but said he wanted Kennedy "to come back with a report as to what he thinks" about the polio vaccine.
"We're going to have reports – nothing is going to happen very quickly," Trump told reporters. "I think you're going to find that [Kennedy] is much – he's a very rational guy. I found him to be very rational."
Trump pointed out to reporters that he has friends who have been affected by the poliovirus and noted how when they took the vaccine "it ended." He also lauded Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the first polio vaccine, for his efforts to help people like his friends.
While Trump's response squashed rumors his administration was planning on banning the polio vaccine, he did raise concern about the rising rates of autism in the United States, which Kennedy has linked to vaccines in the past.
"We're going to look into finding why the Autism rate is so much higher than it was 20, 25, 30 years ago," Trump said during his response about banning the polio vaccine. "I mean it's, like, 100 times higher. There's something wrong and we're going to try finding that."
In response to an inquiry about the future of the polio vaccine, a Trump transition team spokesperson said, "Mr. Kennedy believes the Polio Vaccine should be available to the public and thoroughly and properly studied."
A new CDC report details how splash pads have caused dozens of waterborne outbreaks and plenty of gastrointestinal illness since they became popular in the 1990s.
There's nothing quite like a deep dive into the shallow, vomitous puddles of children's splash pads. Even toeing the edge is enough to have one longing for the unsettling warmth of a kiddie pool. But the brave souls at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have done it, wading into 25 years' worth of records on gastrointestinal outbreaks linked to the wellsprings of fecal pathogens. And they unsurprisingly found enough retch-inducing results to make any modern-day John Snows want to start removing some water handles.
Between 1997 and 2022, splash pads across the country were linked to at least 60 outbreaks, with the largest sickening over 2,000 water frolickers in one go. In all, the outbreaks led to at least 10,611 illnesses, 152 hospitalizations, and 99 emergency department visits. People, mostly children, were sickened with pathogens including Cryptosporidium, Camplyobacter jejuni, Giardia duodenalis, Salmonella, Shigella, and norovirus, according to the analysis, published Tuesday in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The tallies of outbreaks and illnesses are likely undercounts, given reporting delays and missed connections.
Though previous outbreak-based studies have provided bursts of data, the new analysis is the first to provide a comprehensive catalog of all the documented outbreaks since splash pads erupted in the 1990s. Together, they provide a clear, stomach-churning explanation of how the outbreaks keep happening. Basically, small children go into the watery playgrounds while they're sick and spread their germs.
60-year-old Fresno resident Leah Seneng was reportedly killed by a rabies infection that she likely caught from a bat that had wandered into her classroom.
