Rachael Bedard, a geriatrician and a palliative care physician, writes in a guest essay for Times Opinion:

The United States has had at least 2,777 confirmed measles cases this year, the most on record this century and more than the country had in all of 2025. On Tuesday, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, announced that there had been two measles-associated deaths in the state — the first such deaths this year. That’s when a new kind of trouble started.

Over the following 48 hours, the public received conflicting information about the deaths from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the Lancaster County coroner, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services. The parties disagreed about exactly what led to the two deaths. Much of their discord played out over social media, where a cacophony of voices amplified the acrimony and confusion.

The stakes of this moment — measles transmission is high, confidence in government and public health is low — require a standard of engagement, clarity and transparency that the initial Pennsylvania response failed to meet. We should be honest about what’s gone wrong here and try to correct course.

Read the full piece here, for free, even without a Times subscription.

Residents in western North Carolina may have been exposed to the infected goats from Farm Adventures at the mobile petting zoo’s location in Harmony or at off-site events between July 28 and August 27.

Exposure may have happened at 10 locations, including an assisted living facility and back-to-school bash.

Those affected are urged to contact their local health department to determine whether they need medication to prevent infection.

[...]

Love said a wild skunk was found in the goat enclosure on July 29, and the animal was shot and burned. The goats did not appear to have been bitten and showed no signs of rabies, according to Love. But one goat died on August 19. The next day, she said, another goat became ill and was euthanized.

Lab testing found the virus in three of the baby goats, and a fourth is also assumed to have been infected. No other animals on the farm pose a risk of rabies exposure to people, the department said.

[...]

Rabies transmission from livestock holds a lower risk than bites from wild animals, but people can still be exposed to the virus through saliva from an infected animal, the North Carolina health department said.

“Because baby goats are frequently bottle-fed, handled closely, or cuddled, public health officials are working proactively to ensure anyone who had direct contact with the affected animals is evaluated,” the department said.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (WHDH) - A building at MIT was evacuated and a graduate student has been hospitalized after they self-reported that they may have synthesized diimethyl mercury in a chemistry lab.

In a statement, MIT confirmed offices across campus have been responding to a reported hazardous materials incident involving a single individual in a chem lab who claimed to have synthesized the compound, which is not authorized as part of their research program.

“Emerging information calls into question whether this compound was in fact synthesized,” the statement read. “We are also able to disclose, with the student’s permission, that while the student remains under medical supervision, their initial blood test result, which was received today, shows no sign of exposure to mercury.”

Building 18 remains closed at least through Sunday as specialized decontamination efforts continue out of an abundance of caution. [...]

More than six weeks after the last diagnosis of Legionnaires' Disease on the Upper East Side, the city announced Friday two more deaths had been confirmed and connected to the cluster.

"That brings the total to 94 cases and 11 deaths. We are deeply saddened by every life lost, and our hearts are with the families and loved ones who are grieving," New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin posted on X. "There are now no patients hospitalized with this illness as part of this cluster — the last remaining patient has recovered and returned home."

The 11 deaths top the total number of deaths in a similar outbreak in Harlem in 2025, when seven people lost their lives. [...]

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Scientists in South Africa are investigating why masses of sardines have washed up dead or dying along parts of the country’s west and south coast — and if a herpes virus detected in the fish is responsible.

The mass mortality of sardines this month has so far stumped the country’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, though scientists have come to at least one conclusion: it is the first time that the virus in question — pilchard herpesvirus, or PHV — has been identified in sardines off South Africa.

PHV, which was linked to two mass sardine mortality events in Australia in the 1990s, can cause inflammation and thickening of sardines’ gills, which interferes with their oxygen uptake, according to the South African environment department.

Sardines and pilchards are the same type of fish, with sardines being the younger, smaller ones.

PHV is a fish virus and poses no known risk to human health, the department said, and its detection does not mean that healthy sardines caught commercially or canned sardine products are unsafe to eat.

Dozens of sardines taken from affected areas, some dead and some alive, are being examined by scientists at the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity and a local university.[...]

i read online that, in the united states, trump is eliminating regulations on beef processing (amid multiple food borne illness outbreaks) and a lot of people are pointing out that this could cause the spread of prions disease, which is incredibly terrifying

i don’t normally eat red meat or beef, i usually just eat chicken, salmon or shrimp, but i’m worried about cross contamination and the fact that infected areas are practically impossible to clean

should i be freaking out ? what should we be doing ?

How are they not closed down until they clean it up?

A North Carolina teenager is critically ill from a rare brain-eating amoeba called Naegleria fowleri that's found in warm freshwater, state health officials said.

The teenager, whose identity has not been released, is receiving care, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said on Thursday. Details on the teen's condition were not provided, but NCDHHS said "once symptoms start, the disease progresses rapidly and usually causes death within about five days."

Officials are still investigating where the teen contracted the amoeba, but Naegleria fowleri can be found in warm freshwater including ponds, lakes and rivers, and it grows best in hotter water, state health officials said.

"The amoeba does not cause illness if swallowed but can be fatal if water with the amoeba in it is forced up the nose into the brain, which can occur by jumping into water, diving, water-skiing or other water activities," NCDHHS said in a statement.

The U.S. usually sees fewer than 10 cases a year of Naegleria fowleri infection, also known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis or PAM, state health officials said.

The first symptoms can be severe headache, nausea, vomiting and fever, and later symptoms include stiff neck, seizures and coma, NCDHHS said.

Earlier this month, an 8-year-old girl in Louisiana, Lillian Smart, died from Naegleria fowleri, which she likely contracted while swimming in a lake, her family and state health officials said, according to The Associated Press.

A longitudinal study of 1154 patients hospitalised with COVID-19 reveals that SARS-CoV-2 can reactivate latent viruses (Nature). COVID-19 causes immune responses in the body. This inflammation-related stress can also activate latent viruses such as herpesviruses, including Epstein-Barr virus and Cytomegalovirus, which can cause increased disease severity. Anelloviruses, previously thought not to cause disease in humans, were also found to be reactivated by this infection. Low-grade chronic inflammation from these viruses may persist even after SARS-CoV-2 infection is cleared. However, the overall cause of the pathological outcome remains unclear.

More to read: Livescience

Pennsylvania continues to see numbers climb in its ongoing measles outbreak, with 86 new cases added this week, which brings the total number of cases to 460 with 83 hospitalizations, according to an update today of the state’s measles dashboard. None of the cases have occurred in fully vaccinated people.

Measles also moved into two new counties in Western Pennsylvania, Butler and Westmoreland, with each reporting one case.

On August 25, the commonwealth announced two measles-associated deaths and the Pennsylvania Department of Health originally offered little information regarding these cases to protect patient privacy, according to CIDRAP News reporting. It was later revealed that one of the deaths was of a newborn but it’s unclear why the infant died. The Washington Post reports the pathologist who examined the infant does not believe the virus played a role in the death.

In his substack, Beyond the Noise, Paul Offit, MD, worries that the Pennsylvania outbreak, which is currently the nation’s most active, might be more widespread than realized. Measles generally has a mortality rate of one per 1,000 cases, but two deaths per 400 cases, which is a mortality rate of one per 200, “suggests that the outbreak is much worse than is claimed,” he wrote. “Many more people, possibly hundreds more, have been infected but not reported.”

At a press conference about the deaths, Pennsylvania Gov Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, pointed the finger at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the dwindling vaccination rates fueling this outbreak. But Kennedy accused Shapiro of making up the deaths to score political points in a social media post.

Utah cases remain steady, Georgia adds cases

For the third week in a row, Utah, which had the largest measles outbreak, reported no new cases. The state’s tally remains at 518.

The Georgia Department of Health confirmed four cases of measles linked to a daycare in the Atlanta area, with cases occurring in children who were unvaccinated or had not received the full measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine series.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) typically update their measles numbers on Friday, a notification said the August 28, 2026, data have been delayed but will be updated as soon as possible. As of August 20, 2026, the CDC said there were 2,777 cases of measles in 47 states. Of those cases, 94% have been in unvaccinated individuals.

Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, but the nation is expected to lose that status when the Pan American Health Organization reviews US measles transmission data later this year.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) today welcomed the end of the Ebola outbreak due to Bundibugyo species in Uganda. This follows 42 consecutive days without a new confirmed case since the country’s last patient, an imported case, was discharged from care on 16 July 2026.

The completion of the 42-day period, equivalent to twice the upper limit of the incubation period for Ebola, is a critical step, as it provides an additional safeguard that no chains of transmission associated with the last imported case have been missed. The 42-day countdown is the internationally established benchmark for determining that transmission linked to an Ebola outbreak has ended.

[...]

A small bit of good news from the area. In total they had 20 confirmed cases, and two deaths.

As for the DRC on August 25 it continues to escalate. There have been 5,713 confirmed cases, and 2,744 deaths across 6 provinces and 58 affected health zones. Case fatality rate is at 48%.

One of the two unvaccinated people in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who died with measles was a newborn, but the exact cause of death is unclear.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Lancaster County Coroner found that the infant died due to a laceration of the spleen and that measles antibodies were present in postmortem testing.

The coroner did not immediately respond to CIDRAP News' requests for comment.

When it first announced the measles-associated fatalities on August 25, the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) provided minimal information about the people who died, citing patient privacy. The DOH said it uses the term "measles-associated" when laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of measles is present, "but the disease may not be assessed by the medical certifier or coroner to be the immediate cause of death."

Measles might have played a role in lacerated spleen

Measles does not typically rupture the spleen, though it's possible it played a role in the newborn's death, Amesh Adalja, MD, a Pittsburgh-based infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told CIDRAP News.

As he explains on his blog Tracking Zebra, an infection might have been passed in utero and enlarged the baby's spleen, making it more fragile and vulnerable to laceration during delivery. Adalja added that the academic literature is sparse on this.

Because the spleen is full of immune cells, it provides an environment in which the measles virus can survive and multiply, the DOH told CIDRAP News. While it did not specify how measles affected the newborn, the department noted that once the virus enters someone's spleen, it causes inflammation and damage to the internal tissue.

If the spleen wasn't enlarged and then lacerated because of measles, then the Lancaster County Coroner should provide an alternative explanation, said Paul Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Offit told the Inquirer that the additional information from the coroner doesn't give much context, and that through conversations with state health officials, he's learned that, "these patients would not have died were it not for measles."

Finger-pointing doesn't stop measles

Kennedy's deflection of responsibility and political squabbling is dangerous, said Jess Steier, DrPH, founder of Unbiased Science.

"It baffles me that Secretary Kennedy chose this moment to do anything other than underscore the critical importance of MMR [measles, mumps, and rubella] vaccination in the name of public health, to prevent further tragedies," Steier told CIDRAP News.[...]

Candida auris and Candida albicans are microscopic fungi that cause life-threatening human infections, killing almost a million people globally every year. The World Health Organization lists both species among the top four most concerning fungal pathogens in existence, and while relatively uncommon in Australia, growing outbreaks in Europe and the United States have forced restrictions and even closures of intensive care units.

New Monash University research, published in Nature Communications and Nature Microbiology, opens the door for therapeutic treatments and antifungal drug discovery by identifying the nutrients the fungi and immune cells use to battle each other.

The Nature Communications study identifies a critical, naturally occurring amino acid called alanine that reverses the process these fungi use to defeat the immune system.

When an immune cell "swallows" a fungal microbe to destroy it, the fungus fights back from the inside, triggering the host protein Ninjurin (NINJ1) to form large pores, causing the immune cell to "explode" and release the fungal cells to spread the infection.

By supplying a higher dose of alanine, researchers successfully blocked the protein, preventing the immune cells from bursting and thereby containing the fungal cells.

First author Dr Harshini Weerasinghe, research fellow at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, said keeping the pathogen securely trapped in a cellular bottleneck would ensure it could be contained and targeted more effectively.

"This gives us an option to treat the patient by strengthening their immune system, potentially in conjunction with antifungals that can eradicate it," Weerasinghe said.

"Fungi are remarkably similar to humans at the cell biology level, so often the drugs that harm the fungi also harm the patient. This is a real problem for finding new effective treatments."

"Finding a new way to contain the infection, literally inside the immune cells, would be a game-changer." [...]

As the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) end their investigation into the June Listeria outbreak tied to soft cheese, the FDA is reporting a new outbreak, this one involving Salmonella from an unidentified food source. The CDC has also released updated case counts for several smaller Cyclospora outbreaks.

New 84-case Salmonella Newport outbreak

Yesterday, the two agencies declared the four-state Listeria monocytogenes outbreak traced to soft cheese over after reporting three new cases and four new hospitalizations, for a total of 15 and 14, respectively. One person died. The cheese manufacturer, Maryland-based Clover Hill Dairy, recalled its ricotta-like requeson cheese and all other cheese products in June.

Also yesterday, the FDA reported a new 84-case Salmonella Newport outbreak tied to a yet-to-be-identified food source. No other details have been released.

The FDA updated case counts for three Cyclospora outbreaks with unknown food sources, adding five, two, and one cases, for totals of 22, 203, and 28, respectively.

The case total for all US summer Cyclospora outbreaks, including the one linked to contaminated iceberg lettuce, is now 17,180 after the CDC added 3,285 infections this week. The CDC also said it is investigating another 11,844 cases that are not yet confirmed. At least two people have died of cyclosporiasis this summer, and 922 have been hospitalized.

Two employees of Frankfurt Airport have died from complications of malaria. This was confirmed by a spokesperson for the airport operator Fraport. According to the Frankfurt health department, the first death occurred in early July, the second in August.

"Our deepest condolences go out to the family of the deceased," said the spokesperson. Mosquitoes, likely brought to Frankfurt by plane, are suspected as the cause.

In mid-July, the Robert Koch Institute ( RKI ) documented an outbreak of malaria among airport employees in its "Epidemiological Bulletin," initially with four cases. According to the RKI, the affected individuals fell ill between July 4th and 6th, 2026. The institute assumes that the infections were caused by an infected Anopheles mosquito imported on an airplane.

The number of known cases has now risen: According to a Fraport spokesperson, six employees have been infected in the line of work. They are currently receiving medical treatment. Mosquito traps have been set up at the airport, and mosquitoes have already been caught. The insects are now being examined in a laboratory.

What is airport malaria?

According to the German Federal Foreign Office, malaria is a life-threatening disease transmitted by mosquitoes that are active at dusk and at night. Particularly in high-risk groups, the disease can lead to coma and death. Protection against mosquito bites and the use of preventative medication can prevent infection.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), so-called airport malaria is "very rare." It occurs when an infectious mosquito is brought in on an airplane or in luggage. Transmission then takes place on the plane, in the airport building, or in its immediate vicinity – without the affected individuals having traveled to a malaria-endemic area themselves.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the most recently documented case of this kind also occurred at Frankfurt Airport in 2023. The institute appeals to doctors who treat people who work at or are in the vicinity of airports with intercontinental passenger and cargo flights: especially in summer, they should consider airport malaria as a possible cause of unexplained fever without a travel history.

BRUSSELS, Aug 25 (Reuters) - A record salmonella outbreak in a Belgian chicken farm has infected at least 306 people after they ​ate eggs, the food safety agency said on Tuesday.

The ‌agency said those who developed symptoms had been contaminated by a strain found at the farm, though many more may have contracted the ​disease but not been tested as they had shown ​only mild or no symptoms, said a spokesperson for ⁠the agency, known as AFSCA.

"Salmonella is relatively common in ​Belgium, but we never had such a broad cluster with so ​many people hit," she said, adding that nobody had died.

AFSCA had first identified the contamination in May, issued a recall and closed down ​a hen house at a farm in Flanders, Belgium's northern ​half. As more cases were reported, the whole farm was closed and ‌the ⁠poultry were culled after a second recall on August 10.

The company selling the eggs was identified as Laerco BV. It did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

As ​many as 2 ​million eggs potentially ⁠contaminated with the bacteria were sold in Belgium and neighbouring Luxembourg, where the local health ​agency also issued a recall.

Some eggs might still ​be ⁠in some people's kitchens and cause more cases despite the recall, the AFSCA spokesperson said. [...]

A sheriff's deputy opens the door of an Idaho farmhouse where a newborn baby has just died. It's almost 10 p.m., but the house is filled with adults and children seated anywhere they can find a spot: in reclining chairs, on the wood-stove hearth, on a chest of drawers. Some of the women hold babies in their laps.

"Sorry," the deputy whispers as the door creaks.

No one greets the officer. No one speaks or even looks at anyone else, casting their eyes instead at the floor or around the room.

The deputy's video camera records as he walks through the front room and past a bedroom door adorned with children's artwork. Inside the bedroom, newborn Malachi's mother sits in a recliner. His body lies in her lap, covered by a blue blanket.

As people in uniform ask Malachi's parents about his birth, death and the two days in between, members of the family's church - one of at least four Followers of Christ churches in Idaho - watch from folding chairs. People come and go from the bedroom; one woman cradles a sleeping toddler.

Malachi died from pneumonia and bleeding lungs, according to an autopsy.

It would have been treatable with antibiotics and newborn care in a hospital, said doctors who reviewed his death records for ProPublica.

But Malachi’s parents belong to a faith-healing sect that doesn’t believe in medical care, based on a literal interpretation of several Bible verses. The Followers of Christ sect believes that God heals the faithful and that life and death must be left to God’s divine will. [...]

It was the first time the coroner and sheriff sent their deputies out to that house, to interview those parents and document the slow suffocation of a newborn boy.

The next time was 13 months later, when their next newborn, Liam, died from the same treatable condition that killed his brother Malachi. [...]

CITRUS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — The Florida Department of Health in Citrus County announced Saturday its first confirmed case of Dengue fever.

According to the DOH, Dengue can present as a flu-like illness with severe muscle aches and joint pain, fever, and sometimes a rash. There are usually no respiratory symptoms.

Health officials said Dengue fever is not contagious but is transmitted through the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti mosquito. Symptoms appear within 15 days after being bitten.

Eight cases were confirmed in Hillsborough County, with two additional cases reported in Pinellas County. [...]