Tag Archives: Epidemics

Struggling to contain a raging measles epidemic in West Texas, public health officials increasingly worry that residents are relying on unproven remedies endorsed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and postponing doctor visits until the illness has worsened. Hospitals and officials sounded an alarm this week, issuing a notice explaining which measles symptoms warranted immediate medical attention and …

Until 2020, few Americans needed to think about how viruses spread or how the human immune system works. The pandemic offered a painful crash course. Sometimes, it seemed that the science was evolving as quickly the virus itself. So The New York Times asked experts to revisit the nightmare. Of the most significant public health measures introduced during Covid, which …

Five years after Covid-19 shut down activities all over the world, medical historians sometimes struggle to place the pandemic in context. What, they are asking, should this ongoing viral threat be compared with? Is Covid like the 1918 flu, terrifying when it was raging but soon relegated to the status of a long-ago nightmare? Is it like polio, vanquished but …

In a sweeping interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, outlined a strategy for containing the measles outbreak in West Texas that strayed far from mainstream science, relying heavily on fringe theories about prevention and treatments. He issued a muffled call for vaccinations in the affected community, but said the choice was a personal one. He …

We asked 19 photographers to revisit their most enduring images of the coronavirus pandemic, five years after the virus became a global threat. Their photographs transport us to that bewildering period in an uncanny sort of time travel. The journalists who captured these scenes were not just covering the Covid-19 story but living through it. To bear witness at a …

Dangerous pathogens left unsecured at labs across Africa. Halted inspections for mpox, Ebola and other infections at airports and other checkpoints. Millions of unscreened animals shipped across borders. The Trump administration’s pause on foreign aid has hobbled programs that prevent and snuff out outbreaks around the world, scientists say, leaving people everywhere more vulnerable to dangerous pathogens. That includes Americans. …

A raging measles outbreak in West Texas, which has so far killed one child, has not abated and may have taken root in New Mexico, state health officials reported on Friday. The outbreak has sickened nearly 200 people — roughly 40 more cases than were reported on Tuesday — and has left 23 hospitalized in West Texas. Local health officials …

An unvaccinated person who died in New Mexico has tested positive for measles, state health officials said on Thursday, possibly the second such fatality in a growing outbreak that began in West Texas. The officials have not yet confirmed that measles was the cause of death, and said the individual did not seek medical treatment before dying. The announcement comes …

Perhaps no vote was as agonizing for Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and medical doctor, than his vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Trump’s health secretary. Mr. Cassidy wondered aloud for days how Mr. Kennedy, the nation’s most vocal and powerful critic of vaccinations, might handle an infectious disease crisis. Now, as a measles outbreak rages …

A measles outbreak that has spread over a swath of West Texas, killing one child, shows no signs of slowing, according to data announced on Tuesday by state health officials. The Texas Department of Health reported that since late January, nearly 160 people have contracted measles — 20 more cases than reported on Friday — and 22 have been hospitalized. …