While for most infants, the highest vulnerability is between 6 and 11 months, premature infants are frequently born with low or absent measles antibodies because transplacental antibody transfer mainly occurs during the final weeks of pregnancy. @PeterHotez @NBCNews @ariabendix
Infant in Pennsylvania is one of two people reported to die of measles this week. My comments with @nbcnews nbcnews.com/health/health-ne…
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echoey13 retweeted
🚨Colleagues in infectious diseases, public health, emergency medicine, global health, and related fields:
Myself, Deb Houry, Anne Schuchat and @Craig_A_Spencer with the support of @IDSAInfo have drafted an open letter to Congress regarding the proposed use of third-country facilities for the quarantine, isolation, or treatment of Americans potentially exposed to or infected with Ebola virus disease.
The letter outlines concerns related to standards of care, access to advanced supportive and critical care, oversight and accountability, patient rights and well-being, and the potential diversion of resources from outbreak response efforts.
We invite you to review the letter and consider signing on by Thursday, 5 PM ET.
✍️ Sign on here: tinyurl.com/Ebola-Letter
echoey13 retweeted
1) This illustrates why it makes no sense for people to suggest we should eliminate the PHS (which happens periodically) or the Office of the Surgeon General (which leads the PHS).
2) It also shows how poorly conceived and executed DOGE was (on top of USAID cuts) in regards to health. Eliminate 25% of CDC (including outbreak response specialists), get outbreak, spend FAR more standing up a brand new response system to replace the people and resources you just cut.
Department of government inefficiency? 🤔
Members of the U.S. Public Health Service have already begun training at Joint Base Andrews to staff the facility, according to people familiar with the response.
One person expressed concern that the training period was only three days, which experts say is not sufficient. wapo.st/4dxCt5E
echoey13 retweeted
One of the things that has surprised me from wastewater surveillance is just how much cocaine Americans are still consuming.
It's everywhere, and there is a lot of it.
No real decrease with all of the increased border security either.
Who knew?
echoey13 retweeted
Bing could do the funniest thing and actually be the better search engine for once.
echoey13 retweeted
Hay una pandemia que nadie quiere frenar: la del egoísmo. Y esa, también se contagia.
El mayor riesgo para la salud global ya no es la falta de ciencia, sino la falta de conciencia. Por eso, cuando otros recortan, España duplica su ayuda.
Porque ninguna sociedad merece llamarse civilizada si abandona a los suyos. Cuidar de quien no puede cuidarse no es caridad. Es lo que nos hace humanos.
echoey13 retweeted
With the #Ebola outbreak, many people may be curious about the spillover scenario that infected the first person. This is a topic of ongoing investigation in the filovirus world but I can shed light on one important piece of information.
The Ituri region of the DRC where the #Ebola outbreak started has a very active gold-mining industry. Our research team studies Marburg virus (a relative of Ebola, also in the Filovirus family) which is transmitted from fruit bats to humans.
These bats typically reside deep in caves/mines; with Marburg, gold mines have been implicated as a key spillover environment to miners working in these settings.
"Only 15 of the local people had Marburg antibodies, so the disease is either rare or leaves few survivors to test [fatality rates can exceed 80%]”, explains Bausch. “But of these, 13 were gold miners."
thelancet.com/journals/lanin…
echoey13 retweeted
There's no way someone who feels this way about PPE should be a Public Health Officer.
echoey13 retweeted
I’m listening to the CDC presser about Ebola right now.
This is an absolute embarrassment.
This is SO non-transparent.
@CDCDirector and @HHSGov—this is NOT okay. Let our CDC folks speak and share what we know.
This is going to explode in your face if you don’t.
echoey13 retweeted
The multinational outbreak of #hantavirus linked to cruise ship travel should prompt the WHO to change its default response to the risk of airborne transmission
bmj.com/content/393/bmj.s919…
echoey13 retweeted
Really good from @PaulSaxMD
“In this outbreak in particular, we are still learning about how transmission occurred. Some infected individuals reportedly did not have prolonged close contact, suggesting that simple assumptions about risk may not fully explain what happened aboard the ship”
“The temptation in situations like this is to offer categorical reassurance too early — statements such as “this virus is not easily transmissible,” “brief contact cannot lead to infection,” or “spread can only occur from highly symptomatic people.”
echoey13 retweeted
For people outside the science bubble: over the last 3 years, NIH researchers like me were informally encouraged to avoid working with mRNA technology in grant proposals. Pharmaceutical companies rely heavily in discoveries made with public funding first. This is the result:
Since 2023, Moderna and Korea University have been developing a new mRNA vaccine for hantavirus. The work has been promising so far, but a finished product isn't likely coming any time soon. wired.com/story/a-new-hantav…
echoey13 retweeted
The concept of having Hantavirus onboard the Hantavirus cruise and getting told you have anxiety
"A French woman who tested positive for hantavirus after she was evacuated from a cruise ship reported symptoms to doctors onboard but was told it was probably just anxiety, the Spanish health minister has said."
Or course.
theguardian.com/world/2026/m…
echoey13 retweeted
The Andes virus does not require prolonged, close contact to spread. Previous outbreaks as well as this ship outbreak demonstrate that this is not the case.
nitter.gq/drkristenkc/status/205…
BREAKING: "The risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low."
Admiral Brian Christine, MD — Assistant Secretary for Health sets the record straight on the risk of hantavirus to the public:
"The Andes variant of this virus does not spread easily, and it requires prolonged, close contact with someone who is already symptomatic."
"Even so, we have taken this situation very seriously from the very start."
echoey13 retweeted
No one should be surprised more ship passengers tested positive - this was expected.
The focus has been on how to prevent secondary transmission, and this is what I discussed last night on @MSNOWNews
This is why I've been harping on the 'prolonged close contact' being inconsistent with the literature and experience on the ship - if we get this wrong, those in quarantine take the wrong precautions (or we don't isolate them...), and spread continues.
@AymanM, @crampell, @ahylton26, @Elise_Jordan
