#epidemics

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Maternity kits, medical threads and scissors, water testing kits, anesthetics, mobile desalination units, etc do you see the pattern? Israel is not only starving the people of Gaza but it also wants to ensure the spread of disease through contaminated water and surgical tools, as well as ensuring injured Palestinians suffer through horrendous pain.

The MAGA-DOGE régime decided that the middle of hepatitis outbreak was a great time to close the CDC's Division of Viral Hepatitis.

After people started testing positive for hepatitis C in a coastal Florida town in December, state officials collected blood from patients, wrapped their specimens in dry ice and mailed them straight to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga. The hepatitis C virus, which is spread through contact with infected blood and can lead to deadly liver cancer, is notoriously hard to identify. But if anyone could understand what was happening in Florida, it would be the Division of Viral Hepatitis in the CDC's headquarters. Using samples from the laboratory's collection of nearly 1 million frozen specimens, scientists helped make the initial discovery of the hepatitis C virus in the 1980s. In 2020, that research was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Unlike Trump, the scientists at the lab knew what they were doing.

The scientists at the lab knew what they were doing. Quickly, they analyzed the blood from Florida using their custom software and found that nine cases were genetically linked to the same pain clinic, where it was later discovered that a doctor was improperly reusing injection vials. By March, officials in Florida had restricted the doctor's medical license to limit the spread of the virus and packaged new patient samples to send to the CDC for testing, CDC employees told NPR. But on April 1, the outbreak investigation was brought to a halt. All 27 of the lab's scientists received an email from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informing them that they were losing their jobs. Like thousands of other employees who received similar emails that day, the scientists were told they would be placed on administrative leave until June 2, after which they would no longer work for the CDC. The email said their duties were "identified as either unnecessary or virtually identical to duties being performed elsewhere in the agency." But the kind of genetic tracing that the CDC's lab performs is not conducted by any other lab in the United States or the world, experts interviewed by NPR said. While the lab remains shuttered, ongoing investigations of current hepatitis outbreaks have been stalled, not just in Florida, but also in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Georgia, according to CDC employees who work closely with the Division of Viral Hepatitis. The five CDC employees NPR spoke with requested that their names not be shared for fear of retaliation.

For all anybody knows, the scientists may have been fired by Apartheid Elon's teen buddy Big Balls.

Low- and middle-income countries will be able to purchase an effective preventative at a reduced price. The arrangements may help stem the epidemic 40 years after it began.

By Apoorva Mandavilli

Sept. 24, 2025, 7:00 a.m. ET

A drug that provides near-perfect protection against H.I.V. with shots just twice a year will be made available at $40 per patient annually in low- and middle-income countries, offering new hope for ending the H.I.V. epidemic.

Although current treatments can suppress H.I.V., there is no real cure, making affordable prevention crucial for turning back the virus. About 1.3 million people worldwide become infected with H.I.V. every year.

Rory Carroll and Sam Jones at The Guardian:

Authorities around the world are racing to trace dozens of passengers who disembarked from the cruise ship at the centre of a deadly hantavirus outbreak before isolation measures were implemented. It emerged for the first time on Thursday that at least 29 passengers of 12 nationalities left the MV Hondius on 24 April after the first fatality, prompting a scramble to identify and track their movements since then. However, the World Health Organization ruled out any Covid-scale crisis. “This is not the start of an epidemic. This is not the start of a pandemic. This is not Covid,” Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the agency’s director for epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, told reporters. The WHO said that five of the eight suspected cases linked to the ship had been confirmed and that other cases may be identified.

“Given the incubation period of the Andes virus, which can be up to six weeks, it’s possible that more cases may be reported,” the organisation’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a news conference. “While this is a serious incident, WHO assesses the public health risk low.”

The outbreak has killed three people and caused global alarm.

Hantaviruses are a group of viruses primarily found in rodents but which can infect humans and cause flu-like symptoms, pulmonary syndrome and respiratory failure. The Andes hantavirus can spread among humans through very close contact, but is less contagious than Covid. There are no vaccines.