Epidemics
As Monkeypox Spreads, U.S. Declares a Health Emergency
Gay rights activists, who have been sharply critical of the administration, have been demanding an emergency declaration for weeks. “This is all too late,” said James Krellenstein, a founder of PrEP4All, an advocacy group that works to expand treatment for people with H.I.V. “I don’t really understand why they didn’t do this weeks ago.” The […]
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W.H.O. Declares Monkeypox Spread a Global Health Emergency
For the second time in two years, the World Health Organization has taken the extraordinary step of declaring a global emergency. This time the cause is monkeypox, which has spread in just a few weeks to dozens of countries and infected tens of thousands of people. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general, on […]
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Covid Surge in New Caledonia, in the Pacific, HIts Indigenous Hardest
NOUMÉA, New Caledonia — Festooned with hibiscus flowers and woven palm fronds, scores of guests gathered for a celebration during New Caledonia’s wedding season. The aroma of grilled fish and yams bathed in coconut milk wafted over the revelers on the island of Lifou, population 10,000. The celebration on the atoll in late August seemed […]
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What We Can Learn From How the 1918 Pandemic Ended
Most histories of the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed at least 50 million people worldwide say it ended in the summer of 1919 when a third wave of the respiratory contagion finally subsided. Yet the virus continued to kill. A variant that emerged in 1920 was lethal enough that it should have counted as a […]
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Beneath a Covid Vaccine Debacle, 30 Years of Government Culpability
At first, it appeared that the agency had attracted two large pharmaceutical firms — Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline — but their involvement proved temporary. The companies already had contracts with the agency to work on vaccines for influenza pandemics. It was a distinct corner of biodefense that attracted major manufacturers because they could use much of […]
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Omicron Is a Dress Rehearsal for the Next Pandemic
Seek and you shall find In any other context, it would have been unremarkable: On Sunday, Nov. 28, a San Francisco resident who had been feeling mildly ill took a Covid test. The next day, it came back positive. What set off alarm bells, however, was that the resident had recently returned from South Africa, […]
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