Tag: Infections

Could Your Cat Give You the Plague?

Officials in Deschutes County, Ore., announced last week that a local resident had been diagnosed with the plague — and that the resident had probably been infected by a pet cat. The cat, which was symptomatic, died from the infection, but the human patient is currently recovering, said Emily Horton, a public health program manager […]

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Ending TB Is Within Reach — So Why Are Millions Still Dying?

At Kaneshie Polyclinic, a health center in a hardscrabble neighborhood of Accra, the capital of Ghana, there is a rule. Every patient who walks through the door — a woman in labor, a construction worker with an injury, a child with malaria — is screened for tuberculosis. This policy, a national one, is meant to […]

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A New Way to Prevent S.T.I.s: A Pill After Sex

Why It Matters: Rates of S.T.I.s are skyrocketing. In 2021, there were 1.6 million cases of chlamydia, more than 700,000 cases of gonorrhea and nearly 177,000 cases of syphilis in the United States, together tallying up to $1.1 billion in direct medical costs. (Rates of babies born with syphilis also soared that year, with nearly […]

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In Hospitals, Viruses Are Everywhere. Masks Are Not.

Liv Grace came down with respiratory infections three times over the course of four months. Each occurred after a visit to a medical provider in the Bay Area. Mx. Grace, 36, a writer who uses they/them pronouns, was infected with respiratory syncytial virus, which led to pneumonia, in December, after they were treated by a […]

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Warming Oceans May Raise Risk of Bacterial Infections

On a warm day in early July, Ed Houlihan guided kayakers on a four-mile trip on Cape Cod from Popponesset Bay up the Mashpee River to a freshwater pond. It was three hours of paddling round trip, but afterward Mr. Houlihan, 83, felt no worse for wear — at first. Five days later, his left […]

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The C.D.C. Director on Why You Should Get the Latest Covid Booster

We have come a long way since the early days of 2020. Back then, I was the head of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services and working alongside Gov. Roy Cooper to navigate the uncertainty, the challenges and the fear around Covid-19. My extended family was in New York, the epicenter of the […]

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