Health & Fitness

Placeholder while article actions load Massachusetts health authorities said Wednesday that they confirmed a case of a rare and sometimes serious viral illness called monkeypox — the first infection identified in the United States this year amid a rash of cases outside the disease’s typical territory. Monkeypox, which can be passed to animals and humans, is usually found in Central and West Africa. But health authorities in Europe have confirmed more than a dozen cases this month and are investigating dozens more. Some infections confirmed in the United Kingdom “have no travel links” to a place where monkeypox is regularly found, officials said, suggesting the virus may be spreading through the community. Monkeypox is not known to spread easily between humans. The fact that cases are ...

Humboldt County Public Health reported six new hospitalizations today, two residents in their 70s and four aged 80 or older. An additional 306 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 were reported as well as 124 new probable cases for the period between Tuesday, May 10, and Tuesday, May 17. The total number of confirmed cases in the county stands at 18,078. An additional 3,304 cases are reported as probable.*  Local vaccination data has been updated on the COVID-19 Data Dashboard. Highlights include: Since the last weekly report on May 11, an additional 106 residents completed their vaccine series. A total of 90,104 individuals, or approximately 66% of the county’s total population, have been fully vaccinated as of Tuesday. As part of the federal government’s National COVID-19 Preparedne...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Tami Chappell | Reuters The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now investigating 180 cases of children who suddenly developed severe hepatitis across 36 states and territories, an increase of 71 cases since the public health agency's last update earlier this month. The CDC, in a statement Wednesday, said the vast majority are not new cases of hepatitis. Rather, the number of patients under investigation have increased as the agency looks more closely at data that goes back to October of last year. Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver that is commonly caused by hepatitis viruses A, B, C, D and E. The cases the CDC is investigating are unusual because the chi...

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The outbreak of mysterious hepatitis cases in children has spread to New Jersey. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating four pediatric cases in the Garden State that could be linked to the acute liver disease, the state Department of Health announced Wednesday in a statement. The children under investigation range from under 1 to 7 years old. All survived and did not need a liver transplant. “All were previously hospitalized between October 2021 and February 2022, and all have recovered,” the statement said. “None of the children underwent liver transplants. All of the children tested negative for COVID. There were no deaths.” The mysterious disease has affected more than 110 children in nearly 30 U.S. states. About 300 probable cases have been identified wo...

Photo: Sirachai Arunrugstichai (Getty Images) The average person suffering from long covid didn’t have a severe infection to begin with, a new report suggests. The study, an examination of private insurance claims, found that three-fourths of diagnosed long covid patients were not hospitalized for covid-19. Additionally, the researchers found that patients were most likely to be co-diagnosed with symptoms such as fatigue and trouble breathing. Last October, long covid was codified into the latest edition of the International Classification of Disease (ICD-10), a codebook used by doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies for diagnostic and billing purposes. This code, officially known as “U09.9 Post covid-19 condition, unspecified,” allowed patients to be formally recognized as hav...

Photo: Cuson (Shutterstock) Smallpox is the only disease we’ve ever managed to fully eradicate in humans; it hasn’t existed anywhere in the world since 1980. But its close relative, monkeypox, is still around. Monkeypox isn’t anywhere near as dangerous as smallpox, but a few recent outbreaks have public health officials worried. In recent weeks, there have been 23 suspected cases in Spain, all in or near Madrid. There are 15 suspected and five confirmed cases in Portugal, and seven in the U.K. Two cases cropped up today in the United States. The U.S. CDC is concerned. That’s because monkeypox is usually rare outside of tropical rainforest areas of Africa. But the patterns of recent cases suggest that the virus is more transmissible than in past outbreaks. For example, the U.K. ca...

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Four additional cases of monkeypox have been confirmed according to a news release from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), increasing the number of diagnosed cases to seven since May 6th.  The three cases reported in London and one linked case in England were not connected with the three previously confirmed cases between May 6th and May 15th, the UKHSA officials said in the report. The individuals have the mild West African clade of the virus compared to the Central African clade, the report said. Those in need of medical attention were being treated in infectious disease units of hospitals in the UK. UKHSA officials said monkeypox is a viral infection spread by very close contact with someone with the virus. The virus is commonly ass...

KHN  —  Nearly 18 months after getting covid-19 and spending weeks in the hospital, Terry Bell struggles with hanging up his shirts and pants after doing the laundry. Lifting his clothes, raising his arms, arranging items in his closet leave Bell short of breath and often trigger severe fatigue. He walks with a cane, only short distances. He’s 50 pounds lighter than when the virus struck. Bell, 70, is among millions of older adults who have grappled with long covid — a population that has received little attention even though research suggests seniors are more likely to develop the poorly understood condition than younger or middle-aged adults. Long covi...

Another 71 cases of the mysterious hepatitis are being probed in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed Wednesday. No further deaths were reported over the last two weeks, but previously the CDC revealed it was probing five fatalities in the outbreak — with one in Wisconsin.  One more child has required a liver transplant, bringing the national tally for patients needing this procedure to 16. A total of 180 cases of the mysterious hepatitis have now been linked to the outbreak across 35 states, with patients all less than 10 years old. This is the most out of any nation in the world with the UK, which first detected the outbreak, having the second-highest total at 163 cases. The CDC said the 'vast majority' of these patients were retrospective, and came to hospi...