Global Pulse

分类： health

  • France recorded 5,700 more deaths than usual during its historic June heat wave

    France recorded 5,700 more deaths than usual during its historic June heat wave

    PARIS (AP) — A historic early-season heat wave that smashed temperature records across Western Europe last month caused at least 5,700 more deaths than normal in France alone, the country’s national public health agency confirmed Wednesday in a sharply upward revision of its initial death toll estimate.

    Public Health France’s analysis found that between June 17 and July 1, when the dangerous heat gripped most of the country, 21,674 deaths from all causes were registered across all French regions. Statistical modeling built on mortality data from previous years put the expected number of deaths for that same period at just 15,910. The gap between the projected and actual death counts, totaling 5,764 extra fatalities, is classified as excess mortality directly linked to the extreme heat event.

    The 36% rise in mortality compared to baseline averages marks the deadliest heat wave France has experienced since the catastrophic 2003 heat event, which killed an estimated 15,000 people across the country. This year’s heat wave set multiple unprecedented records: France logged its hottest ever national average temperatures on June 24 and 25, hitting a daily mean of 30°C (86°F). Nighttime temperatures also remained at record-breaking levels, and peak daytime temperatures surged above 40°C (104°F) across much of the nation.

    More than half of the excess deaths occurred in the three-day window between June 25 and 27, immediately after the peak of the heat, the agency confirmed. The Paris region was the hardest-hit area, with 1,999 excess fatalities — an 80% increase over the expected mortality rate for that period. Local funeral directors reported widespread strain on services, with multiple mortuaries hitting full capacity and turning away bodies awaiting burial or cremation.

    Nearly half of all deaths during the heat wave occurred in hospitals, which faced sudden surges in patients seeking care for heat-related illnesses. Roughly one-third of patients died at their residences, and most of the remaining fatalities occurred in elderly care facilities, where vulnerable populations face particular risk from extreme heat.

    Public health officials noted that this heat event was unique for its unusually early arrival on the calendar, paired with exceptional intensity and duration that exposed nearly the entire French population to dangerous conditions. Crucially, the heat struck when schools were still in session and most workplaces were operating at full capacity, unlike mid-summer heat events that occur when many people are on vacation.

    This deadly toll in France is part of a wider pattern across the European continent, where early and intense extreme heat this year has caused more than 10,000 total excess deaths as new mortality data continues to be compiled from affected countries. The event also sparked massive wildfires in neighboring Spain, threatened water infrastructure across the Western U.S. and Latin America as El Niño amplifies global heat trends.

    The current 5,700 excess death estimate is an updated figure that far surpasses the agency’s initial preliminary count of roughly 2,000 extra deaths for the peak heat week between June 22 and 28. Officials noted the final toll will be revised again later this year once full, finalized mortality data is available. Climate and health experts warn that full mortality counts from heat waves always take time to compile, as many heat-related deaths are never formally categorized as such on death certificates. For example, extreme heat often triggers fatal heart attacks in vulnerable older adults or people with preexisting conditions, but these deaths are typically listed only as heart attacks on official documentation, masking the heat’s role in the fatality.

  • Congo’s Ebola outbreak has killed nearly 1,000 people

    Congo’s Ebola outbreak has killed nearly 1,000 people

    BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo – A catastrophic Ebola outbreak sweeping through eastern Congo has crossed a devastating threshold, with official data released overnight Wednesday confirming at least 999 fatalities from the fastest-spreading Ebola event ever recorded by global health authorities.

    Updated figures from Congo’s Ministry of Health, current as of Monday, put the total number of confirmed and probable cases at 2,473, with 737 patients currently receiving care in isolation facilities and hospitals across the affected regions. First declared a public health emergency on May 15, this outbreak differs dramatically from most previous Ebola events in one critical detail: it is driven by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which no specifically approved vaccines or targeted treatments currently exist.

    Its speed of transmission has already outpaced every outbreak in recorded history, even outstripping the devastating 2013–2016 West African outbreak that remains the worst on record. That event, which killed more than 11,000 people across 28,000 confirmed cases, took roughly eight months to reach the 1,000-death mark. The current outbreak is on track to cross that threshold in a fraction of that time.

    Ebola, though rare globally, is an extremely contagious pathogen that spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids including blood, vomit, and semen. It causes severe acute illness that is fatal in a large majority of untreated cases.

    Health officials have issued urgent warnings that 80% of all new cases are being traced to unknown transmission chains, a clear indicator that the virus is spreading faster than response teams can track and contain it. This gap has persisted even as authorities have ramped up emergency response operations in Ituri province, the outbreak’s epicenter, as well as four additional affected provinces across the country.

    Compounding the crisis, repeated attacks on health facilities and frontline response teams have forced aid groups and medical workers to withdraw from hard-hit areas. In other locations, local health workers have launched strikes over unpaid wages, a longstanding issue that has gone unaddressed since the outbreak was first declared.

    Speaking Tuesday at the African Health Summit held in Accra, Ghana, Dr. Jean Kaseya, Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), called on global and regional bodies to dramatically scale up intervention efforts to slow the outbreak’s advance. “If we do not stop this outbreak today, it could become one of the worst Ebola outbreaks the world has ever documented,” Kaseya warned.

  • After an extremely rare pregnancy, an Australian woman gives birth to identical quadruplet girls

    After an extremely rare pregnancy, an Australian woman gives birth to identical quadruplet girls

    In an unprecedented medical event for Australia, 34-year-old Jenitar Sau Na’amoana has safely given birth to four identical quadruplet girls, a natural conception that experts call a one-in-15-million statistical anomaly.

    Na’amoana, who already shares four children with her husband Jorthan, never planned an expanded family — the couple was stunned when prenatal tests confirmed she carried four identical fetuses, all developed from a single fertilized egg that spontaneously split into four embryos. The delivery took place last week at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) in Queensland, marking the first recorded case of naturally conceived identical quadruplets in Australian history.

    Maternal-fetal medicine specialist Dr. Alexa Bendall, who led Na’amoana’s care team, called the case medically extraordinary. While the general odds of spontaneous quadruplet conception hover at roughly 1 in 700,000 worldwide, the subset of identical quadruplets from one fertilized egg is far rarer, with odds estimated at 1 in 15 million. The vast majority of higher-order multiple pregnancies today result from fertility assistance treatments, making this all-natural conception even more unusual.

    Multiple pregnancies carry inherently elevated health risks for both birthing parent and fetuses, particularly when multiple fetuses share a single placenta — a common trait in identical multiple births. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, people carrying multiple fetuses face far higher risks of preterm delivery, miscarriage, and congenital abnormalities than those carrying single fetuses. To mitigate these risks, RBWH assembled a large specialized care team that began closely monitoring Na’amoana starting at just 10 weeks gestation. By 25 weeks, she was admitted as an inpatient to receive around-the-clock observation to track the development of the four fetuses. On July 14, Na’amoana delivered the four girls via planned cesarean section at 28 weeks and four days gestation.

    In a post-delivery statement, Dr. Bendall emphasized just how positive the outcome has been for the family. “The fact that we’ve got four beautiful, healthy babies born at 28 weeks and four days is incredible,” she said. While Na’amoana experienced some mild blood loss during delivery, Bendall noted the amount was well within expected ranges for a quadruplet birth, and the mother is now recovering well.

    All four infants are currently being cared for in RBWH’s neonatal intensive care unit, where they are progressing steadily. In a touching gesture to the care team, the couple named their daughters Emily, Harriet, Catherine, and Alexa — with the youngest named in honor of Dr. Bendall. The specialist called the tribute deeply moving, saying she feels privileged to have supported the family through their unprecedented journey.

    “From an academic perspective, it’s really interesting,” Bendall said of the case. “But also from a human perspective, to be able to be part of the family’s journey and come out with four beautiful babies and a healthy mum is very precious.”

    This reporting from the Associated Press Health and Science Department was supported by funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, with the AP retaining full editorial control over all content.

  • UK humanitarian worker monitored for Ebola in London hospital

    UK humanitarian worker monitored for Ebola in London hospital

    A British-resident humanitarian worker deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC to support local Ebola outbreak response operations has been evacuated to the United Kingdom for medical care following a potential occupational exposure to the deadly virus, public health officials confirmed this week.

    The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) emphasized in an official statement that the evacuated individual, who has not been publicly identified, is currently not showing any symptoms of Ebola infection. The evacuation and subsequent hospitalization were undertaken purely as a precautionary measure, the agency added. As of the latest update, the worker remains in good health while undergoing continuous assessment and monitoring at an undisclosed London hospital.

    While the facility has not been named, public health sources confirm the Royal Free Hospital in north London – which hosts the UK’s national high-level isolation unit and serves as the country’s primary treatment center for high-consequence infectious diseases – is the likely site of care. Per UK public health protocols, the worker will remain in isolation for the full duration of Ebola’s 2 to 21 day incubation period, the maximum window for symptoms to emerge after exposure.

    Ebola is classified as a high-risk pathogen that spreads exclusively through direct contact with infected bodily fluids, unlike respiratory viruses such as influenza or COVID-19 which transmit via airborne particles. Initial symptoms of infection typically onset suddenly, mirroring early signs of flu or malaria including fever, headaches and fatigue. As the infection progresses, patients often develop vomiting and diarrhea, which can progress to organ failure. While not universal for all cases, internal and external bleeding is a known complication of advanced Ebola infection.

    Richard Pebody, UKHSA’s director of epidemic and emerging infections, sought to reassure the public that the incident poses very little danger to the wider UK population. “The risk to the general public remains low,” Pebody said in the statement. “This individual has been transferred out of an abundance of caution, and we’re pleased they remain well.”

    UKHSA also confirmed that as of this update, there are no confirmed cases of active Ebola transmission within the UK. Previous Ebola exposure events in the UK occurred between 2014 and 2015, when three healthcare workers returning from West African outbreak zones tested positive for the virus. All three patients recovered fully, and no secondary transmission to the general public was recorded in any of those cases.

    The current evacuation comes amid a major ongoing Ebola outbreak centered in the DRC that has spread to neighboring Uganda. As of July 19, DRC government data collated by the World Health Organization (WHO) recorded 2,423 confirmed cases of Ebola since the outbreak was first declared in mid-May, including 967 fatalities and 469 recoveries. Uganda has reported an additional 20 confirmed cases and two deaths linked to the regional outbreak.

    This current outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, a variant for which no licensed vaccine is currently available, although multiple candidate vaccines are in late stages of development. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has categorized the event as the third-worst Ebola outbreak recorded in modern history.

  • Venezuela confirms 3 people have died of hantavirus infections, with 2 more deaths suspected

    Venezuela confirms 3 people have died of hantavirus infections, with 2 more deaths suspected

    CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan health authorities announced Tuesday that three people have died from confirmed hantavirus infections, a rare rodent-borne illness that has seldom been recorded in human cases across the South American nation. Officials emphasized that no evidence has emerged to prove the virus can spread between humans in the currently detected cases.

    The nation’s Health Ministry added that two additional deaths of healthcare workers in southwestern Barinas state are currently suspected to be linked to hantavirus. Those cases remain active in investigation, and officials have confirmed no connection between these suspected deaths and the three confirmed fatalities in eastern Anzoátegui state, located roughly 655 kilometers (407 miles) northeast of Barinas. Notably, both affected regions escaped the most severe damage from back-to-back major earthquakes that struck northern Venezuela earlier this month.

    Health officials characterized the deaths in both states as isolated events that “do not represent a risk to the general community.” Despite this reassurance, the ministry noted that additional healthcare personnel will be deployed to the affected regions to “guarantee the health security of all Venezuelans,” though no further details on the scope or timeline of the deployment were provided.

    The Venezuelan Medical Federation, the country’s leading national professional association for physicians, confirmed the three fatalities in Anzoátegui belonged to the same family residing in the rural municipality of Miranda in the southern part of the state.

    Globally, hantaviruses are distributed across every inhabited continent, with primary transmission occurring through direct or indirect contact with wild rodents including rats and mice. Human-to-human spread is extremely uncommon, but severe infections can trigger life-threatening pulmonary inflammation or acute kidney failure. The World Health Organization has tracked growing attention to the pathogen following a deadly outbreak on an Atlantic cruise ship earlier this year that confirmed rare instances of person-to-person transmission.

    That May outbreak on the expedition vessel MV Hondius killed three passengers and infected multiple others, linked to the Andes hantavirus — a strain that remains poorly understood by the global scientific community. The outbreak sparked international concern due to the strain’s estimated mortality rate of up to 30 percent, paired with the current absence of targeted antiviral treatments or approved vaccines.

    The cruise ship departed from Argentina, and Argentinian public health officials have spent weeks working to trace the origin of the outbreak. Initial official hypotheses speculated that the index case, a Dutch ornithologist, contracted the virus in Ushuaia, Argentina’s southernmost city famous as the popular “end of the world” departure point for Antarctic cruises.

    However, recent field testing of wild rodents in the Ushuaia area by Argentinian scientists ruled out the city as the outbreak’s origin. The conclusion has been welcomed by local tourism leaders, as the Antarctic cruise hub relies heavily on international visitor revenue. Earlier this month, Argentine authorities also ruled out the major wine-producing province of Mendoza as the source of contagion, after joint investigations by local researchers and biologists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found no trace of Andes hantavirus in rodents collected from areas the Dutch researcher and his spouse visited before the voyage.

  • US actions harm global efforts to prevent and treat HIV in dozens of countries, new report says

    US actions harm global efforts to prevent and treat HIV in dozens of countries, new report says

    A new independent report released Tuesday has exposed severe, far-reaching damage to the world’s largest global HIV relief initiative, tracing the harm directly to administrative disruptions carried out under the Trump administration that have forced clinic closures, mass staff layoffs, and widespread cuts to life-saving care across dozens of low- and middle-income countries.

    Launched in 2003, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, better known as PEPFAR, is widely recognized as one of the most successful global public health initiatives in modern history, credited with saving at least 26 million lives from HIV/AIDS since its creation. But the report from amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, details how the program was systematically undermined last year through the Trump administration’s restructuring of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and cuts to thousands of global health grant awards.

    Elise Lankiewicz, policy associate at amfAR and lead contributor to the report, noted that service disruptions touched nearly every corner of the global PEPFAR network, with the most vulnerable groups – including young women, AIDS orphans, and children living with or exposed to HIV – bearing the brunt of the cuts.

    To compile their findings, research teams reached out to hundreds of local and international organizations that deliver frontline HIV services with PEPFAR funding. Between November 2024 and April 2025, 166 organizations across 46 countries completed the researchers’ electronic survey, sharing detailed data on funding flows, staffing levels, and service availability. The research team acknowledges methodological limitations: the survey did not reach all PEPFAR-funded groups, and organizations that experienced the most severe disruption or those that retained full U.S. funding may have been less likely to respond, creating potential for bias in estimates of overall harm. Even so, study authors emphasize the findings offer an unprecedented, clear look into the widespread operational struggles that many PEPFAR partner groups faced over the past year.

    Key takeaways from the survey paint a stark picture of systemic breakdown. More than 75% of responding organizations reported at least one grant award was terminated or experienced significant payment delays in 2024. These funding cuts directly led to the permanent closure of more than 1,700 clinics, community drop-in centers, and other HIV service delivery sites, and the elimination of more than 16,000 full-time frontline staff positions. Even though federal guidance officially required core services including HIV treatment, diagnostic testing, and prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) to remain operational, a majority of partner organizations still reported disruptive interruptions to these critical services.

    Cuts were disproportionately concentrated on services for the populations that are most disproportionately impacted by HIV globally. A majority of organizations that previously provided targeted care for sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender people, and people who inject drugs reported permanently ending at least one service for these groups. Notably, even some organizations that did not lose funding reported cutting services for these key populations to align with revised U.S. policy priorities under the Trump administration.

    HIV prevention programming saw the steepest reductions: many organizations halted free condom distribution programs and stopped providing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the daily preventive medication that eliminates the risk of sexually transmitted HIV. Official PEPFAR expenditure data confirms the scale of this cut: total global prevention spending dropped 51% between fiscal years 2024 and 2025. The report also found that local, community-based organizations were far more likely to face grant terminations and forced site closures than large international non-governmental organizations, creating cascading instability across interconnected national HIV care systems.

    The report’s authors conclude that the cumulative effect of these disruptions has led to widespread degradation of the global HIV care infrastructure built up over more than two decades of PEPFAR investment, with the deepest harm falling on the communities and local partners that are most critical to ending the global epidemic. While the study does not break out data by individual country, amfAR officials confirmed that a majority of survey responses came from organizations based in sub-Saharan Africa, the region that bears more than two-thirds of the global HIV burden.

    The Trump administration has pushed back against these findings, releasing its own quarterly PEPFAR data covering July to September 2025 that presents a far more positive outlook. Administration officials noted that PEPFAR-supported programs provided continuous antiretroviral treatment to 20.6 million people across more than 50 countries, a figure they described as stable compared to the same quarter in 2024. They also highlighted an increase in PrEP access for pregnant and breastfeeding women, rising from 43,000 in 2024 to 103,000 in 2025.

    But independent analysis of full-year PEPFAR data by amfAR researchers and experts from the International AIDS Society contradicts the administration’s rosy assessment, confirming substantial service disruptions across all program areas. Separate independent research, published in the journal Nature Health in June 2025, echoes the amfAR report’s conclusions. That study, which analyzed full global PEPFAR treatment data, found that nearly two million fewer people living with HIV were accessing PEPFAR-supported antiretroviral treatment in fiscal year 2025 compared to 2024 – a roughly 10% year-over-year decline.

    Ramona Godbole, an author of the Nature Health study who was not involved in the new amfAR report, noted that the sharp drop in treatment access raises urgent questions about the long-term stability of the PEPFAR program. “That does raise really important questions about program stability,” Godbole said.

    To reverse the damage documented in the report, amfAR has put forward a series of policy recommendations. The organization calls on the U.S. government and PEPFAR leadership to immediately reinstate full funding and support for all HIV services, not just core treatment programming. It also urges other national governments to increase domestic investment in HIV care and expand partnerships with grassroots non-governmental organizations, including groups led by members of vulnerable key populations.

    Even with immediate new funding, however, amfAR’s research and policy director Jennifer Sherwood warned that rebuilding the broken care system will take significant time, and every day of delay brings avoidable harm. “Even if money is put back into the system, it will take time to get the services up and running and regain the trust of communities,” Sherwood explained. “And unfortunately, with HIV and infectious disease, each day is deadly. Each day that we don’t have those systems in place, you see new infections.”

    This reporting from The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives financial support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; the AP retains full editorial control over all content.

  • ‘If only people knew what a tick could do’ – the deadly meat allergies caused by tick bites

    ‘If only people knew what a tick could do’ – the deadly meat allergies caused by tick bites

    Five years after a misdiagnosed allergic reaction nearly killed her 15-year-old son, Myfanwy Webb carries a quiet, heavy regret, looking back at the birthday lunch that set off a chain of missed warnings. Hours after the celebration, Jeremy Webb, a lifelong asthma sufferer, developed severe breathing trouble and vomiting. Paramedics rushed him to hospital, where clinicians flagged a possible meat allergy but ultimately chalked the episode up to an asthma flare-up, sending him home the next day without additional testing or a life-saving EpiPen.

    “I made the wrong decision,” Webb said in an interview, reflecting that she should have pushed for more comprehensive testing. Had clinicians confirmed the reaction was anaphylaxis, her son would have left the hospital with the emergency adrenaline auto-injector that could have saved his life a little over a year later.

    In June 2022, 16-year-old Jeremy died on a coastal camping trip north of Sydney, Australia, after eating a single beef sausage. The death was initially ruled an asthma attack, but a coroner’s inquest pushed by the Webb family delivered a final, groundbreaking ruling in February: Jeremy’s death was caused by tick-induced mammalian meat allergy (MMA), also known as alpha-gal syndrome. His death marks the first globally documented fatal case of MMA directly triggered by eating meat, shining a harsh new light on a little-understood, fast-growing allergy that public health experts warn poses an underrecognized deadly threat.

    Decades before Jeremy’s death, in 2007, Australian allergist Professor Sheryl van Nunen first made the landmark connection between tick bites and MMA, after noticing a clear correlation between exposure and patient symptoms at her Sydney clinic. Australia’s east coast, particularly the region north of Sydney where Jeremy grew up surrounded by dense bushland, is one of only two confirmed global hotspots for the condition — the other is the southeastern United States, though cases have now been recorded on every continent where ticks live.

    In Australia, MMA is caused by bites from the eastern paralysis tick, *Ixodes holocyclus*. Professor van Nunen explains that after two bites, half of all people develop antibodies to alpha-gal, a sugar molecule found in tick saliva. Once sensitized, 15 to 20% of these people develop an allergic reaction to red meat and other mammalian products.

    Tick expert Dr. Alex Gofton, who recently led a major study into MMA’s spread in Australia, says there are several leading hypotheses for why the east coast has become such a concentrated hotspot. Over the past three decades, the population of tick-endemic coastal bush regions has grown dramatically, bringing more humans into regular contact with ticks. The 2020–2023 La Niña years, which brought record rainfall to eastern Australia, created ideal breeding conditions for tick populations, while the COVID-19 pandemic pushed thousands of city residents to relocate to regional bush areas, further increasing exposure.

    Diagnosed cases of MMA have risen 22% annually in Australia since 2000, and Dr. Gofton’s research using national lab data confirms more than 5,000 confirmed and suspected cases across the country — a figure he says is a massive undercount of the true prevalence of the condition. In some hotspot areas, rates exceed 700 cases per 100,000 people.

    Despite the growing spread, diagnosing MMA remains notoriously difficult. Symptoms typically develop three to six hours after eating red meat, meaning they often appear overnight, long after most people have finished their evening meal. For asthma sufferers, anaphylaxis symptoms are frequently mistaken for an asthma attack, as was the case with Jeremy, and the allergy is unpredictable: reactions do not happen after every exposure, and severity varies wildly based on factors including the cut of meat, how it is cooked, whether the person drinks alcohol with the meal, exercises after eating, or is sleep deprived. Professor van Nunen calls MMA an “anytime but not every time allergy.”

    For people with severe hypersensitivity, even indirect exposure can trigger life-threatening anaphylaxis. Sensitized people can react to mammalian derivatives ranging from cow’s milk and gelatin to lanolin in beauty products and laundry softeners, and even stearic acid found in some supermarket plastic bags. Fumes from cooking red meat at barbecues, or close contact with domestic pets that have eaten mammal-based pet food, can also trigger reactions.

    Elizabeth Rowley, a mother of three living in the New South Wales mid-north coast, spent more than 15 years seeking a diagnosis for a mysterious set of symptoms that included memory loss, chronic brain fog, chest pain, full-body aches, and frequent fainting from breathing difficulties. Many clinicians dismissed her symptoms as hypochondria, telling her “it’s not anaphylaxis, get over it.”

    “It was just mentally horrendous more than anything, just trying to find out what it was. I thought I was going crazy,” Rowley said. After finally receiving an MMA diagnosis, she launched a popular Facebook support group for undiagnosed and misdiagnosed sufferers. For many, the condition upends every part of daily life: Rowley was forced to leave multiple bookkeeping jobs after workplace triggers, from restaurant fumes in shopping centers to a boss’s daily morning toast with butter, triggered constant severe reactions. Social events like barbecues and restaurant dinners, core parts of Australian community life, are often off-limits, making casual gathering nearly impossible.

    For 23-year-old Sydney psychology student Remy Williams, who was diagnosed with MMA as a child, the constant need for vigilance around food triggered an eating disorder. She says the most traumatic experience was watching her mother, who also lives with MMA, suffer two near-fatal anaphylactic attacks on commercial flights, one of which almost killed her in front of Remy. “It was incredibly scary,” she said.

    Professor van Nunen’s greatest public health concern is the 85% of people who have developed alpha-gal antibodies — meaning they are sensitized to MMA — but have never experienced a reaction after eating meat, and have no idea they carry the allergy. These asymptomatic sensitized people are still at risk of life-threatening anaphylaxis from medical products containing mammalian derivatives, including gelatin-based vaccines and some cancer treatments. At least two confirmed deaths have already been linked to these hidden triggers: one colon cancer patient died after anaphylaxis triggered by the drug cetuximab, and another died after a blood transfusion contaminated with alpha-gal. Professor van Nunen says the true number of MMA-related deaths is far higher than officially recorded, with only two cases well-documented to date: an American commercial pilot who died after eating a hamburger in 2024, and Jeremy Webb.

    Professor van Nunen notes a critical takeaway from Jeremy’s death: 94.8% of people who die from food allergy-induced anaphylaxis have pre-existing asthma, and the allergic reaction triggers a severe, rapid-onset asthma attack called status asthmaticus that can cause respiratory arrest in as little as four minutes without emergency intubation.

    Since her son’s death, Myfanwy Webb has turned her grief into action, drawing on Jeremy’s own famously positive approach to life to drive public health change. “He fitted everything into it, wouldn’t waste a minute,” Webb said of her son, who loved restoring old car motors. Today, she is working to raise global awareness of MMA, improve clinical diagnostic protocols, and prevent other families from enduring the same loss. She has collaborated with the hospital that misdiagnosed Jeremy to develop new clinician training for MMA, and is co-authoring a research paper with Professor van Nunen that will be presented at an international allergy conference later this year.

    “Now Jeremy’s positive spin is actually helping people, even though he’s passed,” Webb said. “I think he’d be really pleased with us.”

    Public Health Guidance to Prevent Tick Bites and MMA:
    1. When visiting bushland or tick-endemic areas, wear long clothing, tuck socks into trousers, and choose light-colored fabrics to make ticks easier to spot quickly
    2. Avoid lying or picnicking directly on bare ground
    3. Use EPA-approved insect repellents containing DEET or picaridin
    4. Check your entire body (and your pets) for ticks after spending time in tick territory
    5. If bitten by a tick, follow the “freeze don’t squeeze” rule: use a commercial tick-killing spray to kill the tick and let it detach on its own, rather than squeezing it with tweezers, which can force additional toxins and alpha-gal into the bloodstream

  • Rare identical quadruplets born in Australia

    Rare identical quadruplets born in Australia

    In an extraordinarily rare medical event, a 34-year-old Australian mother has given birth to four identical quadruplets conceived naturally, a milestone that medical professionals describe as nearly unheard of. Jenitar Na’amoana and her husband Jortham, who already share four children between the ages of one and 10, received the life-changing news of their quadruplet pregnancy with overwhelming surprise, according to officials from Brisbane’s Metro North Health, which oversees the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital where the birth took place.

    The four baby girls, delivered via caesarean section on July 14 at 28 weeks and four days gestation, are monozygotic quadruplets, meaning they developed from a single fertilized egg that split into four separate embryos. What makes this case even more exceptional is that all four fetuses shared the same placenta—a combination that maternal-fetal medicine specialist and obstetrician Dr. Alexa Bendall, who managed Na’amoana’s care from the earliest stages of pregnancy, calls unprecedented. Medical data puts the odds of naturally conceived identical quadruplets at roughly one in 15 million pregnancies, with naturally conceived quadruplets of any type already carrying odds of just one in 700,000 births globally.

    From the outset, the pregnancy was classified as extremely high-risk. To ensure constant monitoring of both mother and fetuses, the hospital admitted Na’amoana as an inpatient when she reached 25 weeks gestation. “We always said that if we could get her to 28 weeks, we would be doing well,” Bendall explained in a statement following the birth. “So the fact that we’ve got four beautiful, healthy babies born at 28 weeks and four days is incredible and we’re very happy to be a part of it.”

    Remarkably, Na’amoana avoided every major complication that typically comes with such a high-risk pregnancy, defying all medical expectations. “Jenitar has taken everything in her stride from day one… she has somehow dodged every complication and risk for both herself and her babies,” Bendall added.

    In a touching tribute to the medical team that guided her through the pregnancy, Na’amoana named one of the four girls after Bendall. The newborns are called Emily, Harriet, Catherine, and Alexa—and Bendall says the honor left her deeply moved, calling it “a beautiful tribute.”

    Currently, all four infants are being cared for in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, where they will remain until they reach full term development. Bendall confirmed that as of the latest updates, all four babies “are currently doing extremely well.”

    In the wake of the births, Na’amoana has launched an online crowdfunding campaign via GoFundMe to cover the cost of a new 10-seat van, a necessary adjustment to accommodate her expanded family of 10. Already, the campaign has raised more than 37,000 Australian dollars, equivalent to roughly 19,261 British pounds. In her message accompanying the fundraiser, Na’amoana expressed that while the family is overjoyed by their new additions, caring for four newborns at once has brought unforeseen practical challenges. “Our four precious miracles have arrived safely, and while our hearts are overflowing with gratitude, the reality of caring for four newborns at once has brought challenges we never could have imagined,” she wrote. Both parents have said their gratitude to the medical team and the community that has supported them is overwhelming.

  • Ebola death toll in Congo rises to at least 930, including dozens of health workers

    Ebola death toll in Congo rises to at least 930, including dozens of health workers

    In a grim update released on Monday, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ministry of Health announced that the total death toll from the rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak in the country’s eastern region has climbed to at least 930. Among the most concerning recent developments is the report of 37 new fatalities recorded between Friday and Saturday, marking one of the highest single-day death increments registered since the outbreak was first declared.

    As of Saturday, official data confirms a total of 2,344 diagnosed cases across five affected eastern provinces, a region long plagued by persistent rebel insurgency and instability. First announced on May 15, this outbreak is now classified as the fastest-expanding Ebola event ever documented. Unlike more widely studied Ebola strains, the outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo virus, a rarer variant for which no universally approved vaccine or targeted treatment currently exists.

    Ebola, a highly contagious viral pathogen, initially jumps to human populations from wild animals, then spreads rapidly through direct contact with infected bodily fluids including blood, vomit and semen, as well as exposure to contaminated surfaces such as clothing, bedding and medical equipment. While the disease remains rare in global terms, it causes severe, acute illness that carries an extremely high fatality rate.

    The recent sharp rise in fatalities is directly tied to widespread safety concerns that have severely hampered response efforts in Ituri, the hardest-hit province. According to authorities, at least 12 targeted attacks against Ebola treatment centers and response teams have been recorded since mid-May, most driven by widespread public skepticism, misinformation and harmful rumors about the outbreak. Compounding this crisis, many frontline health workers have halted work in protest over unpaid salaries, leaving critical response gaps. To date, at least 36 infected health workers have lost their lives to the virus.

    Last week, the World Health Organization issued an urgent warning highlighting that roughly 80% of all new confirmed Ebola cases are stemming from unidentified transmission chains. This statistic serves as a clear indicator that the outbreak is outpacing the ability of health officials to track and contain it, even as international and local response teams scale up their operations.

    Analysis of Congolese Health Ministry data reveals that over the first two and a half months of the outbreak, the average weekly increase has reached approximately 272 new cases and 111 deaths. What is more, the rate of growth has accelerated steadily, with a particularly sharp jump in both new cases and fatalities recorded throughout July compared to the opening weeks of the outbreak.

    In its latest statement, the ministry noted that 724 patients are currently receiving care in hospital isolation units, and response teams are ramping up intervention efforts across all impacted health zones. Despite the overwhelming challenges, officials added that care and support capacity is gradually being consolidated, with 22 new patient recoveries confirmed in a single 24-hour period.

  • Health officials identify source of US explosive diarrhoea outbreak

    Health officials identify source of US explosive diarrhoea outbreak

    A rapidly expanding foodborne illness outbreak across the United States has taken a new turn, after federal health officials announced an additional sample of iceberg lettuce from major agricultural supplier Taylor Farms has tested positive for the parasite responsible for thousands of infections.

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirmed that the contaminated sample, collected during targeted import surveillance as part of the ongoing outbreak investigation, was traced to a production lot not included in the voluntary product removal Taylor Farms announced last Friday. The California-based agriculture firm, which counts major fast-food chain Taco Bell among its high-profile customers, has already committed to sweeping market action: pulling all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from retail and foodservice locations across the country.

    Public health experts have stressed a key distinction between the current voluntary withdrawal and a formal mandatory recall: a recall requires companies to actively notify customers and retrieve all affected products from commercial channels, a broader and far more costly regulatory process that carries stricter compliance requirements. Right now, Taylor Farms is working urgently to trace the newly identified positive lot to determine if any of the lettuce remains on store shelves or in consumers’ homes.

    As of the latest updates, no fatalities linked to the cyclospora outbreak have been recorded, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that at least 94 people have required hospital care for severe symptoms of infection. The outbreak was first detected in mid-May, and public health officials note that symptoms of the parasitic illness can take up to 14 days to emerge, meaning new cases are still being added to official counts. Infected individuals typically experience prolonged watery diarrhea, unexpected rapid weight loss, and loss of appetite.

    The CDC has issued a clear public warning advising consumers in five U.S. states—Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia—to avoid eating any shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell locations. The fast-food chain has already announced it has completed removing all potentially affected Taylor Farms lettuce from its restaurant locations across the affected regions.

    In an official statement released amid the investigation, Taylor Farms said it has “stopped receiving product from the implicated lot, suspended distribution of the iceberg lettuce from Central Mexico, notified [its] customers and [is] continuing to work with the FDA, CDC, and state authorities” to contain the outbreak.

    The current market withdrawal covers products distributed across 27 U.S. states. Beyond Taco Bell, the affected products include Marketside-branded iceberg lettuce sold at Walmart locations across 15 states, the FDA confirmed.