This August, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) declared their 10th Ebola outbreak. The DRC has had nine other Ebola virus outbreaks over the course of 40 years. From August to November of this year, there have been 2,194 deaths in the DRC due to Ebola.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said in October that cases are decreasing, but that doesn’t mean the outbreak is finished.

The situation is still an official emergency in the DRC because outbreaks continue to pop up in the northeast of the country. It’s this area that is still being affected the worst by Ebola. The outbreak has also put nearby countries at risk, spreading to Uganda in July.

Throughout August, there was anywhere between 75 and 100 new cases of Ebola each week in DRC, although, the numbers started dropping as the year continued. The region started to see just under 50 new cases a week in November.

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Last week, two people were hospitalized in Beijing, China due to confirmed cases of the plague. One patient is in stable condition while the other remains in critical condition. A third person in the Mongolia province was diagnosed with a different form the virus over the weekend.

Since 2014, five people have died from the plague in China.

The two earlier cases in China were diagnosed as plague in the pneumonic form and not the bubonic (also known as the “Black Death”), or septicemic forms. The third patient was confirmed to have the bubonic plague after catching and eating wild rabbit.

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In recent years, hepatitis A has become a much more common threat around the world. Even in the United States, the vaccine-preventable disease has proven to be a problem. While outbreaks in Kentucky and California stand out, the disease has made its way throughout the country.

As we approach the end of 2019, one more state is seeing a rise in the disease.

This year, reports of hepatitis A have risen dramatically in New Jersey, with over 500 cases being reported across the state. Along with these reported cases, six people have died.

Due to this, a public health alert has been issued for the state and there is a strong urging for individuals to receive the vaccine.

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The 2019-2020 flu season may have just started, but there is already an alarming amount of cases in Louisiana and Puerto Rico.

In just over a month, there have been over 600 reported flu cases along with two reported deaths. Most of the reported cases are among children and seniors.

Due to this shocking number in the first full month of the flu season, extra precautions are being taken by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to curb the spread of this year’s virus.

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Burundi, a landlocked country in central Africa, has had an ongoing malaria epidemic with more than 7 million reported cases this year. More precisely, from January to October 20th, a “cumulative total of 7,233,138 malaria cases with 2,691 deaths” were reported.

The numbers illustrate a shocking 64% increase in malaria cases compared to the previous year. Worse, those numbers could continue growing in the last two months of the year.

With a country whose population is roughly 11 million people, these numbers are startling and action needs to be taken.

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