A mysterious polio-like illness has been making major headlines this past week after the CDC announced that more than 150 potential cases are under investigation.
The disease in question is called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM).
Considering it is mostly children who have been affected so far, many parents are concerned about this seemingly new problem.
Even though AFM is not actually a recent discovery, scientists still don’t understand much about it.
A new study published in August by the New York Genome Center helped uncover one of health’s largest mysteries: why gene mutations cause different symptoms for people with the same disease.
The questions has gone unanswered within the science community for years. As a tool to predict symptoms of diseases such as cancer and autism, an answer could help millions around the world.
While living in a big city likely makes it easier for you to catch the flu, a new study shows that population size is not the only factor in efficient virus transmission.
Researchers from the American Association for the Advancement of Science studied weekly data from 603 cities collected day and night over six years. The results showed what shapes the intensity, length and effect of the flu season in different cities across the country.
Georgian DeKalb County Board of Health official Dr. Sandra Ford noted that research focused on cities of different climates and sizes.
A recent study from teams at Fiocruz and the Institute Pasteur reveals that the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) is capable of spreading yellow fever.
Considering the tiger mosquito is active in both urban and forest environments, the findings are a cause for concern.
That said, the information could also prove invaluable in the fight to prevent dangerous yellow fever outbreaks. Officials could even use the information for the current epidemic plaguing Brazil.
Last year’s flu season was reportedly the deadliest in 40 years with at least 80,000 lives taken according to the CDC.
The total for the 2017-2018 flu season was revealed in late September 2018. It is significantly higher than recent counts of flu-related deaths, which have been between 12,000 and 56,000 per year.
Experts knew at the time that the disease was hitting harder than anticipated, but such a high toll was unexpected. In fact, Vanderbilt University vaccine expert Dr. William Schaffner told the Associated Press that the amount was almost twice as much as what officials had previously considered to be a bad year.
