Other Public Health Threats, 2023 to 2025
2023 January: Measles is the most contagious virus in the world, and it can be deadly among the unvaccinated.
2023 Wed May 2: The Food and Drug Administration approved a shot developed by pharmaceutical giant GSK as the first vaccine to prevent the respiratory ailment respiratory syncytial virus (R.S.V.). The move marked a milestone in the six-decade search for a way to protect vulnerable people from the virus. R.S.V. is little more than a typical cold for most healthy people, but every year it lands more than 60,000 older adults in hospitals and sickens so many babies, leaving them gasping for air, that it overloads some pediatric intensive care units. A Pfizer vaccine is close to being approved, too, for older adults and pregnant women as protection for newborns. Regulators also are reviewing a monoclonal antibody treatment for babies developed by Sanofi and AstraZeneca.
2024: Vaccine denial: Measles is back - hospitalizations, encephalitis, and deaths expected to rise
— article by TheCriticalMind in the Saturday 20 January 2024 issue of newsblog Daily Kos
2024 March 24: The number of U.S. measles cases this year has already surpassed 2023’s total. At least 64 cases had been recorded nationwide by late last week, while a total of 58 cases were reported last year. The U.S. rate of vaccinations against measles has fallen since 2019. The C.D.C. urges parents to ensure that their kids are up to date on their shots.
2024 April: The number of measles cases around the world nearly doubled from 2022 to 2023, researchers say, presenting a challenge to efforts to achieve and maintain elimination status in many countries. Measles is a highly contagious airborne disease that can cause serious health consequences or death.
128 measles cases have been reported in the US this year, according to the latest data from the CDC. Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, but the rapid rise in cases poses a threat to that disease elimination status, the agency says.
2024 June 31: Moderna got F.D.A. approval for its R.S.V. vaccine for people aged 60+, providing a second product to be sold in the U.S. market.
2024 July 9: A rare case of bubonic plague has been confirmed in a person in Pueblo County, Colorado. (Plague is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium, Yersinia pestis, transmitted by fleas. Although it is best known for 'The Black Death', an outbreak that killed millions of Europeans during the Middle Ages, the bacteria circulates naturally among wild rodents and rarely infects humans today. The potential source of the infection in Colorado is under investigation and anyone who develops symptoms of the disease is encouraged to seek medical attention immediately. The C.D.C. said that plague vaccines are in development but are 'not expected to be commercially available in the immediate future'.
2024 July 15:  Five cases of H5N1 bird flu have been identified among workers culling poultry at a commercial egg farm in northeast Colorado; H5N1 outbreaks have also affected wild birds and dairy cows in several states. Since the first cattle infections were reported in late March, 157 herds have tested positive for H5N1 across 13 states. Four states have had more than 20 herds impacted - Texas, Idaho, Colorado and Michigan. The C.D.C. said that its risk assessment for the general public remains low.
2024 mid-August:  The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the spread of mpox (formerly 'monkey pox') in multiple African countries to be a public health emergency of international concern. Within days, Sweden and Pakistan identified mpox cases in travelers from Africa.
2025 Feb: An 'unknown disease' that kills those it infects within days is spreading through the Congo and has killed 53 people. The disease originated in the small, remote village of Boloko, where three young children ate an infected bat carcass. The World Health Organization said the illness, which causes a fever and severe internal bleeding, poses “a significant public health threat” and is monitoring its spread closely. At least 431 cases have been reported since January.
2025 Feb 18: At least 58 cases of measles were reported in an outbreak in West Texas, including some people who said that they were vaccinated; the cases are mostly in children ages 5 to 17, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services, who warn that measles is an extremely contagious airborne illness that can cause rash, fever, red eyes, and cough; severe cases can result in blindness, pneumonia, or encephalitis - which is swelling of the brain; in some cases, the illness can be fatal. There were 285 measles cases reported in the U.S. last year, the most since 2019, per C.D.C. data.
2025 Feb 26: An unvaccinated school-age child in West Texas has died in a measles outbreak that has sickened at least 124 people in Texas and spread to neighboring New Mexico. State health officials said many people infected in the outbreak were children who were not vaccinated against measles or whose vaccination status was unknown.
The outbreak is concentrated in a Gaines County Mennonite community whose members "do not maintain regular contact with the health care system" and have low vaccine uptake.
Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said a second person had also died; they are the first people to die from measles in the US in a decade.
2025 Spring: The Oropouche virus & fever from Brasil may be visiting your city soon.
2025 May: Moderna will no longer be developed their bird flu vaccine because the Trump administration canceled its $766 million contract.
2025 May: Whooping cough cases are on the rise across the U.S. this year, with about 6,600 already documented — nearly four times the number at the same point last year.
2025 May: Vaccine teams in Mexico scramble to contain the measles outbreak rippling out from a Mennonite community.
2025 May: A new study of more than 1 million people age 50 and older found a 23% lower risk of cardiovascular disease among those who were vaccinated for shingles.
2025 May: New Mexico’s measles outbreak is the largest in years, with four new cases pushing the statewide total to 76.
2025 May 6: 216 children have died from the flu this season, according to a recent report from the CDC - that’s more than at any time since the swine flu pandemic 15 years ago.
2025 June 2: U.S. measles cases rose slightly as Colorado reported a new outbreak. There are 1,088 confirmed measles cases in the U.S., up 42 from last week, Texas, where the nation’s biggest outbreak raged during the late winter and spring, reported 10 additional cases this week for a total of 738.
2025 June 8: At least 79 people in seven U.S. states have contracted salmonella linked to a large egg recall.
2025 late June: Five inmates at the Luna County Detention Center in Deming tested positive for measles; the infected individuals, all men aged 21 to 39, are currently quarantined in isolated pods with separate airflows; Luna County is working with the New Mexico Department of Health to contain the virus, including limiting new bookings and transitioning court appearances to video-only.
2025 September: C.D.C declared that “kissing bug” disease is endemic in the U.S. and has been found in at least eight states; chagas disease, caused by a parasite found in the feces of a bug that often bites people’s faces, can be deadly.
2025 September: A Royal Caribbean cruise ship from San Diego to Miami had 94 guests and four crew members (about 5% of the ship’s manifest) come down with highly contagious norovirus during the two-week voyage. The flare-up was one of 19 norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships so far this year - already one more than last year and five more than in 2023.
2025 Oct 14: New York Health officials confirmed the state’s first locally acquired case of chikungunya virus .
2025 Oct 21: There have been 1,618 cases of measles in 42 U.S. states this year, and nearly half of those (803) were in Texas alone.
2025 Nov 25: The number of confirmed measles cases in Utah surpassed 100; of those 102 cases, 24 were recorded in the prior three weeks.
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President Trump received a briefing from U.S. intelligence organizations that the outbreak of the Wuhan 2019-nCoV coronavirus was much worse than China was admitting and that it would definitely hit our country if something wasn’t done to prevent it; he ignored the report, refusing to trust our own intelligence.
Likely first deaths in U.S.A. from Wuhan 2019-nCoV coronavirus.
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