A new U.N. AIDS agency report says the sudden withdrawal of U.S. funding has caused a "systemic shock" to the global effort against AIDS and HIV. Years of American-led investment into AIDS programs has reduced the number of people killed by the disease to the lowest levels in more than three decades. U.S. aid has also bought lifesaving medicines for some of the world's most vulnerable people and rolled out testing and prevention services across Africa. The UNAIDS report released Thursday says if U.S. funding is not replaced it could lead to more than 4 million AIDS-related deaths and 6 million more HIV infections by 2029.
Measles cases in the U.S. are at their highest in more than three decades. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the U.S. has 1,288 cases since the beginning of the year. That's higher than 2019, when there 1,274 cases driven by 22 outbreaks over 12 months. Eighteen states have seen outbreaks this year. Experts fear the U.S. may lose its status as having eliminated measles. There are also large outbreaks of the vaccine-preventable disease in Mexico and Canada.
A new variant of COVID-19 is circulating in parts of the world and may be driving an increase in cases in the eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia and western Pacific regions. The World Health Organization said Wednesday the new variant called NB.1.8.1 is increasing globally and in mid-May had reached nearly 11% of sequenced samples. Current vaccines are expected to remain effective and there's nothing to suggest that the disease associated with the variant is more severe. Airport screening in the United States has detected the new variant in international travelers arriving in California, Washington state, Virginia and New York.
Public health officials say a day care facility in a Texas county that's part of the measles outbreak has multiple cases, including children too young to be fully vaccinated. West Texas is in the middle of a still-growing measles outbreak with 505 cases as of Tuesday and the state expanding the number of counties in the outbreak area this week to 10. The highly contagious virus began to spread in late January. Three people who were unvaccinated have died from measles-related illnesses this year, including two elementary school-aged children in Texas. Lubbock Public Health director Katherine Wells says day care there had seven cases as of Friday.
Texas health officials say the number of people with measles has increased to 146 in rural West Texas outbreak that led this week to the death of a school-aged child who was not vaccinated. The Texas Department of State Health Services said Friday that the number of cases in the outbreak had increased by 22 since Tuesday. Health officials said cases span over nine counties and 20 patients have been hospitalized.
A child who was not vaccinated has died from measles in West Texas. It's the first death in an outbreak that began late last month and the first from measles in the U.S. since 2015. The Texas Department of State Health Services said Wednesday in a statement that the death was a "school-aged child who was not vaccinated" and had been hospitalized last week. Covenant Children's Hospital in Lubbock didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's office. There are 124 cases of measles across nine Texas counties.
The head of the U.N. AIDS agency says the number of new HIV infections could jump more than six times by 2029 if American support of the biggest AIDS program is dropped. UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima warned that millions of people could die and more resistant strains of the disease could emerge. Since President Donald Trump's announcement the U.S. would freeze all foreign assistance for 90 days, Byanyima said officials estimate that by 2029, there could be 8.7 million people newly infected with HIV, a tenfold jump in AIDS-related deaths of 6.3 million and an additional 3.4 million children made orphans.
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, LAURA UNGAR and MIKE STOBBE Associated Press
Five years after the virus that causes COVID emerged in China it still holds some mysteries. The disease has killed an estimated 20 million people globally, according to the World Health Organization, and thousands are still dying every year. But scientists still aren't clear where it came from, and they are still trying to understand what causes long-term symptoms called long COVID. And while vaccines have helped dramatically reduce severe disease and death from COVID, the virus mutates so quickly researchers have struggled to find a vaccine that stops the spread.
Congo's South Kivu province is at the epicenter of the world's latest mpox outbreak, in what the World Health Organization has called a global health emergency. A new strain of the virus is rapidly spreading, largely through skin-to-skin contact, sparking alarm among disease experts. Public health officials have zeroed in on Kamituga, a remote yet bustling gold mining town that attracts miners, sex workers and traders who are constantly on the move. Health officials say cases found in other parts of eastern Congo can be traced back here, but a lack of funds, vaccines and information is making it difficult to stem the spread. Since the outbreak began, nearly 1,000 people in Kamituga have been infected and eight have died, half of them children.
