Архив рубрики: Здоровье Америка

A coastal town in Massachusetts is shutting its parks, playgrounds, and fields from dusk to dawn due to concerns about the mosquito-borne virus Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE).

Plymouth put the early closures in place on Aug. 23, and advised the public to remain cautious and follow the tips found on the Massachusetts Department of Health’s (DPH) website. The news comes after state health officials revealed on Aug. 16 that a man in his 80s had been infected with EEE after being exposed in Worcester County—reportedly the first human case in Massachusetts since 2020.

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“As Mass DPH has now elevated Plymouth’s EEE risk status to high, it is important to take extra precautions when outdoors and follow state and local health guidelines to avoid unnecessary risk of exposure to EEE,” said Plymouth’s Commissioner of Health and Human Services, Michelle Bratti, in a press release. “The health and safety of our community, residents, and visitors remain our pri..

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former top U.S. infectious disease expert, spent time in the hospital after being infected with West Nile virus and is now recovering at home, a spokesperson confirmed Saturday.

Fauci is expected to make a full recovery, the spokesperson said on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

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West Nile virus is commonly spread through the bite of an infected mosquito. While most people don’t experience symptoms, about 1 in 5 can develop a fever, headache, body aches, vomiting, diarrhea, or rash, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 1 out of 150 infected people develop a serious, sometimes fatal, illness.

CBS News’ chief medical correspondent, Dr. Jonathan LaPook, wrote in a social media post that he spoke Saturday with Fauci, who said he was likely infected from a mosquito bite that he got in his backyard.

“Dr. Fauci was hospitalized about ten days ago after developing fever, chills, and severe ..

On the heels of a summer wave of COVID-19 cases, Americans will be able to get free virus test kits mailed to their homes, starting in late September.

U.S. households will be able to order up to four COVID-19 nasal swab tests when the federal program reopens, according to the website, COVIDtests.gov. The U.S. Health and Human Services agency that oversees the testing has not announced an exact date for ordering to begin.

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The tests will detect current virus strains and can be ordered ahead of the holiday season when family and friends gather for celebrations, an HHS spokesperson said in an emailed statement. Over-the-counter COVID-19 at-home tests typically cost around $11, as of last year.

Read More: Long COVID Looks Different in Kids

The announcement also comes as the government is once again urging people to get an updated COVID-19 booster, ahead of the fall and winter respiratory virus season. Earlier this week, U.S. regulators approved an updat..

Polio has resurfaced in Gaza for the first time in 25 years, thriving in the same conditions in which people are dying. The first case was confirmed Friday in a 10-month-old unvaccinated child in Deir al-Balah, the enclave’s health authorities have said; the World Health Organization announced last month that the virus had been initially detected in wastewater in the city. Now, in Gaza, the medical safety of thousands of children depends on the safe delivery of vaccines to the region.

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“Just when it seems the situation could not get worse for Palestinians in Gaza, the suffering grows—and the world watches,” said U.N. Secretary General António Guterres in a press statement Friday. “In recent weeks, the poliovirus has been detected in wastewater samples in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah,” he said.

The reemergence of polio in Gaza did not come as a complete shock, given the situation in the region since the Hamas attacks on Israel last October, during wh..

Chances are, at least one person you know—and probably many people you know—have caught COVID-19 this summer. Ever since the “FLiRT” variants emerged this spring, the U.S. has been hit with one new variant after another, leading to a seemingly never-ending wave of cases. The amount of virus in wastewater has steadily risen since May and levels are now “very high,” in part because there’s yet another new variant on the scene: KP.3.1.1.

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KP.3.1.1 was to blame for more than a third of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. during the two weeks ending Aug. 17, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show. And that’s a lot of cases: about one in 34 people in the U.S. currently has COVID-19, independent data scientist and infectious-disease modeler Jay Weiland tells TIME. CDC data also show that lots of people are testing positive and that hospital visits and deaths related to COVID-19 are on the rise.

What will KP.3.1.1 do next? Here’s what to k..

Amid an ongoing surge, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved updated COVID-19 vaccines for the 2024-2025 respiratory disease season.

The new shots, made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, are largely the same as the original mRNA vaccines developed at the start of the pandemic—but they target KP.2, a different strain of the virus that has been causing many of the rising number of cases this summer. The FDA initially recommended in early June that vaccine makers target the JN.1 lineage—of which KP.2 is a part—but changing patterns in which variants are causing disease led the agency to update its advice in August, asking manufacturers to focus on KP.2.

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Why are the new shots targeting this variant?

KP.3 variants currently account for nearly half of COVID-19 infections in the U.S., and KP.2 variants cause about 14.4% of cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new vaccines are targeting KP.2 because t..

A hard workout can come back to haunt you. When you wake up the next morning and try to get out of bed, everyday motions like rolling over and standing up can make your muscles whine in pain. You might have wanted to exercise again, but now you’re wondering: Can I still work out if I’m this sore?

Well, it depends.

“Soreness isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” says exercise physiologist Alyssa Olenick. Some degree of soreness is normal when you train hard or challenge your muscles in new ways. It’s a natural effect known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), in which discomfort typically peaks within 48 hours post-exercise, then usually goes away within 72 hours. It happens because putting different or higher demands than usual on our muscles can lead to tissue breakdown, which triggers an inflammatory response. (Don’t worry—that breakdown isn’t bad; the repair process that follows is actually how our muscles grow stronger.)

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“Your body basically br..

Hemorrhoids aren’t exactly dinner-party conversation, but you or someone you know has likely dealt with them. In fact, there’s a good chance they’re sitting beside you at that proverbial dinner table: it’s estimated that roughly 50% of all people will have hemorrhoids by age 50.

Despite their ubiquity, there are lots of misconceptions about treating hemorrhoids. And since many people feel self-conscious about seeing a doctor for hemorrhoids, they don’t always get the help they need.

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Several treatment options and lifestyle practices can make troublesome hemorrhoids go away. Here’s what colorectal surgeons want you to know.

What are hemorrhoids?

Technically, everyone has hemorrhoids. “Hemorrhoids in and of themselves are actually part of normal anatomy, so [they’re] nothing to be embarrassed about. We’re born with hemorrhoidal tissue,” says Dr. Titi Adegboyega, chief of colorectal surgery at South Shore University Hospital in Long Island, N.Y. “When..

It’s been a bad month for public health.

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On August 14, the World Health Organization declared mpox as an international health emergency, given the “unprecedented” spread of a new, more deadly variant. In the United States, bird flu, formally known as H5N1, has spread to 10 agricultural workers in Colorado, an alarming development since only three other cases have been reported this year.

Mpox and bird flu are distinct infectious diseases; however, they have been united by assumptions that containment is easily achievable and thus a complacent public health response. Indeed, almost 100,000 people got infected with mpox after the 2022 outbreak, and while the disease shrinked away from public view, mpox continued to spread and evolve into deadlier variants. Similarly, while bird flu first jumped into mammals around the same time in 2022, the response in the U.S. was anemic with little consistent messaging or concrete action.

This is part of a larger in..

You swear you sleep better when you drift off in your partner’s arms, while your sweetheart says spooning is more stress than it’s worth. The heat. The accidental kicks. That you’re-smothering-me feeling. So who’s right? Does cuddling help or harm your sleep?

There is not a lot of scientific research on the subject. But the data that do exist come out in support of snuggles. “The perception is that it is a form of bonding, and there’s actually good empirical support for the idea that cuddling could be good for sleep,” says Wendy Troxel, a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation and author of Sharing the Covers: Every Couple’s Guide to Better Sleep.

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Here’s how cuddling might help you get better sleep.

It may make you calmer

Research has shown that forms of body-to-body contact like hugging can be stress-relieving, and the same applies to bedtime snuggling. “It can produce a feeling of calm and even have physiological effects, including l..