Mar 18 I toured this exhibit on epidemics before the coronavirus pandemic shut it down By Joshua Barajas On the second floor of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, a placard at the end of an exhibit asks a question we all may be thinking right now, in the middle of a global health emergency: What’s next?… Continue reading
Feb 14 Coronavirus renews safety concerns about slaughtering wild animals By Sam McNeil, Candice Choi, Associated Press Experts say wild animals can carry unknown viruses and that human contact with them needs to more carefully managed as the world's population grows. Continue reading
Oct 18 How Dracula draws on our biggest health fears By Dr. Howard Markel "Dracula" abounds with fascinating references to medicine of the day. Continue reading
Aug 11 Watch 6:43 Why southern China is a hotbed for disease development By PBS News Hour Pandemics like Zika and Ebola can originate in one continent and quickly spread to another. To stop outbreaks before they start, scientists are trying to identify regions conducive to the development of new disease. One target is southern China, where… Continue watching
May 28 Army chief: Human error likely not cause of anthrax mistake By Robert Burns, Associated Press The Army's top general says human error probably was not a factor in the inadvertent shipping of live anthrax to research laboratories. Continue reading
Mar 24 The day we discovered the cause of the ‘white death’ By Dr. Howard Markel Robert Koch’s greatest evening unfolded 133 years ago today, when he solved the riddle that had plagued doctors for centuries: what, exactly, caused tuberculosis?… Continue reading
Oct 18 Why your Ebola-like symptoms are probably the flu By Andrew Mach Just as the 2009 swine flu pandemic drove up trips to the ER by nearly 20 percent even in areas where the illness had still not yet appeared, cold and flu season this year and the height of Ebola in… Continue reading
Aug 29 Watch Ebola outbreak started with funeral in Guinea, report finds By PBS News Hour The Ebola virus has now reached a fifth country. Officials announced a Guinean student in Senegal was confirmed to have the disease. Meanwhile, a new report traces the deadly outbreak to a funeral in Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. Continue watching
Aug 18 Watch After one quarantine center is attacked in Liberia, another large Ebola medical facility opens By PBS News Hour Continue watching
Aug 05 Why it’s hard to keep Ebola from spreading By Larisa Epatko Containing this year's Ebola outbreak won't be easy. Undeveloped governments in the three countries most affected by the current Ebola surge -- Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- are having trouble coordinating a response, and health care workers are overwhelmed,… Continue reading