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The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today urged healthcare providers to be alert for patients who have fever and rashes and have traveled abroad, following reports of 23 measles cases since December 1, 2023. "The increased number of measles importations seen in recent weeks is reflective of a rise in global measles cases and a growing global threat from the disease," the CDC said in an email. (Schnirring, 1/25)

The U.K. Health Security Agency said Friday that since October, there have been 216 confirmed cases and 103 probable cases in the West Midlands region, an urban part of England centered on the city of Birmingham, where around 80% of the cases were recorded. That’s higher than last year’s total of 209 measles cases and the 2022 tally of 53. Last year, the government warned that a measles outbreak in London could lead to between 40,000 and 160,000 cases there if the vaccination rate did not improve. (Smith and Bendix, 1/25)

Just over four years since Covid emerged, it has become increasingly clear that infections in pregnant mothers can lead to serious health risks in infants. The latest finding: Babies born to mothers who had Covid during pregnancy had "unusually high rates" of respiratory distress at birth or shortly thereafter, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications. (Bendix, 1/25)

As the toll from the COVID-19 pandemic continued to mount, antiviral medications such as Paxlovid were hailed by health officials as an important way to reduce the risk of severe illness or death. Yet the drugs have remained underused, studies have found. In Boston, a group of researchers wanted to know why — and what could be done about it. Their new findings, published Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggest that some vulnerable patients were not offered the prescription medicines at all, and that doctors need more education to make sure the drugs get to patients who could benefit. (Alpert Reyes, 1/25)

Contrary to previous study findings, closing the toilet lid before flushing doesn't stop aerosolized viruses from contaminating bathroom surfaces, scientists from the University of Arizona and Reckitt Benckiser LLC, the company that makes the disinfectant used in the study, report in the American Journal of Infection Control. The researchers added a bacteriophage (virus that targets and kills bacteria) to household and public toilet bowls as a proxy for human intestinal viruses. After they flushed the toilets (with the lid open or closed in case of the household toilets), they measured viral contamination of the toilet and bathroom floor and walls. (Van Beusekom, 1/25)

The Library of Congress and StoryCorps announced this week that they have created a website for people to record for posterity their experiences with the covid-19 pandemic. Stories, or interviews with others who were touched by the pandemic, can be recorded online. They will be preserved in the Library’s American Folklife Center and made accessible at archive.StoryCorps.org. (Ruane, 1/25)

Although it’s spotty and inconsistent in many places, wastewater testing is pointing to a new wave of COVID-19 infections, with as many as one-third of Americans expected to contract the disease by late February. (Henderson, 1/25)

Two research centers that have been at the forefront of following the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus — one in the U.K. and one in South Africa — have teamed up on a partnership that they say will expand their efforts to track emerging disease threats around the world. (Joseph, 1/25)