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A human case of the plague has been confirmed in Pueblo County, Colorado, according to health officials. The Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment (PDPHE) is working with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to investigate, according to a press release. No specific information was provided about the person who contracted the plague. (Rudy, 7/5)

Plague, one of the deadliest bacterial infections in human history, caused an estimated 50 million deaths in Europe during the Middle Ages when it was known as the Black Death. While extremely rare, the disease is still around today, with a man in New Mexico dying of plague in March after being hospitalized for the disease and a person in Oregon being diagnosed with bubonic plague in February after likely being infected by their pet cat. (Scutti and Hunt, 7/5)

In a statement, officials said the patient was at sites in Bellevue, Seattle, and Woodinville while infectious and that anyone who was at the locations when the person was there from June 27 to July 2 may have been exposed to the virus. In Ohio, the Butler County General Health District yesterday announced the confirmation of a measles case in a child younger than 1 year old who is a resident of the county. Officials said the child contracted measles during international travel, returning to the United States at a Chicago airport and returning to Ohio by car. (Schnirring, 7/5)

These days, most Americans don’t think about measles because vaccination had largely eliminated the scourge from the United States in 2000. Many doctors cannot even diagnose measles because they have not seen it in practice. But measles outbreaks are back. There have been more cases this year than in each of the past two years. The measles virus is one of the most contagious on Earth; it can live for up to two hours in the air after an infected person coughs or sneezes. Up to 9 out of 10 people who are not protected will become infected if they breathe the contaminated air or touch a surface that has been infected. Measles is especially deadly for babies and young children who are not vaccinated. (Sun, 7/7)

Appearing in Shot in the Arm, a 2023 documentary about vaccine opposition, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked about the deadly measles outbreak that occurred in Samoa in 2019 and claimed the lives of 83 people, mostly children. Kennedy, a leading anti-vaxxer who had visited the Pacific island nation a few months before the outbreak, replied, “I’m aware there was a measles outbreak…I had nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa. I never told anybody not to vaccinate. I didn’t go there with any reason to do with that.” Kennedy was being disingenuous, sidestepping his connection to that tragedy. (Corn, 7/2)

The case of a Colorado dairy worker is the state's first this year. Health officials identified the first U.S. case of avian influenza in 2022, in an incarcerated person who was exposed to infected chickens at a Colorado poultry farm. The first case in the 2024 outbreak was identified in Texas, and two cases in Michigan followed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Cuevas, 7/3)

Last week, following an unusually udder pun-laden discussion, lawmakers in Delaware voted to become the latest state to legalize the sale of raw milk. Not part of the discussion was the fact that an ongoing outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in U.S. dairy cattle has scientists increasingly concerned that the virus could be transmitted to humans through raw milk. (Molteni, 7/8)

After years of delay, millions of malaria vaccines are being supplied to children in Africa. Tens of thousands died waiting. (Nolen, 7/5)