Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
TB Back On Top As World's Deadliest Infectious Disease, WHO Reports
Tuberculosis (TB) is once again the infectious disease responsible for the most deaths worldwide, according to a Tuesday announcement from the World Health Organization (WHO). The contagious disease was responsible for 1.25 million global deaths in 2023, WHO reported, including 161,000 people with HIV. COVID-19 had overtaken TB as the world’s leading infectious killer for the previous three years. (Rudy, 10/31)
A student sick with tuberculosis could have exposed hundreds at a Georgia high school, amid an alarming global spread of the disease. Local public health officials identified the infected student at Walton High School, in Marietta, the Cobb County School District told USA TODAY in an email. (Cuevas, 10/31)
Bird flu has infected three more people from Washington state after they were exposed to poultry that tested positive for the virus, according to health authorities in Washington and in Oregon, where the human cases were identified. A total of 39 people have tested positive in the U.S. this year, including nine from Washington, as the virus has infected poultry flocks and spread to more than 400 dairy herds, federal data show. All of the cases were farm workers who had known contact with infected animals, except for one person in Missouri. (Polansek, 10/31)
Walking pneumonia cases in the United States, especially among children, are on the rise and have been since early spring, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Infections from Mycoplasma pneumoniae, the bacteria that can cause walking pneumonia, are common, with about 2 million cases in the United States every year; they typically affect youths age 5 to 17. But from March to October this year, the CDC found that the largest increase in cases was among children age 2 to 4, whose emergency visits related to the bacteria went up from 1 to 7.2 percent. (Ortega and Nirappil, 10/31)
At least 90 people have been infected with E. coli in a multistate outbreak that health officials say likely stems from onions served on McDonald’s Quarter Pounders and could see the fast food chain taken to court. (Harter, 10/31)
The WHO made no such admission. The COVID-19 vaccines cannot cause mpox, and the claim originated with a website that has repeatedly shared misinformation. (Trela, 10/31)
