Health News

(NEW YORK) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has deployed a federal team to New York to investigate the case of polio detected in Rockland County. The team will also help administer vaccinations in the county, according to ABC station WABC-TV. It's unclear how long the CDC will remain in the county or if the findings will be released to the public. On July 21, the New York […]

(NEW YORK) -- Scientists have made a distressing discovery on how global warming will affect known infectious diseases. Climate hazards are expected to aggravate 58% of all known human pathogens, according to a study published Monday in Nature Climate Change. That's over half of infectious diseases discovered since the end of the Roman Empire, Camilo Mora, a data analyst and associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at […]

(NEW YORK) -- As more states enact near-total bans and restrictions on abortion, providers say many patients are experiencing delayed care which can force them into later stages of pregnancy. Abortion care options are becoming more limited and complex in some cases, which often means higher costs for patients. For example, medication abortion, which is less costly than other options, is only an option up to 10 weeks into pregnancy. […]

(NEW YORK) -- In early May, when the first cases of monkeypox surfaced in the United Kingdom and Europe, health officials in the United States advised Americans not to panic. There had been outbreaks of the rare disease before that had been controlled with testing and vaccines, and experts were optimistic an outbreak of monkeypox in the U.S. could be contained. "We're working hard to contain the cases that are happening […]

(NEW YORK) -- An adult at an Illinois day care center has tested positive for monkeypox, and a number of children may have been exposed to the virus, health officials in Illinois announced on Friday. At this time, officials did not disclose the number of children that may have been exposed to the virus. Screening of children and staff from the day care, which is located in the Rantoul area of […]

(NEW YORK) -- Following its emergency authorization last month, just 7,300 doses of Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to Americans across the country, newly updated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals. According to John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor, the sluggish start may be, in part, due to the fact that the vaccines were not immediately made […]

(NEW YORK) -- With over 6,000 cases of monkeypox confirmed in the United States, including five children, the demand for the monkeypox vaccine is high. And while the current vaccine, JYNNEOS, is approved only for adults ages 18 and older, it has been administered to children in the U.S. on a case-by-case basis, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA confirmed to ABC News that "numerous" children have […]

(NEW YORK) -- With the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declaring the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency as the number of cases continue to rise, the most important thing you can do is know your risk level. Monkeypox is still rare and most people have a low risk. But if you are in a city where monkeypox is spreading, and in a community where it's spreading, you […]

(WASHINGTON) -- Amid growing calls from health officials across the country, the Biden administration declared the current monkeypox outbreak to be a public health emergency in the U.S. on Thursday afternoon. The declaration, which was made by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, comes a little less than two weeks after the World Health Organization designated the outbreak an emergency of international concern. By issuing a declaration, HHS […]