The Latest Breaking News from infectious disease

Challenge trials help researchers study immune responses. Skeptics still doubt the approach is worth the risks

COVID emerged suddenly, spread rapidly and killed millions of people around the world. Since then, I think it’s fair to say that most people have been nervous about the emergence of the next big infectious disease – be that a virus, bacterium, fungus or parasite.

Taking precautions to protect yourself from a quartet of infectious diseases can lessen your odds of starting off 2025 sick.

Modern medicine has enabled citizens of wealthy, industrialized nations to forget that children once routinely died in shocking numbers. Teaching 19th-century English literature, I regularly encounter gutting depictions of losing a child, and I am reminded that not knowing the emotional cost of widespread child mortality is a luxury.