Colorado public health officials investigating hantavirus death not linked to cruise ship cluster
In this photo illustration, a laboratory test tubes containing blood to be analyzed for the Hantavirus “Orthohantavirus” outbreak, held by a nurse. (Vincenzo Izzo/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo.) — Colorado public health officials are investigating the death of an adult resident as a result of hantavirus.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Douglas County Health Department said the death is not linked to the outbreak on the MV Hondius cruise ship, which led to 11 confirmed and probable cases, including two confirmed deaths and one suspected death.
The individual lived in Douglas County — located just south of Denver — but information about the patient’s name, age and sex were not immediately available.
Health officials said the individual was infected by the Sin Nombre hantavirus, which is the most common cause of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in North America.
HPS symptoms typically appear from one to eight weeks after contact with the virus, with early signs including fever, fatigue and muscle aches, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Half of HPS patients will experience headaches, chills, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain.’
Between four and 10 days after the initial phase of illness, symptoms including coughing, shortness of breath and tightness in the chest can emerge, the CDC said, adding that a patient’s lungs can fill with fluid.
“Hantavirus infections caused by the Sin Nombre hantavirus occur regularly in Colorado, usually in the spring and summer, and can cause a severe and sometimes deadly respiratory disease,” according to public health officials. “In Colorado, the deer mouse is the rodent species that most commonly exposes people to the virus. Avoiding exposure to rodents and their urine, feces, saliva, and nesting materials is the best way to prevent infection.”
According to the CDC, there were six cases of Hantavirus in Colorado from 2020 to 2023.
Viviane Nzale, a health worker responsible for triage, stands at a screening post at the entrance of Mongbwalu General Hospital while monitoring patients and visitors entering the facility as they respond to the continuing Ebola outbreak here on June 12, 2026 in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo. (Michel Lunanga/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have reported a record one-day increase in Ebola cases since the current outbreak was first detected one month ago.
The DRC Ministry of Health reported 72 new confirmed Ebola cases on June 13, bringing the total number of cases to 782. Additionally, 29 deaths were recorded, bringing to 181 the number of fatalities that have occurred in the last month.
The majority of cases are still concentrated in three provinces in the northeast part of the country: Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu. Two new health zones, Nia-Nia in Ituri and Mabalako in North Kivu, reported cases for the first time, increasing the number of affected health zones to 31, according to the Ministry of Health.
Contact tracing remains a concern. Health officials said only 56.5% of identified contacts have been followed up on, far below the desired 90%-95% target needed to contain the outbreak, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
DRC health officials say they’re still experiencing community hesitance as well as shortages of essential medicines and infection-control supplies.
Meanwhile, Uganda has reported 19 confirmed cases, in large part linked to cross-border transmission from the DRC, and two deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
Last week, United Nations agencies warned that children in the eastern DRC could become increasingly affected by the Ebola outbreak. The U.N. said it may be difficult to accurately track the number of children who may be affected by the outbreak due to inefficient surveillance.
Although most infections have been among adults, “as the outbreak evolves, we must be prepared for increasing household transmission which means we may see more children affected in the days ahead,” Dr. Douglas Noble, UNICEF global lead for public health emergencies and global incident manager for Ebola, said on Friday.
“These are already very vulnerable children, so the capacity for this community to absorb any additional stressors was already stretched to breaking point,” he said.
In past Ebola outbreaks in the DRC, children “made up a significant share of cases and an even greater share of deaths, with the youngest facing the highest fatality rates and many left orphaned or separated from caregivers,” Noble said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department recently announced plans to provide $50 million to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which describes itself as “a global partnership working to accelerate the development of vaccines and other biologic countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats,” to help develop vaccines and treatments against the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola that’s driving the current outbreak.
The State Department further said it has committed more than $270 million directly to the Ebola response, with U.S.-funded partners screening more than 6,300 people in Ituri, supporting 100 health facilities and carrying out 200 safe burials.
(NEW YORK) — Walking faster for 30 minutes per day can lower the risk of death in some adults, a new study suggests.
Researchers from Australia and Spain looked at 1approximately 70, 000 adults between ages 40 and 69.
Participants were broken into four categories: under 5,000 steps a day, between 5,000 and 7,000 steps a day, between 7,500 and 10,000 steps a day and above 10,000 steps a day.
The researchers also timed each participant’s peak 30-minute cadence, or the average steps per minute during the most active 30 minutes of the day.
Results showed that the group with under 5,000 steps a day, a level considered as a sedentary lifestyle — but with a peak 30-minute cadence of between 60 to 90 steps per minute — had a lower risk of death than those with a slower peak 30-minute cadence.
Results showed that the group with under 5,000 steps a day — but with a peak 30-minute cadence of 80 steps per minute — had a lower risk of death than those with a slower peak 30-minute cadence.
The death risk was similar to those within the 5,000 to 7,500 steps per day group who walked at a slower pace, but with a peak cadence of 60 steps per minute.
However, the group with 7,500 to 10,000 steps per day had the lowest chance of death regardless of how fast those steps were accumulated, according to the study, published Tuesday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The authors said their findings provide evidence for stepping up the intensity when walking.
They added that the results “may inform step-based interventions for middle-aged and older adults, particularly individuals with barriers to increasing daily step counts or stepping intensity.”
The study had some limitations; participants only needed to log three days of activity to qualify, for example.
“Our study moves beyond single-metric approaches (e.g., focusing solely on daily step counts) to examine combinations of different step dimensions in relation to mortality risk, informing future step-related public health and clinical guidelines,” the authors wrote.
Dr. Varun Mehta is a fourth-year resident at Mount Sinai Hospital and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
Health supplies are seen as healthcare workers receive training on administering the Ebola vaccine in a study carried out with the support of the World Health Organization as part of the fight against the Ebola virus in Kampala, Uganda on February 14, 2025. (Nicholas Kajoba/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A deadly Ebola outbreak is continuing to spread in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, with officials on Tuesday saying there were more than 600 confirmed and suspected cases and more than 100 suspected deaths.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, and at least one American in the DRC has tested positive, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Several public health experts told ABC News that while they agree with the CDC that the risk to the U.S. public is currently low, the outbreak is still concerning. They also expressed unease that the U.S. may not be prepared to adequately respond due to cuts to federal health agencies and its withdrawal from the WHO.
The experts noted cases have been found in remote regions of the DRC and Uganda, as well as urban areas, and the outbreak is growing rapidly. They added that although Ebola is a rare disease, it can be highly contagious and can lead to deadly consequences.
“We’re worried that if this outbreak is not contained, that it could spread elsewhere on the continent, which could increase the risk of the virus spreading outside of the African continent,” Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, told ABC News.
“Ebola is not as transmissible a virus as, say, a coronavirus … and that’s why I don’t think that this will ever become a pandemic scenario, but it doesn’t have to be a pandemic to be a worrisome situation,” she added.
Americans affected by outbreak
On Monday, the CDC confirmed that least one American in the DRC contracted Ebola while working in the country.
Dr. Satish K. Pillai, incident manager for the CDC’s Ebola response, told reporters that the individual developed symptoms over the weekend and tested positive late Sunday, adding that the patient and six other high-risk contacts were being moved to Germany for care and monitoring.
Serge, an international Christian missions organization, confirmed the patient is American medical missionary Dr. Peter Stafford, a board-certified general surgeon with a specialization in burn care, who was serving patients in the eastern DRC.
Pillai did not say if or when the Americans would be returning to the U.S., but experts say, even if the patient and contacts do, the risk level to the public does not change.
“We safely and effectively have [returned affected Americans home] many times before,” Emily Smith, interim chair of the department of global health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, told ABC News. “It’s something we have good experience in and have always safely and effectively done. So, to me, no concerns about doing that.”
Dr. Jesse Goodman, a professor of medicine and infectious disease at Georgetown University and former chief scientist at the Food and Drug Administration, said it is encouraging that when countries such as the DRC have experienced outbreaks in the past, they have not progressed to pandemic status.
“I think the most [the U.S.] would see is the kind of limited transmission that we’ve seen in the past because this virus almost always appears that transmission is from people who have symptoms,” he told ABC News. “I think if there are cases that come to this country, I would expect limited transmission and think we have the capability to contain it.”
During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, there were two cases of suspected transmission from a patient with Ebola to nurses caring for him. The CDC has established detailed infection prevention and control procedures for health facilities that suspect they have cases of Ebola.
U.S. may not be as connected to the global health community
Even with possible U.S. capability to contain Ebola domestically, the experts who spoke to ABC News said the U.S. is likely at a disadvantage when it comes to responding to several health crises both at home and abroad due to public health capacity cuts.
Last year, the State Department announced it would be taking over programs previously run by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agency — which oversaw foreign aid, disaster relief and international development programs — would no longer be providing assistance to other countries.
In previous Ebola outbreaks, USAID provided millions of dollars and operational support in response, in addition to helping with preparedness activities in neighboring countries.
Additionally, earlier this year, the U.S. officially completed its withdrawal from the WHO, with federal officials saying at the time there are “plans” in place to work with organizations on surveillance, diagnostics and outbreak response to fill in gaps left by exiting the WHO.
Brown University’s Nuzzo said the Ebola outbreak is the kind of situation public health experts warned about as USAID was gutted and the U.S. withdrew from the WHO.
“We warned that the United States would be flying blind, and it would be learning about deadly outbreaks late, and then it would be very difficult for the U.S. to respond because we would have fewer tools to do that,'” Nuzzo said. “The big worry here is that the outbreak wasn’t declared until there were more than 200 suspected cases of the virus and that is very unusual. Usually, we get signals of an outbreak much earlier.”
George Washington University’s Smith concurred, “When we are talking about public health infrastructure and global health infrastructure, we’re in a worse place today than we were two years ago.”
Nuzzo also noted that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an agency within the National Institutes of Health, ended research at its high containment lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland, due to “a safety stand-down” last year.
The lab was one of the few federal facilities studying Ebola and other deadly pathogens, which Nuzzo said could have been useful in understanding the virus and developing therapies for the recent outbreak.
“So now that we have Americans potentially exposed to a virus that’s deadly, for which we have no vaccines or treatments, you can imagine how beneficial it would be to have a laboratory that can conduct world-class research to make sure we develop cures for this,” Nuzzo said. “But we don’t have it. So, we’re basically behind the curve in being ready for this.”
Goodman also said that the U.S. may not be as prepared because Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been actively shifting the department’s focus away from infectious disease management and towards chronic illnesses.
During his confirmation hearings last year, Kennedy argued that too much federal funding has been “devoted” to “infectious disease and to drug development and very little to chronic diseases.”
Goodman argued that there needs to be a focus on infectious diseases because of the threats they may pose to public health.
“I think the message here is these infectious disease, we may be done with them, but they’re not done with us,” he said. “There’s a reason that so many of us work for so many years to be prepared for whatever the next thing is because we don’t know what it is and we just need to be ready.”
Kennedy told ABC News on Monday that his agency is addressing the recent hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks.
“Yeah, we’re working on it,” Kennedy replied when asked if he was worried about the outbreaks. Kennedy did not respond when asked what his message might be to Americans who are concerned about the diseases potentially spreading in the U.S.
On Sunday, the State Department issued “Level 4 — Do not travel” advisories for Uganda and the DRC due to the outbreak.
Nuzzo said she’s worried that the U.S. hasn’t built a public health system that acknowledges viral outbreaks as recurring threats, saying the U.S. has been caught off guard with previous incidents such as COVID-19.
“We don’t do that with other recurring hazards you know; we don’t try to build FEMA in the midst of a hurricane,” Nuzzo said.
