(NEW YORK) — At least 177 new measles cases have been reported in the U.S., according to newly updated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A total of 910 infections have been confirmed in 24 states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
A hantavirus is a virus found in the urine, saliva or excrement of deer mice and certain other infected wild rodents (Icy Macload/Getty Images)
(LONDON and BELGRADE, Serbia) — Three people have been evacuated off of the MV Hondius, a cruise ship with a suspected hantavirus cluster, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.
WHO officials in Cape Verde told ABC News that the patients were to be transferred to ambulances waiting on the shore to receive them. The three were then to be taken to an airport, where they were expected to board a special medevac flight to the Netherlands.
“WHO continues to work with the ship’s operators to closely monitor the health of passengers and crew, working with countries to support appropriate medical follow-up and evacuation where needed,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, said on social media, where he confirmed the evacuations.
“Monitoring and follow-up for passengers on board and for those who have already disembarked has been initiated in collaboration with the ship’s operators and national health authorities,” he added.
He said that “the overall public health risk remains low.”
The WHO said on Wednesday that eight suspected cases of hantavirus were recorded among passengers on the ship, an increase from the seven reported on Tuesday. Three of the cases had been confirmed by lab testing, WHO said.
“Swiss authorities have confirmed a case of hantavirus identified in a passenger from the MV Hondius cruise ship,” the WHO said on social media on Wednesday. “He had responded to an email from the ship’s operator informing the passengers of the health event, and presented himself to a hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, and is receiving care.”
There have been three deaths among the reported cases, including a married couple from the Netherlands, one of whom was confirmed to have been infected with hantavirus, authorities said.
Cape Verde officials said on Tuesday that the vessel was expected to sail to the Spanish island of Tenerife, where Spanish health authorities were to take over further investigations, including lab testing and clinical assessments, particularly for older passengers.
The leader of the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the northwestern coast of Africa, said on Wednesday that the regional government was opposed to allowing the luxury cruise ship to dock at Tenerife.
“This decision is not based on any technical criteria, nor is there sufficient information to reassure the public or guarantee their safety,” Fernando Clavijo, the president of the Canary Islands told radio station COPE, according to Reuters.
Clavijo said on social media that he had requested a meeting with the Spanish prime minister to discuss the ship. He added that the Canary Islands “always acts with responsibility, but it cannot accept decisions taken behind the backs of the Canary Islands institutions and without sufficient information to the population.”
WHO officials earlier on Wednesday said the three evacuated people were to be transferred to planes bound for both the Netherlands and Tenerife, but later updated the plan so that all would be sent to the Netherlands, officials told ABC News.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Health officials blamed rising health care costs and lack of federal funding. (Elisa Schu/picture alliance via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — An emergency rule from the Florida Department of Health went into effect on Sunday that could restrict tens of thousands of people from accessing HIV medication.
The state issued cuts to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), a federal-state partnership that provides free FDA-approved HIV medication for low-income, uninsured or underinsured people.
Under the emergency rule, eligibility for ADAP was lowered to include those at or below 130% of the federal poverty level, which equals about $20,345 per year for a one-person household, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Previous eligibility was at or below 400% of the poverty level, which equals about $62,600 per year for a one-person household, according to HHS.
Additionally, the emergency rule limits insurance coverage of Biktarvy, a once-daily pill to treat HIV and used by about 60% of those enrolled in ADAP.
HIV advocates estimate that as many as 16,000 of the 30,000 Floridians enrolled in ADAP could be at risk of restricted access.
“These cuts will impact communities throughout the state, will threaten the lives of people with HIV and will lead to spikes in new HIV diagnoses and a rise in health care costs as people with HIV develop serious infections requiring hospitalization,” said Dr. Anna K. Person, chair of the HIV Medicine Association, a community of health care professionals that works toward advancing the response of the HIV epidemic, in a statement.
“HIV treatment disruptions of this magnitude will result in a public health disaster. Florida must follow due process and work with health care professionals, people with HIV and the state legislature to address any funding challenges,” the statement continued.
The new emergency rule is only in effect for 90 days and cannot be renewed unless a rule is proposed to implement the changes through formal administrative rulemaking.
Health officials have cited the “rising health care insurance premiums nationwide” and lack of federal funding as reason for the cuts. Officials said the adjustments will prevent a shortfall of more than $120 million for the state.
The Florida Department of Health did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment.
Kids eating lunch at school (Tetra Images/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — As President Donald Trump’s administration touts its new federal dietary guidelines, experts and officials suggest there’s a long road ahead before America’s students have healthier school meals.
With the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services partnering to address chronic disease — aiming to place whole, nutrient-dense food at the center of diets — the administration believes it has taken a major step toward solving America’s youth health crises.
From Secretaries Brooke Rollins and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, there’s a full-scale push to make school meals healthier by next school year, but the USDA’s former Food and Nutrition Service Administrator Cindy Long said their changes won’t happen “overnight.”
Long — who was USDA’s Deputy Administrator for Child Nutrition under former President Barack Obama and during President Donald Trump’s first term — told ABC News the Healthy-Hunger Free Kids Act, which is the school meals bill that was signed into law in 2010, ignited a shift to healthier school meals over a decade ago.
Celebrating the newest dietary guidelines, the foundation of dozens of federal feeding programs, including school meals, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said that her agency is submitting its proposed school meals rule by mid-spring. Meanwhile, implementing the meals in U.S. classrooms will see delays after the updated regulations, some health policy experts noted.
Dr. David Ludwig, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, suggested the changes may take a while both in practice and culture.
“We have to address this on many levels,” Ludwig told ABC News, adding, “First, improving the guidelines that regulate food quality in schools. That’s foundational.”
Ludwig echoed the Trump administration’s 2025-2030 guidelines, which are updated every five years, emphasizing that new school meal ingredients must reduce sugar and other processed carbohydrates and increase whole foods.
“Layer two is adequate funding so that not only healthful but delicious foods can be prepared,” he said, adding, “It’s critical for children to understand that we don’t want to raise a generation that thinks healthy foods are going to be just bland.”
Updates will be made through formal rulemaking, the government’s multi-step process that includes opportunities for public comment, to ensure USDA supports children’s access to nutritious, high-quality meals at school, according to a USDA spokesperson.
However, Long told ABC News that some of the President Joe Biden administration’s changes to reduce added sugar and sodium to school meals are still being implemented.
“You can’t change this enormous system with 100,000 schools operating overnight,” she said, adding “You’ve got to allow time for people to be successful, for people to change menus, for them to procure the right products, for industry to be able to produce products that will help them bring down the sodium, bring down the added sugar etc.”
White House Senior Advisor Calley Means told ABC News there will be a “flurry” of regulation changes this year that will bolster kids’ meals at school. He bemoaned critics’ concerns that the administration lacks the funding to make the necessary changes.
“The government spends hundreds of billions of dollars on food procurement,” he said, adding, “We do not have a budget issue. There’s been a political will problem that President Trump and Bobby Kennedy and Brooke Rollins have solved. There’s care about this issue. We’re going to be driving common sense solutions.”
Parental control over school meals
University of Illinois Professor of Nutrition Dr. Donald Layman believes promoting healthier meal options — like increased protein and the subtraction of ultra-processed foods — signals a “total sea change” for parents.
“I think it gives parents a different structure,” he told ABC News, adding, “They’ve been told that, well, eggs were bad for you, or that meats were bad for you, and they’re left not knowing what to give their kids.”
“I’ve always felt that the issue was, how do we empower parents to do what they know is right, but they’ve been told they shouldn’t do,” Layman added.
Hilary Boynton — a California mom and former head of nutrition services at her kids’ school — said, “people are starting to recognize that they have agency over their own health and [they can] be empowered by that.”
In Summer Barrett’s home state of West Virginia, a mom who says she’s a part of the Make America Healthy Again Movement, said she’s grown frustrated with school meals containing excess amounts of sugar in Dunkin’ Stix Donuts breakfasts.
“You’re giving them 52 grams of sugar, and then you send them to class and you wonder, ‘oh, why can’t you sit still,’” Barrett said. “Why can’t you learn? Why can’t you focus?” Well, cause you just jacked them up on more sugar than they should have in an entire day,” she added.
The new guidelines may signal that school meal changes are to come, thanks to MAHA moms like Barrett who have been “hungry for this nutrition science for a long time,” according to FDA Commissioner Makary. Makary and Kennedy have already started visiting schools to help promote programs that serve scratch-cooked meals with Whole Foods like fruits and vegetables.
Meanwhile, Cindy Long told ABC that the administration’s changes will only build on prior policy wins.
“I’m hoping that this will just continue on the path of, sort of, continuing to make school meals stronger and stronger,” she said.
