Publisher Health

UK officials are checking for any possible cases of Lassa fever after a traveller to England, who has since returned to Nigeria, is known to have been infected.

2 hours ago

More than 60 percent of all voters — and 47 percent of Democrats — supported a work requirement for Medicaid, the country’s largest health insurance program.As Congressional Republicans weigh major cuts to Medicaid, most voters do not want to see the public health plan’s funding dialed back, according to a poll released Friday by KFF, a nonpartisan health research firm.Just 17 percent of respondents said they supported cuts to Medicaid, the government health insurance program that covers more than 70 million people. Forty percent said they wanted to keep spending unchanged, and 42 percent said they would like it increased.But at the same time, the poll found significant support for certain policies that would limit the program, such as requiring enrollees to work. More than 60 percent of voters — and 47 percent of Democrats — supported a work requirement, the poll found.That change, which has been championed by some congressional Republicans, is estimated to cut about $100 billion from Medicaid, as those who were unemployed — or could not file the paperwork showing they had a job — would no longer be covered. The program’s cost was $584 billion in 2024, or about 8 percent of total federal spending.More Than 70 Million Americans Are on Medicaid. This Is Where They Live.As Republicans weigh deep cuts, these congressional districts — some red, some blue — have the most to lose.The poll also illustrated Medicaid’s wide reach, with just over half of respondents saying that either they or a family member had at one point had Medicaid coverage. There was nearly universal agreement that Medicaid mattered to voters’ local communities, with 98 percent of Democrats and 94 percent of Republicans saying they thought it was somewhat or very important.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

A hospital trust is investigating reports staff may have “inappropriately” accessed the medical records of the three people killed in the Nottingham attacks.

Two more people are reported dead from the disease, and dozens are in isolation, as the outbreak grows.The Ebola outbreak in Uganda has worsened significantly, and the country’s ability to contain the spread has been severely weakened by the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign assistance, American officials said this week.The officials, representing a variety of health and security agencies, made the assessment during a meeting with U.S. Embassy staff in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, on Wednesday. An audio recording of the session was obtained by The New York Times.There have been two more deaths, the mother and newborn sibling of a 4-year-old who died last week, an American official said. The mother and sibling died earlier than the 4-year-old, but were not identified as probable Ebola cases until after they were buried through belated contact tracing.Eighty-two people have so far been identified as close contacts of the mother and her two children, at high risk for infection, and 68 of them are now in quarantine while the others are still being traced. The officials said public health workers’ ability to trace their contacts and conduct surveillance for new cases is severely hindered without U.S. assistance.Two of the contacts are already symptomatic and have been admitted to an isolation hospital ward, an American official in Uganda said in the meeting. The 4-year-old was taken for treatment at four different health facilities before being diagnosed with Ebola, meaning that many of those who have potentially been exposed to the virus are health care workers.During the meeting Wednesday, American officials said that the Ugandan government also lacked sufficient laboratory supplies, diagnostic equipment and protective gear for medical workers and people tracing contacts. The termination of grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development was impeding the ability to procure those supplies, one official said. The meeting, conducted by video, was attended by representatives from the State Department, U.S.A.I.D., the Defense Department, the U.S. Embassy in Uganda and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

22 minutes ago

The patient tested positive for the infection, but state health officials could not confirm that it was the cause of death. An unvaccinated person who died in New Mexico has tested positive for measles, state health officials said on Thursday, possibly the second such fatality in a growing outbreak that began in West Texas.The officials have not yet confirmed that measles was the cause of death, and said the individual did not seek medical treatment before dying. The announcement comes a little over a week after a child died of measles in Gaines County, Texas, the first such death in the United States in ten years.Ten cases of measles, six adults and four children, have been reported in Lea County, N.M., which borders Gaines County, the epicenter of the West Texas outbreak. This outbreak has been a trial by fire of the new secretary of department of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic. His equivocal response has drawn harsh criticism from scientists, who say he has offered muted support for vaccination and has emphasized such untested treatments for measles as cod liver oil.Instead of broadly lauding the safety and efficacy of vaccines, as past health secretaries have, his message has been that vaccines help protect against measles but that the decision to vaccinate “is a personal one.” We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

A week after terminating thousands of contracts, the administration has sent questionnaires to those programs asking how their work benefits the U.S. national interest.Last week, the Trump administration terminated nearly all of the United States’ foreign aid contracts after telling a federal court that its review of aid programs had concluded, and it had shut down those found not to be in the national interest.But over the last few days, many of those same programs have received a questionnaire asking them for the first time to detail what their projects do (or did) and how that work aligns with national interests.The survey, obtained by The New York Times, is titled “Foreign Assistance Review.” Some agencies received it with instructions stating that data collected will “support the next stage of the administration’s foreign assistance review.” The deadlines given for returning the surveys range from March 7 to March 17.Many of the projects under scrutiny have already fired their staff and closed their doors, because they have received no federal funds since the review process ostensibly began. President Trump issued an executive order freezing aid on Jan. 20, pending a review. Within some organizations, there are no staff members left to complete the survey.The distribution of the survey is the latest twist in an eight-week-long roller coaster ride for aid organizations. The chaos began with a stop-work order for employees and contractors of the United States Agency for International Development and a freezing of all funds, including reimbursements for hundreds of millions of dollars already spent. That was followed by a process allowing organizations that provided lifesaving medical treatment and food aid to seek a waiver allowing them to continue their work.Then came terminations, last Wednesday, of more than 5,000 projects and programs. Since then, some projects have been told they were fully restored, and others that they are restored only to the terms of their original waiver, which runs out next month. Almost none have seen any of the funds they are owed unfrozen.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

At a hearing, Dr. Marty Makary, the nominee for F.D.A. commissioner, fielded questions focused on whether he would review or reopen certain policy areas.At a confirmation hearing for Dr. Marty Makary on Thursday, senators focused heavily on the safety of the abortion pill, with Republican lawmakers urging him to restrict access and Democratic lawmakers demanding that he maintain its current availability.Dr. Makary, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, signaled that he shared Republicans’ concerns about the current policy, issued during the Biden administration, which expanded access by allowing people to obtain the pills without an in-person medical appointment.Several Democrats pointed to volumes of studies showing that the drugs are safe. Dr. Makary told members of the Senate health committee, which held the hearing, that he would review the pill’s safety and the policy at issue.He said he would “take a solid, hard look at the data and to meet with the professional career scientists who have reviewed the data at the F.D.A. and to build an expert coalition to review the ongoing data, which is required to be collected.”The hearing also touched on vaccines, with several lawmakers, including the committee chairman, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, questioning why an advisory committee meeting on next year’s flu vaccine had been canceled in recent weeks and asking whether it would be held later. He and others stressed that the flu panel met annually, and some reminded Dr. Makary that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the F.D.A. as health secretary, had pledged transparency in agency decision-making.Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, called the cancellation “unprecedented and dangerous” after decades of annual meetings.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

25 minutes ago