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Tuesday May 21, 2024
(NEW YORK) -- The number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) around the world is increasing and is a "major concern" for health officials, according to a new report published Tuesday from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The report found four curable STIs -- chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and trichomoniasis -- are responsible for more than 1 million infections daily among adults between ages 15 and 49. Cases of syphilis, in particular, have been rising rapidly.
The number of new syphilis cases among adults between ages 15 and 49 increased from 7.1 million in 2020 to 8 million in 2022, according to the report.
There have also been increases in the rate of congenital syphilis, which occurs when a baby is born with the infection after the mother passed it on during pregnancy. Between 2020 and 2022, the rate per 100,000 live births per year rose from 425 to 523.
The global trends mirror those seen in the United States. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released earlier his year found the total number of syphilis cases increased more than 17% to 207,255 between 2021 and 2022, reaching the greatest number of cases reported since 1950.
The report also found that cases of antibiotic resistant gonorrhea are increasing, which was labeled another "concern." As of 2023, nine countries reported elevated levels -- from 5% to 40% -- of resistance to ceftriaxone, which is considered a last line treatment for gonorrhea.
Data points to a lack of screening for the rise in STIs as well as other issues including a lack access to care. Additionally, disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic likely delayed screening for many.
"The rising incidence of syphilis raises major concerns," WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. "Fortunately, there has been important progress on a number of other fronts including in accelerating access to critical health commodities including diagnostics and treatment."
"We have the tools required to end these epidemics as public health threats by 2030, but we now need to ensure that, in the context of an increasingly complex world, countries do all they can to achieve the ambitious targets they set themselves," the statement continued.
Not all trends showed an upward trajectory, in 2022, the number of people newly infected with HIV globally fell to 1.3 million from 1.5 million, according to the report. However, the WHO notes that certain populations -- men who have sex with men; people who inject drugs; sex workers; transgender people; and those currently in prisons and other closed settings – continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV.
In a press release, the WHO noted there have been gains in expanding STIs, HIV and hepatitis services and several countries have eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV and/or syphilis.
To drive rates down, the report outlines some recommendations including accelerating efforts to decriminalizes and destigmatize those affected by STIs and other infections as well as strengthening the focus on primary prevention, diagnosis and treatment to raise awareness of STIs and infections.
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(LAS VEGAS) -- Nevada abortion rights supporters said Monday they have enough signatures on a petition to qualify for a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution.
Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, the organization behind the petition, said it has collected more than 200,000 signatures from voters in all 17 counties, double the 102,362 threshold required to qualify for the November 2024 election.
The amendment would give individuals "a fundamental right to abortion performed or administered by a qualified health care practitioner until fetal viability, or when needed to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient, without interference from the state or its political subdivisions."
The Nevada Secretary of State's office will need to validate the signatures on the petition for the ballot measure before the proposed amendment is certified.
The group had also been pursuing a second broader measure that would grant all residents the right to make decisions regarding "all matters relating to pregnancy" including abortion, abortion care, birth control, vasectomies, tubal litigation and infertility care.
In November 2023, a lower court blocked the petition from moving forward, ruling that it is misleading and violated the single subject rule, which requires an initiative petition proposing a constitutional amendment to contain a single subject.
However, in April 2024, the state Supreme Court reversed the decision, arguing the terms all fell under the umbrella of "reproductive rights."
"[A]ll the medical procedures considered in the initiative petition concern reproduction. To assert that they could not all be addressed together because they are separate procedures is improper," the opinion read.
Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom said it currently plans to pursue the narrower measure.
In Nevada, abortions are permitted at 24 weeks' gestation or later, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that studies sexual and reproductive rights.
Additionally, Nevada law protects anyone entering or exiting abortion clinics from harassment and physical harm. In 2023, an interstate shield law was also passed, protecting abortion providers from investigations by other states.
Abortion rights advocates say codifying protections in the state constitution will build upon existing protections and make it harder for them to be overturned as the national landscape of abortion access changes.
President Joe Biden has vowed to defend women's reproductive rights and fight for legal access to abortion on the national level.
"As anti-abortion extremists continue to attack our fundamental rights -- from abortion to birth control to fertility treatments -- this decision recognizes that reproductive freedom includes all reproductive health care," a statement released by Reproductive Freedom for All Nevada, a group that is part of the ballot campaign, said last month.
Nevadans For Reproductive Freedom did not immediately reply to ABC News' request for comment.
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(GAZA) -- A "catastrophic" mental health crisis has unfolded in Gaza, affecting both civilians and humanitarian workers, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, according to international aid organizations.
Since Hamas launched a surprise terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel responded by declaring war, more than 35,173 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 79,061 have been injured, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. More than 1,700 Israelis have been killed and more than 8,700 have been injured, according to Israeli officials.
The physical toll of the war has been documented in photographs and videos with Gazans suffering from severe injuries, including the loss of limbs, and malnutrition due to the shortage of food and clean water, as well as a "full-blown famine" that has struck northern Gaza.
But the war has taken a mental and emotional toll too, with fear and anxiety gripping adults and children alike and hidden scars that will likely last for decades, aid workers told ABC News.
They added that if Israel launches a full-blown ground offensive in Rafah, the city on the Gaza-Egypt border, the humanitarian effort, including the mental health response, will likely collapse.
The mental health crisis is "already catastrophic … and it keeps getting worse and worse," Dr. Audrey McMahon, a psychiatrist with Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), who was the mental health activities manager based in Jerusalem until March, told ABC News. "Gaza has become an unlivable place. It's just unfathomable. The foundation of mental health is security, is safety, something that you can predict; they don't have that."
Studies show mental health effects of war
There is not much data documenting the mental health crisis among Gazans during the war, but studies of past conflicts have shown the effects of living in war-torn areas.
At least 10% of those who experience traumatic events in armed conflict will have serious mental health problems and another 10% "will develop behavior that will hinder their ability to function effectively," according to the World Health Organization in a review of research findings.
The most common conditions experienced are anxiety, depression and psychosomatic problems including insomnia and back and stomach aches, the WHO said.
In a study that looked at the psychological consequences of war trauma on women in Bosnia and Herzegovina, researchers found those exposed to serious war and traumatic events experienced more post-traumatic symptoms.
Another joint U.K.-Croatia study from 2017 looking at severe war-related trauma found that those exposed to such trauma were at risk of "interpersonal dysfunction 15 years after people were exposed to an armed conflict."
Most recently, a study published in The Lancet found in the first month of the Russian-Ukrainian war in March 2022, the first survey of Ukrainians' mental health showed 53% of Ukrainian adults were experiencing severe mental distress, 54% were experiencing anxiety, and 47% were experiencing depression. Six months into the war, 26% of parents still in Ukraine had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and 15% had developed complex PTSD.
In one of the only estimates available, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says it believes almost all children in Gaza are in need of mental health and psychosocial support. Children under age 15 make up half of Gaza's population of 2.2 million people, according to the Population Reference Bureau.
Aid workers say Gaza is different than other regions of armed conflict because there are no safe zones and, unlike other war-torn areas, few people have been allowed to leave.
"Children have experienced not just one traumatic event, but what we call compound trauma, so traumatic event after traumatic event," Tess Ingram, a UNICEF spokesperson who was in Gaza three weeks ago, told ABC News. "And that's something we rarely, if ever, see because if you think about another conflict, a child might experience a traumatic event and then be able to flee to safety. But in the case of Gaza, children are trapped, and there's nowhere for them to go that is safe."
'A breach of childhood'
Because children make up such a large portion of Gaza's population, they have been disproportionately affected by the war and, in turn, the mental health crisis, experts said.
Davide Musardo, a psychologist and mental health activity manager for MSF currently in Rafah, said during one of his first days at the Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital, he came across a 10-year-old girl who had experienced burns due to the heavy fighting and screaming that she couldn't breathe.
"She was clearly in a panic attack," he said. "We start[ed] to recognize that every time that she has to do medical care, she was experiencing the pain of what she lived."
Musardo said he's seen many children in Gaza have acute stress reactions, suffering from panic attacks or screaming even if they are sedated. Other children may be so traumatized by what they have experienced, such as the loss of a parent, that they will shut down and not express any type of emotion, he said.
Ingram said during her most recent trip to Gaza in April, parents told her their children were becoming withdrawn: speaking less, playing less and sleeping less.
"That is describing a higher level of anxiety among their children, who had -- in many cases -- been displaced several times and understood that where they were currently wasn't safe," she said.
She said she met one boy, about age 9 or 10, at a hospital in Rafah who, during a previous military operation, had been badly injured and lost his father. Since that incident, he has not spoken much. The boy had been diagnosed with depression and PTSD, and his sister, a young woman in her early 20s, was the one explaining the boy's condition to Ingram.
For adults experiencing mental health issues, the main intervention is talk therapy, but, for children, Musardo said the main goal is to make their lives feel as normal as possible. He said his team at MSF mainly organizes play-based activities for children such as parties, listening to music and watching movies.
For the child who was screaming that she couldn't breathe, Musardo said he started to work and play with her, giving her a nurse's uniform and a doctor's pen, calling her "doctor" as a way to try and control her panic attacks. He said that as the days passed, she was able to calm herself down and experience fewer panic attacks.
McMahon said one team at MSF also wrote a storybook on grief and how to deal with grief when losing so many family members and friends.
"When we're able to offer a space, like ... a safe space to play, we do that a lot with younger patients," she said. "It's not always possible to play. Some children are not able to play anymore, and that's a very worrying sign for their development, for their mental health, and they haven't been to school in six months. It's just the breach of childhood, really."
Aid workers' mental health also worsens
Gaza's health care workers have also seen their mental health suffer over the past seven months. Many have been risking their lives to provide medical care, often with limited supplies.
McMahon said many MSF medical staff in Gaza are working under intense psychological strain. Some have been trapped in hospitals during Israeli raids and have to decide whether to leave patients behind or save their own lives, leading to feelings of distress and guilt.
"They are in an impossible situation," said McMahon. "Depending on who you talk to, they both feel like they are somehow heroes in the sense of doing the impossible and yet still offering care, but, at the same time, they are put in situations where they need to make choices that are extremely difficult."
She continued, "Like, do you choose between someone coming with an open wound bleeding that you need to do surgery quickly, or a child that is acutely malnourished and struggling to stay alive? And, like, both are in a dire situation. Who do you choose? And they are faced with that all the time."
Musardo said he has seen medical staff affected while treating patients during the war and part of his role is to provide support, both in giving them materials on how to self-care and letting them know he's there if they want to talk. He said staff members often come see him during the night shifts in the hospital, when it is calmer.
Many medical workers in the area are Gazans themselves and, therefore, are suffering from the same problems as many civilians.
McMahon said one staff member reported they couldn't go to work one day because they hadn't been able to find food or water for their children for the past three days and needed to prioritize searching. "That's the situation of medical staff," she added.
Looming threat of Rafah invasion
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) dropped leaflets and sent text messages in Arabic on May 6, calling for about 100,000 people to evacuate the eastern part of Rafah and to head north to the Al-Mawasi humanitarian corridor as airstrikes began. Since then, nearly 600,000 people have evacuated Rafah, the U.N. said Wednesday.
The U.S. has assessed Israel has amassed enough troops on the edge of Rafah to move forward with a full-scale incursion into the city, but the U.S. is not sure if Israel has made a final decision to actually do so, two U.S. officials told ABC News on Wednesday.
If Israel does launch a full-scale incursion in Rafah, it will be "catastrophic for mental health," Ingram, from UNICEF, said.
"Over the past seven months, there's already been an enormous impact on children's mental health and every day that this continues to go on, it gets worse and our ability to treat children's mental health, when they're continuing to be in a situation that is unsafe, is nearly impossible," she said.
"While the fighting continues, not only does the trauma compound, but our ability to come in and try and help respond to that trauma is incredibly limited," she continued. "So, an offensive in Rafah would have an enormous impact from both of those angles, in terms of escalating the problem while continuing to limit the response."
Experts said their organizations and several others have been calling for a cease-fire for the fighting to end, the hostages being held in Gaza to be released and more aid to enter the strip.
Additionally, they say a cease-fire is the only way for Gazans to begin to address the emotional and mental scars they carry from the war.
"The scars, they will be long lasting and for life," McMahon said. "What has been and is still going on is utterly horrific, utterly abnormal. .... A war is potentially traumatizing for everyone. But again, the kind of systematic attacks on civilians, on children, this really impacts your view of the world, your sense of humanity, and this is extremely [difficult] to change or heal afterwards."
ABC News' Luis Martinez and Selina Wang contributed to this report.
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(NEW YORK) -- Drug overdose deaths fell in 2023, marking the first decrease in five years, new provisional federal data published Wednesday showed.
An estimated 107,543 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.
This is a 3% decrease from the estimated 111,029 overdose deaths that occurred in 2022 and the first annual decrease in drug overdose deaths since 2018.
Dr. Susan Sherman, a professor in the department of health, behavior and society at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News it's "great" to see the numbers trending downward.
"If you think about it, the numbers are so crazy high that we were below 100,000 the last time we had a dip," she said. "It's great that there's a decrease."
The data shows that overdose deaths involving opioids fell from an estimated 84,181 in 2022 to 81,083 in 2023.
While the majority of overdose deaths in 2023 were due to synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, there was a decrease from 2022. An estimated 76,226 deaths were linked to synthetic opioids in 2022 compared to 74,702 deaths in 2023.
Fentanyl is up to 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine and can be deadly even in small doses, according to the CDC. Other drugs may be laced with deadly levels of fentanyl, and a user is not able to see it, taste it, or smell it.
Unless drugs are tested with fentanyl test strips, it is nearly impossible to tell if they have been laced with the synthetic opioid, the CDC said.
Deaths linked to natural or semi-synthetic drugs, such as morphine and codeine, also fell from 12,135 In 2022 to 10,171 in 2023. However, deaths associated with psychostimulants, including methamphetamine, and cocaine increased from 2022 to 2023.
Some states across the U.S. saw decreases with Indiana, Kansas, Maine and Nebraska experiencing declines of 15% or more, the data shows. However, there were increases in others with Alaska, Oregon and Washington seeing an increase of least 27% compared to the same period in 2022.
In Alaska, opioid overdoses have steadily been increasing since at least 2018, according to the state's Department of Public Health. A state report released earlier this year found 2022 to be the deadliest year on record in Alaska for opioid overdoses.
Additionally, earlier this year in Portland, Oregon, government officials declared a 90-day state of emergency to address the city's growing fentanyl crisis. In November 2020, Oregonians voted to decriminalize small amounts of illicit drugs, but the state reversed course with lawmakers passing a bill earlier this year to recriminalize drug possession.
Some of the progress may be attributed to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approving the overdose reversal drug Narcan for over-the-counter use in March 2023, becoming available in September.
Narcan, made by the company Emergent BioSolutions, is given as a nasal spray and the active ingredient in the medication -- naloxone -- can quickly reverse the effect of opioids to restore breathing if someone is experiencing an opioid overdose.
Harm reduction groups and other experts have been pushing for easier access to naloxone as one strategy to help prevent some of the tens of thousands of overdose deaths that occur each year in the U.S.
"Sometimes when things decrease, we think, 'Oh, we're done,'" Sherman said. "I think sometimes people think, 'Job's done.' But of course, the job is not done. I worry people [will] lift their foot off the gas."
Sherman said to keep bringing the number of drug overdose deaths down, it's important to keep scaling up interventions that work including making medications for opioid use disorder and syringe service programs more accessible.
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(NEW YORK) -- Walgreens Boots Alliance announced Wednesday that it plans to sell its own generic version of the overdose reversal drug Narcan.
Narcan is given as a nasal spray and the active ingredient in the medication -- naloxone -- can quickly restore breathing if someone is experiencing an opioid overdose and if it is administered in time.
In March 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Narcan to be distributed without a prescription -- a milestone advocates have said will make it easier to save lives amid the country's ongoing opioid epidemic.
The nasal spray became available in fall 2023 at pharmacies, drugstores and grocery stores as well as online retailers with a suggested price of $44.99 for a two-dose box.
Walgreens said its over-the-counter version will be called Walgreens Brand Naloxone HCI Nasal Spray and will be priced at $34.99.
The pharmacy said the generic version is currently available online and will be available at stores across the country by the end of the month. It will be found in the pain aisle.
"As a leading healthcare services company rooted in a retail pharmacy footprint, Walgreens is committed to removing barriers to naloxone access," Dr. Priya Mammen, senior medical director in the Walgreens office of clinical integrity, said in a press release.
"As an emergency physician, I have for years combatted the devastating impacts of the opioid overdose epidemic and worked tirelessly to save lives. Expanding access to naloxone is a critical step in empowering individuals, families, and communities to act and be part of the solution. We must all confront this crisis head-on to bring change," the statement continued.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says naloxone is safe for bystanders to administer to anyone who appears to be experiencing an overdose and will not hurt users if it turns out they are not experiencing an overdose.
Harm reduction groups and other experts have been pushing for easier access to naloxone, saying over-the-counter status means people won't have to speak to a pharmacist to purchase the drug, which lowers barriers to access and reduces stigma.
Walgreens did not immediately reply to ABC News' request for comment.
The U.S. has been battling a drug overdose epidemic for years. According to provisional data from the CDC published on Wednesday, there were an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2023, a high number albeit lower than the 111,029 deaths recorded in 2022.
The majority of these deaths were due to opioids, particularly synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.
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(NEW YORK) -- For the last few months, JN.1 has been the dominant COVID-19 variant in the United States, making up the majority of cases. A new variant, however, has taken over and may lead to an increase in cases this summer.
KP.2, which is an offshoot of the omicron variant, currently accounts for an estimated 28.2% of COVID cases after making up just 1.4% of cases in mid March, according to data from the Centers for Disease and Prevention.
Over the past four years, the U.S. has seen summer waves of COVID and this summer may also bring a rise in cases, but not severe as in past seasons.
"We've had four consecutive increases of COVID in the summers in the last four years," Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), told ABC News. "We expect an increase this summer too, but it probably won't be large and it probably won't be as profound as wintertime."
Chin-Hong said he would refer to the increase as more of a "swell" rather a "wave" or a "surge."
"Like when you're at the beach and you see the swell coming," he explained. "It's not like a tsunami, it's not like a huge wave crashing, it's just kind of like a little swell. But the swell does mean that some people are going to get sick."
Early data indicates KP.2 has more mutations to the spike protein than JN.1, which the virus uses to attach to -- and infect – cells, which could potentially make KP.2 more infectious.
"The virus' capacity to evolve is anticipated, and it's something we've prepared for in our ongoing public health response," said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor. "Given the seasonal patterns observed with COVID-19, a slight uptick in cases could be anticipated this summer, making ongoing surveillance and vaccination efforts all the more essential."
Experts say there is no clear evidence that KP.2 -- which some scientists have nicknamed "FLiRT" on social media but is not an official name used by the CDC or the World Health Organization -- causes more severe illness or is more deadly than previous variants.
While more studies are needed to see if KP.2 is better at evading current vaccines than other variants, Chin-Hong said his experience at UCSF's hospital over the past few weeks seems to indicate that vaccines are continuing to provide good protection.
He said the one common factor among all the patients hospitalized at UCSF with severe COVID is that none of them received the updated COVID vaccine that rolled out in fall 2023.
"If you haven't done, go ahead and get it," Chin-Hong said.
He added that it's especially important for those who are immunocompromised or more susceptible to severe disease, such as being aged 65 and over, to get vaccinated.
COVID hospitalizations have not been increasing in the U.S., a milestone for the nation.
In late April, the latest week for which data is available, the U.S. hit 5,615 COVID weekly hospitalizations. By comparison, there were more than 150,000 weekly admissions at the peak of the omicron variant circulating in early 2022.
Experts say the U.S. is in a much better place to fight COVID than at the start of the pandemic and new variants are a reminder to remain vigilant, but not to panic.
"We have to remember this virus is now part of the respiratory mix we handle yearly just like influenza and, just like influenza, we try to stay ahead of the game to prepare for any possible surge or to understand how well the vaccines are matched," Brownstein said. "This is all bread-and-butter public health surveillance. It's important to stay up-to-date with vaccines and remain vigilant and stay home when sick."
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(WEBSTER, N.Y.) -- An upstate New York nurse has been accused of falsifying vaccine records for more than 100 children across the state.
The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) issued a $55,000 penalty against Sandra Miceli, a licensed nurse practitioner and registered professional nurse at Surviving Naturally in Monroe County.
Miceli is accused of falsifying immunization records for 116 school-aged children for nearly 550 different scheduled vaccinations.
Health professionals say that by lying about the vaccination status of dozens of children, Miceli left them exposed to numerous communicable diseases including measles, chickenpox and polio.
"Falsifying school-aged children's vaccine records endangers both the child and their peers, as vaccination is the best protection against preventable disease," NYSDOH Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said in a statement this week.
"Furthermore, this is an example of how the spread of vaccine misinformation undermines the entire system that exists to protect the public's health. The New York State Department of Health will continue to investigate those who falsify vaccine records and use all available enforcement tools against those who have been found to have committed such violations," the statement continued.
Both Miceli and an attorney representing her declined an ABC News request to comment.
Miceli is the owner and operator of Surviving Naturally, a so-called "natural wellness center" in Webster, a suburb of Rochester, according to an investigation by the NYSDOH Bureau of Investigations.
From July 2019 through February 2021, Miceli provided false information to the New York State Immunization Information System (NYSIIS) about 546 vaccinations that never occurred and children who were never vaccinated, according to the health department.
The majority of children that Miceli falsely claimed had been vaccinated live and attend schools in Monroe County and Western New York, but some lived as far away as New York City, according to the NYSDOH.
All of the unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children Miceli claimed were immunized must be fully up-to-date on their required vaccinations or be in the process of receiving the missing vaccinations before returning to school or day care, the NYSDOH said.
In its investigation, the NYSDOH says they learned that Miceli would purchase a small supply of vaccines and pretend to administer doses to children. For one vaccine, she reported that she had administered 30 times the number of doses than she had purchased, according to the NYSDOH.
Miceli allegedly was a longtime opponent of vaccines and vaccine mandates, which she made clear on social media, according to the NYSDOH. On Surviving Naturally's Facebook page, officials say, she posted material claiming vaccines have "unidentified contaminants" that lead to autism, pregnancy miscarriage, cancer, and death.
"In posting anti-vaccination propaganda on social media, Miceli spread dangerous public-health falsehoods and sowed fear about vaccines at the same time that she claimed, as a licensed nurse, to be protecting public health by administering immunizations required for enrollment in schools and day cares," the NYSDOH said in a press release.
Miceli also allegedly expressed her opposition to a New York state bill that eliminated non-medical exemptions from the state's school and day care vaccine requirements. The bill was passed by the state legislature and became law in June 2019.
Miceli was fined $55,000 by the New York State Department of Health for her alleged actions, $30,000 of which she was ordered to pay within 10 days of the stipulation and order going into effect. The remainder of the penalty will be suspended as long as Miceli is compliant with the terms set forth in the order, according to the NYSDOH. Those terms include refraining from facilitating, aiding, abetting, advising, recommending, or conspiring in any scheme to misrepresent vaccination status, the NYSDOH says.
Additionally, Miceli and other staff of Surviving Naturally are "permanently excluded" from the NYSIIS, and are barred from administering any vaccine that is required to be reported to the NYSIIS, the NYSDOH says.
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(NEW YORK) -- The City Council in Long Beach, California, voted Tuesday to ratify a local public health emergency order after an outbreak of tuberculosis sickened several people.
The outbreak is linked to a single-room occupancy hotel, a form of affordable housing meant for low- or minimal income residents, according to the city's public information office.
As of April 29, 14 cases have been confirmed and approximately 170 people have likely been exposed.
Nine have been hospitalized and one person has died.
Here is everything you need to know about TB, including how it spreads, what are the symptoms and how to prevent infection:
What is TB?
Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The bacteria typically attack the lungs but can also attack other parts of the body including kidneys, spine and brain.
Not everyone infected with TB bacteria becomes sick, resulting in two TB-related conditions: latent TB infection and TB disease.
People with latent TB infections will usually test positive for TB via a skin test or blood test but will not feel sick or have symptoms and will not spread TB bacteria to others.
Meanwhile, those with TB disease fall sick often have symptoms including chest pain, coughing up blood, fatigue, weakness, fever, chills, sweating, lack of appetite and weight loss, the CDC said. Additionally, someone with TB disease can spread the bacteria to others.
How does TB spread?
When a person with TB disease coughs, sneezes, speaks or sings, bacteria can spread through the air and a non-infected patient can breathe in the bacteria. These bacteria can settle in the lungs and then move throughout the body.
The disease is not spread by shaking hands, sharing food or drinks, touching clothes, touching bed linens, sharing toothbrushes or kissing, according to the CDC.
The CDC said people with TB disease are most likely to spread the illness to close contacts including family, friends, coworkers and classmates.
Those who are exposed to TB bacteria but not infected cannot immediately spread the disease to people; only people with active disease can do so, according to the CDC.
"Before you would be able to spread TB to others, you would have to breathe in TB bacteria and become infected," the CDC says on its website. "Then the active bacteria would have to multiply in your body and cause active TB disease. At this point, you could possibly spread TB bacteria to others."
What treatments are available for TB?
There are several treatment regimens for TB disease that may last anywhere from four months to nine months depending on the course of treatment. Health care providers may consider specific regimens for patients with co-existing medical conditions such as diabetes or HIV.
Those with latent TB infections, should consult a health care provider for a specific treatment regimen.
About 5% to 10% of people who don't receive treatment for latent TB infection will develop TB disease at some point, according to the CDC.
How to prevent TB
In the U.S., the TB vaccine exists, but it is only for people who meet specific criteria, and should be given in consultation with a TB expert, according to the CDC.
In other countries where TB is common, the vaccine is often given to infants and small children.
The CDC recommends that Americans who visit other countries where TB is more common should avoid close contact or prolonged time with known TB patients in crowded, enclosed environments, and to have a TB skin or blood test upon return to the U.S.
What is the latest on the outbreak in California?
Long Beach City Health Officer Dr. Anissa Davis declared a local public health emergency last week before it was ratified by the City Council on Tuesday.
This allows the city to mobilize resources, accelerate emergency plans, coordinate with other agencies and allow the city to expedite the purchase of necessarily supplies to identify and treat TB.
Long Beach public health officials, however, say the risk of TB for people who live, work, study or visit in Long Beach remains very low.
In 2022, there were 8,331 TB cases reported in the U.S., an increase from 2021 but lower than 2019, CDC data shows. There were 602 deaths in 2021, the latest date for which data is available.
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