A flesh-eating bacterial infection tied to black tar heroin has killed seven people in San Diego,  the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency reported Dec. 4. 

Flu activity in the U.S. has been rising over the past four weeks, with nine of 10 regions at or above their baseline activity for the week ending Nov. 30, according to the CDC's most recent FluView report.

An estimated 140,000 people died from measles in 2018, a 55 percent increase from an all-time low of 90,000 deaths reported in 2016, according to a new report from the CDC and WHO.  

In a lawsuit filed Dec. 5 against UNC Children's Hospital in Chapel Hill, N.C., the parents of a 3-year-old patient who died after heart surgery claim the hospital did not disclose internal concerns about its care quality, The New York Times reports.

The U.S. should consider impaired financial decision-making an early sign of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, Eric Chess, MD, director of the Financial Security and Cognitive Health Initiative at the University of Denver's Knoebel Institute for Healthy Aging, argued in an opinion piece published Dec. 5 by STAT.  

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance on Dec. 5 agreed to contribute 500,000 doses of the Ebola vaccine to the global emergency stockpile, reports STAT.

One patient and more than three dozen clinicians were diagnosed with scabies at Jupiter (Fla.) Medical Center last month, reports NBC affiliate WPTV.

As part of an effort to improve food-safety practices, Chipotle has nurses check whether  employees calling in sick are genuinely ill, according to Business Insider. 

HIV-positive babies were given antiretrovirals within days of being born and, after two years of ARV therapy, the virus was almost undetectable, according to a study published Nov. 27 in Science Translational Medicine. 

Being a high-quality physician is about so much more than having a board certification or working for a well-known health system, two clinicians wrote in a Dec. 3 op-ed published in JAMA.

The state of Iowa will pay a former patient at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics $1.2 million to settle a lawsuit alleging physicians left a towel and staple in his bowel after surgery, reports the Iowa City Press Citizen.

A vaping-related lung injury case closely resembles injury from exposure to hard metals such as cobalt, according to a case study published Dec 4. in the European Respiratory Journal.

Health officials in Alaska reported the state's first case of e-cigarette or vaping-associated lung injury Dec. 3, according to The Hill.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the state's first flu-related death of the 2019-20 season Dec. 4.

A nurse snowshoed two and a half hours to work at Duluth, Minn.-based St. Luke's following a Nov. 30 blizzard that brought nearly two feet of snow, according to ABC affiliate WDIO.

Intermountain Healthcare will roll out a new antibiotic stewardship initiative at urgent care sites systemwide, the health system announced Nov. 19.

The United States is leading global public health efforts to address the threat of antibiotic resistance, but Americans must also do their part, HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD, wrote in an op-ed for STAT.

Springfield, Mo.-based Cox Medical Center South informed a couple that, after a stillbirth, their baby's remains are missing, providing no explanation as to how or where the infant's body is, according to the Springfield News-Leader.

HIV testing, treatment and prevention efforts must improve in order to achieve the U.S. goal of reducing the new infection rate by 90 percent in the next 10 years, according to a CDC Vital Signs report published Dec. 3. 

Hospitals in Louisiana saw much larger volumes of flu patients this November compared to the same month last year, reports CNN.