Health officials announce outbreak of dangerous virus with major impact: 'Early diagnosis ... [is] critical'
According to Radio New Zealand, Fiji's Health Ministry declared the outbreak in "three provinces in western and northern parts of Viti Levu: Ba province, Nadroga-Navosa province, and Ra province."
RNZ noted that dengue fever is typical "from October to April," which is the rainy season. Cases can also occur after heavy rain events. Unfortunately, Fiji has had bad weather since December 25.
Most of the current cases involve people between 10 and 29 years old.
RNZ reported the "Ministry said a Dengue Action Plan has been implemented, and monitoring of the situation by both the divisional heads and senior managers has been ongoing."
The Ministry urged the public to learn how dengue fever spreads and its symptoms. Mosquitoes spread it by biting an infected person and then passing it on by biting another person.
The illness typically lasts two to seven days, but severe cases can be deadly. An affected person will have flu-like symptoms.
High fever can be accompanied by two other symptoms: headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle or joint pain, rash, pain behind the eyes, and loss of appetite. Someone infected could also experience other symptoms, such as diarrhea and swollen glands.
People who believe they have been infected with dengue fever should immediately get medical treatment.
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RNZ wrote, "Early diagnosis and management of symptoms are critical to reducing the risk of complications and avoid further spread of the virus."
While a typical case of dengue fever lasts a few days to a week, Mount Sinai says "1 out of 20 people with dengue will develop severe dengue within a few hours after symptoms start." Someone who has been infected with dengue previously is at significant risk of contracting a severe case.
According to Yale Environment 360, deforestation is increasing "the spread of life-threatening diseases such as … dengue fever." The outlet also noted scientists are concerned that "the next global pandemic could come out of the forest and spread quickly around the world."
The Fiji Health Ministry is monitoring the current dengue fever. However, organizations like the United States Agency for International Development provide vaccines for countries affected by dengue fever. This can help protect Americans from falling sick when visiting those parts of the world. For instance, Business Standard reported that USAID, in partnership with Takeda Biopharma, created a dengue fever prevention program in 2024 in India.
Organizations that work to combat these diseases must continue to run. You can use your voice to speak to your representative to ensure these organizations have the necessary resources to do their work.
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Buzz Feed
5 hours ago
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102 Weird Facts That Are Wild, Random, And Fun
I don't know about anyone else, but I love learning interesting, bizarre, and straight-up weird facts about anything and everything. (In fact, it's quite a conversation starter.) That said, here are some wacky, intriguing, strange, and somewhat funny facts that sound somewhat fake but are entirely true: Germany has more castles than there are McDonald's in the United States. Yep, you heard that right. Germany is estimated to have 25,000 castles, and there are around 13,000 McDonald's locations in America. In Washington state, there's a real-life law stating it's illegal to kill Bigfoot and other sasquatch-like creatures. And you know what? Good for them. Dogs are one of the three deadliest animals in the UK. The other two are bees and cows. Sloths are slow in everything they do — including digestion. Because they digest foods so slowly, they basically have to breathe out their farts because they can't *actually* fart. If a bunch of gas builds up in a sloth's intestines, it could get sick and potentially even burst. Rather than farting, the gases are reabsorbed into the bloodstream and are then respired out of the about morning breath. There are caves in Missouri that store 1.4 billion pounds of government-owned cheese. Located deep in the Ozark Mountains in limestone-converted mines, the caves are kept at a perfect 36°F. As someone who's lactose intolerant, my stomach is in knots just thinking about it. This one actually made me do a double-take: Cornflakes were invented to suppress sexual impulses and desires. John Harvey Kellogg invented cornflakes in 1894, but it was later used as part of an extreme diet promoted by his church to basically suppress horniness. Kellog thought sex and masturbation were abnormal and unhealthy, so he believed cornflakes — and their lack of flavor — would help fight off any desire. Cockroach dust plays a part in why so many inner-city children have asthma. A single cloud can weigh about 550 tons or more. Believe it or not, Canadians eat more Kraft macaroni and cheese than Americans. Like, 55% more. Giraffes in the wild only sleep for around five minutes at a time. Because of the dangers they face in the wild, not only do they sleep while standing, but they also sleep intermittently so that they're prepared to run at any given moment. If keeping watch for a giraffe as they slept was a job, I'd apply in a heartbeat. Snoop Dogg's government name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. Despite being four inches long, the mantis shrimp throws the fastest punch in the world. The definition of small but mighty, mantis shrimps can throw punches up to 50mph — enough to break through their glass tanks. In Switzerland, owning only one guinea pig or parrot is illegal. If you're drunk or violent in Japan, police will take a plastic sheet and roll you up like a burrito. Police in Japan rarely ever resort to violence, as they choose to de-escalate the situation at hand first. After the wrapping, police will take the drunk or violent person to the station to let them calm down. If they wanted to, Clownfish could change their sex, including reproductive organs, through an irreversible process. No one commits to the bit better than Toni Collete. When she was a teen, she faked having appendicitis to get out of going to school so well that she actually got her appendix taken out. There's a rare neurological disorder called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, which is a condition related to how you perceive your body, the world around you, or both. A grizzly bear's bite is strong enough to crush a bowling ball, but that won't stop my first instinct from being, "Aww, look how cute!" Twice a month, the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport brings in miniature horses to help calm the nerves of people with flying anxiety. Male ducks have corkscrew-shaped penises. Miss Piggy's original name was going to be Piggy Lee. Fabulous either way. If you say you're not afraid of anything, I have some news for you: Humans are innately born with the fear of falling and loud noises. Whatever other fears one may have are shaped or learned with experience. Considering gelatin is made up of animal skin and bones, gummy worms technically have more bones than actual worms (since worms don't have any). Lady Gaga, bless her heart, once spent $50K on a ghost detector. To protect themselves from their super-strong pecks, woodpeckers wrap their tongues around their brains. What a cool party trick. For her role in Winter's Bone, Jennifer Lawrence learned how to skin a squirrel. Pound cake is called that because the original recipe used one pound of each ingredient. In the Great Barrier Reef, there's a coral reef that's taller than the Empire State Building. Male giraffes will taste a female giraffe's urine to see if she is ready to mate. Even in the animal kingdom, men cannot mind their business. On average, lightning strikes Earth 100 times per second. It saddens me to report that Winnie the Pooh was banned from a Polish playground because the honey-obsessed bear doesn't wear pants. As if it's his fault! Attempting to get kids to eat more vegetables, McDonald's engineer bubblegum-flavored broccoli. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't a hit. Blue whales are the baddies of the ocean (sorry, orcas), and if I were a sea creature, I would never, ever tussle with one, especially considering a blue whale's tongue alone can weigh more than an elephant. Due to their genes, redheads may need about 20% more anesthesia than non-redheads. I literally never thought about Barbie being called anything other than Barbie, but her full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. There are more possible chess game variations than atoms in the universe. The warty comb jellyfish doesn't have an anus, so when it needs to poop, its gut fuses with an outer layer of its "skin" to create a hole in its body. After the deed is done, the hole closes right back up. In Thailand, there's an annual Monkey Buffet Festival where residents of Lopburi leave 4.5 tons of fruit, veggies, and other treats to honor the approximately 3,000 monkeys that live near the Phra Prang Sam Yot temple. Way better than Coachella, IMO. I was pleased to find out that a buttload is an actual unit of measurement! One buttload is equivalent to 126 gallons of wine. Back in the day, Victorians ate arsenic to get a paler complexion. There's a church decorated with the bones of 40,000 people in Czechia. Sharks were roaming the planet before Saturn's rings formed. With this information, this is a shark's world, and we're all just living in it. There are more fake flamingos in the world than real ones. Humans typically produce 0.5 to 1.5 liters of saliva every day. 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The short-horned lizard squirts blood out of its eyes — at a distance of up to three feet — to confuse predators. However, the blood contains a chemical that makes dogs, wolves, and coyotes noxious. Love that. A rainbow on Venus is called a "glory." Frogs use their eyes to help them swallow their meals. When a frog swallows food, its eyes pull down to the roof of their mouth to help push the food down its throat. Human brains are constantly eating themselves. To "cleanse" the system, cells will smother and consume smaller cells or molecules in a process called phagocytosis. The fear of long words is called hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. After seeing that, I'm scared, too. Ants don't have lungs. Instead, they breathe through tiny holes on the sides of their bodies called spiracles. When lightning strikes, the air it passes through can reach up to 50,000°F — five times hotter than the sun's surface. Due to thermal expansion, the Eiffel Tower can "grow" up to six inches in the summer. Tigers don't just have striped fur but skin, too! If you were to shave a tiger, you'd find identical striped markings as if they were tattoos. If you go to the sky deck of the Willis Tower in Chicago on a clear day, you can see four other US states: Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. A blue whale's heartbeat can be heard from two miles away. Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins. Dolphins must come to the surface almost every 10 minutes, but sloths can hold their breath for 20 minutes or more by slowing down their heart rates. Before toiler paper, corn cobs were used as a method of wiping. This one might unsettle you, but snails have teeth. Snails can have up to 1,000 to 12,000 teeth. I don't know what they need those for, but good for them! I hope they have snail dentists, then. 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A polar bear's fur isn't actually white; it's translucent. It only appears white because it reflects visible light. It's certainly possible to use sign language with an accent. Australia is wider than the moon. The moon's diameter is around 2,112 miles, while Australia's is 2,485 miles. The fastest-moving muscle in the human body is the eyes. It's called the orbicularis oculi, and we have one in each eye. The Olympic rings were first produced in 1913, and they were designed to include all participating nations. The rings' colors, along with the white background, reflect the colors found on all of the countries' flags. How wholesome! There was once a French king who believed he was made of glass. King Charles IV had a psychiatric disorder called "Glass Delusion" and thought that he would shatter if anyone touched him. Beer was banned in Iceland until 1989. Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Steet was originally orange instead of green. 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The average Swiss person consumes about 48 pounds of cheese per year. Lastly: Walt Disney made it a rule for Disneyland not to sell chewing gum to keep the park clean. Wow, my brain is sweating from absorbing all that info. Instead of sending a "good morning" text, I'm just going to send one of these facts every day without any context. Do you know any interesting and fascinating facts? Let me know in the comments!
New York Post
11 hours ago
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New York Post
12 hours ago
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JB Pritzker's school-screening law mandates more mental illness — and your state could be next, parents
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker recently signed a bill to compel all Illinois schools to offer students mental-health screenings. Pritzker proclaimed the new law 'is a national first worth celebrating.' But his Children's Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative is far likelier to produce more jobs for therapists than better health for pupils. Academic achievement levels in Illinois schools have sharply declined in recent years, but that's not stopping politicians from further intruding into students' lives and minds. Therapy can help individuals deal with their struggles and crises. But permitting schools to pirouette as saviors is perilous considering today's unhinged notions of mental health. The American Psychological Association designated traditional masculinity a de facto mental illness in 2019, stating its 'stoicism' and similar traits are 'on the whole, harmful.' So only snowflakes are mentally healthy nowadays? 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Oxford University psychologist Lucy Foulkes observed school programs are 'creating this message that teenagers are vulnerable, they're likely to have problems, and the solution is to outsource them to a professional.' Foulkes explained in a paper she coauthored that 'awareness efforts' spur young people 'to interpret and report milder forms of distress as mental health problems.' Filing such complaints 'leads some individuals to experience a genuine increase in symptoms, because labeling distress as a mental health problem can affect an individual's self-concept and behavior in a way that is ultimately self-fulfilling.' Psychiatric labels can become a ball and chain that people drag behind them. Endless classroom presentations on mental health spur 'co-rumination' — excessively talking about one's problems — which evokes memories of first dates from hell. 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Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently lamented antidepressants are more addictive than heroin. Federal law compounds the peril of overdiagnosis of mental illnesses. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, individuals can demand 'reasonable accommodations' after they're certified anxious or depressed. The ADA has turned mental illness into entitlements for slacker students to get extra times for tests, no deadlines and other special treatment. Public schools are heading towards the same diagnosis deluge occurring on college campuses. A 2022 Boston University analysis of students on almost 400 campuses found '60% of students met criteria for one or more mental health problems, a nearly 50% increase from 2013.' Mental-health labels and interventions can be a Pandora's box. College 'students with both a mental health condition diagnosis and current moderate/severe symptoms of depression and/or anxiety' were 10 times more likely to contemplate suicide and 47 times more likely to attempt suicide than 'students with none/minimal depression and/or anxiety symptoms and no mental health condition diagnosis,' per a 2022 Journal of Affective Disorders study (emphasis added). But at least not everyone who received a mental-illness diagnosis attempted suicide. Rather than being a model for the nation, the Illinois Children's Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative is a warning to parents of the perils that may be coming to their state. Hooking kids on bogus labels and antidepressants has already ruined too many young lives. Passing out millions more psychiatric Purple Hearts will undermine the happiness and health of young Americans. James Bovard is the author of 11 books, including 'Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty.'
