Israel Health News API

{
    "totalArticles": 19924,
    "articles": [
        {
            "id": "dd2c734db8e4375f4c9479ba1943c790",
            "title": "Lethal plague outbreaks in Lake Baikal hunter-gatherers 5,500 years ago",
            "description": "Plague is among the most devastating diseases in human history1. However, early strains of the plague-causing bacterium Yersinia pestis lacked virulence factors that are required for the bubonic form until around 3,800 years ago2,3. Consequently, the morbidity and mortality of early plague strains remain unclear. Here we describe early plague strains that are associated with two phases of outbreaks among mid-Holocene hunter-gatherers near Lake Baikal in southeast Siberia, beginning from about 5,500 years ago. These outbreaks occur across four hunter-gatherer cemeteries, with a 39% detection rate for plague infection. By reconstructing kinship pedigrees, we show that small familial groups were affected, consistent with human-to-human spread of disease, and that the first outbreak occurred within a single generation. The infections appear to have resulted in acute mortality, especially among children (aged 8 to 11 years). We further note functional differences, including in the ypm superantigen locus, which is also present in present day Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. The new strains diverge ancestrally to known Y. pestis and constrain the timing of its emergence, indicating that this happened before approximately 5,700 years ago. These findings show that plague outbreaks happened earlier than previously thought and were indeed lethal. We contend that the occurrence of outbreaks among mid-Holocene hunter-gatherer communities well outside the sphere of Late Neolithic Europe challenges the notion that higher population densities and lifestyle changes during the Neolithic agricultural transition were prerequisites for plague epidemics. Analyses of ancient DNA from hunter-gatherers near Lake Baikal in southeast Siberia around 5,500 years ago indicate that highly virulent Yersinia pestis emerged earlier than previously estimated, far from the next known cases of infection in Late Neolithic Europe.",
            "content": "The analysis of ancient pathogen genomes has significantly expanded our understanding of the evolutionary history of human infectious diseases (for example, Salmonella enterica4 and hepatitis B5), although this has principally been in the context of ... [46852 chars]",
            "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10540-5?error=cookies_not_supported&code=1a7c2599-1f13-43df-b36c-456c3cae4b89",
            "image": "https://media.springernature.com/m685/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41586-026-10540-5/MediaObjects/41586_2026_10540_Fig1_HTML.png",
            "publishedAt": "2026-06-17T21:23:42Z",
            "lang": "en",
            "source": {
                "id": "7abf0df285fbe93cdccffcc7c4088737",
                "name": "Nature",
                "url": "https://www.nature.com"
            }
        },
        {
            "id": "28aaebb47f4d43b24dc4fa077fb8d6f5",
            "title": "Most Cases of HIV Persistence in Blood Following Treatment Explained by Defective Copies of the Virus",
            "description": "Around 95% of detectable virus was defective due to mutations or deletions in HIV-1 RNA that prevented the generation of infectious virus.",
            "content": "Antiretroviral drugs for HIV infection have enabled most people living with the virus to live long and healthy lives. However, a small portion of people experience detectable — and worrisome — traces of the virus that causes AIDS despite strict adher... [5356 chars]",
            "url": "https://www.poz.com/article/cases-hiv-persistence-blood-following-treatment-explained-defective-copies-virus",
            "image": "https://cdn.poz.com/168037_HIV-illustration-2.jpg_8be524fc-77a7-4008-b9aa-04e5bc446eb2_x2.jpg",
            "publishedAt": "2026-06-17T18:26:47Z",
            "lang": "en",
            "source": {
                "id": "9b23af432a09e08c13be06639ebd3fe2",
                "name": "poz.com",
                "url": "https://www.poz.com"
            }
        },
        {
            "id": "c54981f0ad124c4d91283a7f7ba9a4fe",
            "title": "Machine-learning how to overcome antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea",
            "description": "AI-enabled antibiotic discovery proves effective at identifying new chemical structures and targets in the constant fight against antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea",
            "content": "AI-enabled antibiotic discovery proves effective at identifying new chemical structures and targets in the constant fight against antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea\nBy Benjamin Boettner\n(BOSTON) — With tens of millions of annual cases, gonorrhea is the s... [8245 chars]",
            "url": "https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/machine-learning-how-to-overcome-antibiotic-resistant-gonorrhea/",
            "image": "https://wyss-prod.imgix.net/app/uploads/2026/06/16140539/shutterstock_1174971127-scaled.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=faces%2Centropy&fit=crop&q=50&w=800&s=7b8626ef4721a534c7a2068c4b09d1f5",
            "publishedAt": "2026-06-17T17:58:20Z",
            "lang": "en",
            "source": {
                "id": "820364dbef00e13f74c26a813d612784",
                "name": "Wyss Institute at Harvard",
                "url": "https://wyss.harvard.edu"
            }
        }
    ]
}