Explore this hantavirus cruise ship outbreak case map from May 2026

This rare zoonotic disease, transmitted to humans primarily through infected rodent droppings, urine, or saliva, is rarely spread between people. The disease was of particular concern in spring 2026, when an outbreak occurred on a 150-person cruise ship, prompting a flurry of action, including contact tracing for passengers in their home countries. The disease can be fatal. But early care—primarily oxygen support—can help patients survive.

CruiseMapper is a live global tracker covering hundreds of vessels across major cruise lines. The site layers in port schedules, cabin-level deck plans, repositioning voyages, and a searchable database of 15 incident types—fires, groundings, virus outbreaks, drug smuggling, passenger deaths, and more.

More than 50 young children in Cambodia died in spring 2012 for unknown reasons, but laboratory testing of samples available from a limited number of those children came back positive for Enterovirus 71. That virus, which can cause HFMD, is known to cause severe complications among some people who contract the disease. But health officials concluded that poor baseline health and then incorrect treatment using steroids helped exacerbate their condition, helping lead to the deaths.

This chart shows when wild polio cases were last reported in each country worldwide. Beyond wild poliovirus, rare outbreaks can occur related to mutated strains of oral polio vaccine.

Mid-Atlantic states saw a surge of hand, foot, and mouth disease in 2025 for as-yet unknown reasons. Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey, reported elevated outbreak numbers in 2025 as compared to other recent years, but since the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not require mandatory reporting of positive HFMD cases—unlike strictly notifiable diseases like measles—it's hard to truly know the extent of the outbreaks and how significant the caseload is as compared to prior years across the region or country.

The first clinical report involved eight kids with the characteristic sores in New Zealand, and then in the years that followed there were dozens more cases there and also reports of outbreaks in England and Scotland, among other settings, including the US.

The state's own tracking showed a significant jump in HFMD cases in July 2025 as compared to the prior few years, and that more people were visiting the emergency room and urgent care centers for the disease, but epidemiologists could not explain why the numbers were so high.

Explore the data showing how the fungus C. auris has spread in the US, with more than 10,000 reported cases since 2016. Recommended steps to prevent infections and limit their spread have been successful in some areas, but infection control remains complicated because the fungus is often now multidrug-resistant.

In 2025, certain eastern states including Virginia and West Virginia reported a sizable uptick in their HFMD cases, particularly in their schools and daycare centers, though the reason for the larger outbreaks remains unknown. When adults or teens get the disease, their symptoms are usually mild or even asymptomatic. Still, they may pass the disease between people, too.

When the USS Oklahoma capsized amid the attacks, hundreds of sailors were buried within the ship's hull. Officials have used advances in forensic science to analyze DNA and dental evidence to help identify nearly 400 sailors decades after the fact.

Floating communities like Schoonschip in Amsterdam are offering a novel approach to combat climate change-induced flooding. With sea levels rising and storms becoming more intense, these floating neighborhoods are providing a sustainable flood defense solution. Learn how they work here.

A 292-foot Whaleback ship, Barge 129, was found in Lake Superior 120 years after a storm sank it, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society said.

The cases, reported in Florida, Texas, Maryland, and Arkansas, broke a 20-year streak since there had been no reported locally acquired mosquito-transmitted malaria in the country since 2003, when there was a case in Florida.

This global health threat sickened more than half a million people in 2023 and killed 4,007 people. That's a 71% increase in deaths as compared to a year earlier. (Report only offered in PDF format.)

Rising temperatures and water levels are forcing animals and pathogens beyond their typical boundaries. This article and its data visualizations explore the proliferation of climate-driven diseases.

This platform uses satellite data to track chokepoints and trade disruptions along the shipping lanes that crisscross the globe. Search for data from more than 1,600 ports, or run the climate scenario simulator.

This bacterium, which belongs to the same genus as the cholera bacterium, was initially isolated from deep-sea hydrothermal fields. It was sampled from water that was scooped up during a French-American cruise in October 1991.

Modern pandemics have been defined by the race between globalization (which increases risk) and the development of new medicines. The Great Influenza epidemic claimed some 50 million lives, and the COVID-19 pandemic killed more than 7 million. In between, diseases like Ebola, cholera, AIDS, and more have devastated communities.

For centuries, the Great Lakes have provided vital access to the Midwest from the Atlantic Ocean, allowing the establishment of key trading outposts and ultimately the growth of major cities in the region. An estimated 6,000 vessels were lost on the Great Lakes with approximately 1,500 of these ships located in Michigan waters. Explore the deadly legacy of the region with resources pulled together by the Michigan History Center.

Devastating diseases like smallpox, influenza, measles, and other viruses were largely introduced into the Western Hemisphere beginning with the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus and the ensuing age of exploration.

Collaborations between the military, biotech, and academic researchers led to an experimental antibody treatment for the Andes hantavirus strain—the one that more readily passes between humans. As of spring 2026, it had only been tested in animals. The US Army has also tested a potential hantavirus vaccine in people. It published early findings in 2023 that seemed promising, eliciting some immune system response.

The surge in HFMD in the summer and early fall of 2025 in the mid-Atlantic could be the result of a confluence of factors, including a more virulent strain of disease-causing virus, good environmental conditions for the virus to spread—hot, humd—and a potential immunity gap among kids due to milder HFMD outbreaks the previous year.

Fever is often the first symptom and then painful sores may develop a day or two later. Coxsackie A16 is currently the most common enterovirus that leads to the disease, though there are several other enteroviruses that can cause it as well.

Humpback flukes (or tails) are as individually distinct as fingerprints, which means a single photo is enough to match a whale to its full sighting history. Every upload adds a chapter (the database goes back to the 1970s) and the site uses AI to render that data as narrative, not just data.

A measles outbreak in the summer of 2025 ultimately led to more than 900 cases and the deaths of two young children. The highly contagious virus requires vaccination rates near 95% to achieve herd immunity—the Texas outbreak spread through areas of significant mistrust of vaccines, including the area’s Mennonite community.

Based on historical logs, this interactive maps shows info from various ports of departure and arrival during the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

A team of scientists—with the help of an uncrewed boat remotely controlled from the UK—join forces to produce one of the clearest pictures to date of what took place underneath the water as an enormous volcano erupted near the Tongan mainland.

This map underscores that people in the northeastern United States have more cases of the disease as compared to the south, west, and midwest. On an individual level, these numbers may still differ based on genetic makeup and other factors irrespective of where people live.

This graphic shows the burden of leprosy by region for 2023, based on data provided from the World Health Organization, which collates this information. Southeast Asia leads in the number of cases by region.