(Lauren Pelley/ CBC News) — It’s another busy fall in Canadian hospitals, with emergency department closures, long wait times, and ongoing staff shortages all making headlines.

The situation can turn deadly: Two people died while waiting for care at the Anna-Laberge   …

(My Science) — It is generally accepted that the virus responsible for cold sores is transmitted via saliva or direct contact with the lesions it causes. However, there are other potential transmission routes, according to a study published by a team from Université Laval in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. In fact,  …

(Amy Sacks/ Everyday Health) — If you’re like most people, you’ve almost definitely been infected with RSV — respiratory syncytial (sin-SISH-ul) virus — at least once. In fact it’s likely you’ve had RSV multiple times. This seasonal virus is so widespread that almost all of us have had an RSV infection by the time   …

(Megan DeLaire/ CTV News) — Countries across the globe are reporting a sustained spike in the number of invasive Group A streptococcus (iGAS) infections at a time when the season for strep infections should be winding down, and Canada is among them.

iGAS is a potentially life-threatening infection involving  …

(France 24.com) — Chilly weather and colds often go hand in hand. Reasons for this include people gather inside more in winter, and viruses survive better in low-humidity indoor air. But there has been less certainty about whether lower temperatures actually impair human immunity and, if so, how.

Now, a new study published  …

(Lauren Pelley/ CBC News) — Canada is on track to face its first full flu season in several years — one that’s starting earlier than usual, all while the country’s healthcare system is already grappling with respiratory infections like COVID-19 and RSV.

It’s hard to know how the months ahead will play  …

(Kevin Woodward/ The Conversation) — The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared monkeypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. It’s likely that until about two months ago, many Canadians had not even heard of this disease.

Since May, monkeypox has been in the news everywhere, including Canada,   …

(Lauren Pelley/ CBC News) — As global outbreaks of monkeypox made headlines, Dr. Antoine Cloutier-Blais’s Montreal clinic began seeing patients with unusual — and often painful — bodily lesions.

By early June, the family physician and his colleagues had treated around 15 patients with confirmed infections,   …

(Jon Cohen/ Science) — The sudden appearance of monkeypox in 13 countries on four continents has jolted the public health community into action. A much milder cousin of smallpox that sporadically causes small outbreaks in Africa, monkeypox is thought to spread slowly and is unlikely to be a pandemic in the making.

But scientists  …

(Heidi Ledford/ Nature) — In the chaos of the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, oncologist and geneticist Ami Bhatt was intrigued by widespread reports of vomiting and diarrhoea in people infected with SARS-CoV-2.

“At that time, this was thought to be a respiratory virus,” she says. Bhatt and her colleagues, curious  …