The CDC estimates up to 4 million Americans suffer from the chronic effects of Hepatitis C. It’s a viral infection that attacks the liver. One small clinic in Buffalo, New York, is proving this doesn’t have to be the case. Dr. Céline Gounder reports.

The Chinese city of Wuhan is going under quarantine to contain the new and deadly coronavirus. As Ramy Inocencio reports, health officials are considering declaring an international health emergency.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is issuing its most urgent travel warning to stop the deadly outbreak of the coronavirus. There are now two more possible cases in the U.S. Carter Evans reports.

Kinshasa, Congo – Congo’s health minister said Thursday the country’s government was on alert over a mystery flu-like disease that has killed dozens of people in recent weeks, nearly half of whom were children. Authorities have so far confirmed 71 deaths, including 27 people who died in hospitals and 44 in the community in the southern Kwango province, health minister Roger Kamba said.

“The Congolese government is on general alert regarding this disease,” Kamba said, without providing more details.

Of the victims who were hospitalized, 10 died due to a lack of blood transfusions and 17 as a result of respiratory problems, Kamba said.

Authorities have said symptoms of the illness include fever, headache, cough and anemia. Epidemiological experts were in the region to take samples and investigate the disease, the health minister said.

Congo is already plagued by the mpox epidemic, with more than 47,000 suspected cases and over 1,000 suspected deaths from the disease in the Central African country, according to the World Health Organization.

Authorities in the country began vaccinating people against mpox in October, nearly two months after the outbreak that spread from Congo to several African countries and beyond was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.

More than 30,000 people are diagnosed with HIV every year in this country. But this is not a problem for any single community. Almost a quarter of Americans are infected through intimate heterosexual contact. Medication to prevent HIV infection through sexual contact, known as “PrEP,” is 99% effective when taken as prescribed. But as CBS News medical contributor and editor at large for Public Health at KFF Dr. Celine Gounder reports, not everyone at risk for HIV is getting the message.

In its battle against the fentanyl epidemic, the DEA is intensifying crackdowns on pill press usage, crucial in the illicit production of fentanyl-laced pills. The agency is now putting e-commerce platforms on notice to regulate sales under existing laws to avoid facing legal action.

World leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday to discuss Disease X, a hypothetical virus 20 times deadlier than COVID-19.

While such a virus isn’t known to currently exist, researchers, scientists and experts are hoping to proactively come up with a plan of action to combat such a virus and prepare the health system if it were to emerge as a pandemic — a possibility one expert told CBS News could happen sooner than we think.

“There are strains of viruses that have very high mortality rates that could develop the ability to transmit efficiently from human to human,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

What is Disease X?

In 2022, the World Health Organization brought together 300 scientists to look into 25 virus families and bacteria to create a list of pathogens that they believe have the potential to wreak havoc and should be studied more. Included on that list is Disease X, which was first recognized by the organization in 2018.

The WHO says the virus “represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by [an unknown] pathogen.” 

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday in Davos that COVID-19 may have been our first “Disease X,” and that scientists and experts are actively learning from that experience.

From where could a pathogen like Disease X originate?

A deadly pathogen like Disease X, which would likely be a respiratory virus, according to Adalja, could already be circulating in animal species and is just not able to be transmitted to humans yet.

“That could be bats like COVID-19, it could be in birds like bird flu, or it could be some other type of animal species, swine for example,” he said. “It’s really about that interface between humans and animals, where interactions are occurring, that these types of viruses get a foothold.”

How are experts preparing for Disease X?

If we are unprepared, it is likely a disease of that scale could cause even more damage than we experienced with COVID-19, which has killed more than 7 million people, according to the WHO.

“If we did so poorly with something like COVID-19, you can imagine how poorly we would do with something like a 1918-level event,” Adalja said, referring to the influenza pandemic of 1918 that killed an estimated 50 million people around the world, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

That’s why experts from around the world have been working on a robust and effective plan to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Ghebreyesus said an early-warning system and a plan for health infrastructure, which was overburdened during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to many deaths, could help in a future scenario. 

“Whether it’s in health systems or even the private sector, by the way — research and development — you can prepare for it,” he said.

Another major lesson from COVID-19 is the importance of transparency, Adalja said.

“I think what we see now is this distrust between infectious disease physicians, public health practitioners and the general public, because what happened is politicians injected themselves into this,” he said. “People may not actually be receptive to the protective actions that are being recommended by public health officials.”

Ghebreyesus said the WHO, in partnership with other global organizations, has already put initiatives in place in preparation for the next major pandemic or epidemic. These efforts include the pandemic fund to help nations with resources, the mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub to ensure vaccine equity for low-income nations and the hub for pandemic and epidemic intelligence to improve collaborative surveillance between countries.

At least 20 people were arrested on Tuesday after dozens ransacked stores belonging to Apple, Lululemon, and Foot Locker. Footage captured by onlookers and posted to social media showed police officers overwhelmed by thieves pouring out of stores and fleeing with stolen goods in hand. 

The incident highlights the dilemma bricks-and-mortar retailers face as they come to grips with an epidemic of organized shoplifting. Nowadays even baby formula can be found locked behind anti-theft plexiglass. 

“America is going full Joker,” Musk posted to his social media platform X on Tuesday.

The 2019 film he referenced stars Joaquin Phoenix in an Oscar-winning turn as the titular anti-hero whose actions inadvertently spark a riot in the city of Gotham, a tinderbox of violent crime just waiting to go off. 

Perhaps more than any fictional work of late, its portrayal of society coming apart at the seams has come to symbolize the “late-stage civilization vibes” that Musk claims to feel of late when witnessing scenes of rampant theft.

Despite a resilient economy and robust job market, more and more Americans fear the country has reached its cultural peak and now faces the same fate as the Roman Empire. There may even be an unhealthy obsession about Rome, with the subject garnering over 1 billion views on TikTok. 

Musk wasn’t alone in his bleak reaction to Tuesday’s news even if others viewed the income inequality that centibillionaires such as him helped create as part of—if not the root of—the problem.

“Welcome to late stage capitalism,” hacker group Anonymous posted from its official account on Tuesday.

America is going full Joker

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 27, 2023

The ugly scenes coming out of Philadelphia are symptomatic of a broader trend. Retail theft is a $112 billion a year problem, according to a 2023 retail security survey by the National Retail Federation published earlier on Tuesday. 

“Retailers are seeing unprecedented levels of theft coupled with rampant crime in their stores, and the situation is only becoming more dire,” warned senior NRF official David Johnston in an accompanying statement.

Target says theft is forcing it to close nine stores in four states

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon has argued these added costs arising from looting, shoplifting and organized theft either have to be passed on to the customer or result in some stores simply shutting down.

Rival retailer Target is one of those. On Tuesday it said it would close nine stores across four states after efforts to clamp down on theft proved insufficient. 

“We invested heavily in strategies to prevent and stop theft and organized retail crime in our stores, such as adding more security team members, using third-party guard services and implementing theft-deterrent tools across our business,” it said. “Despite our efforts, unfortunately we continue to face fundamental challenges to operating these stores safely and successfully.” 

Another chain facing this very real possibility, according to the Wall Street Journal, is Rite Aid, coincidentally headquartered in Philadelphia. The third largest drugstore provider has incurred a heavy burden from shoplifting and organized retail theft in urban areas in recent months.  

“We’re looking at literally putting everything behind showcases to ensure the products are there for customers who want to buy it,” Andre Persaud, its chief retail officer, told investors last September.

The company did not immediately respond to a request by Fortune for comment.

Kroger said Friday that it will pay up to $1.4 billion over 11 years to settle most of the litigation against the grocery giant stemming from the opioid epidemic that has ravaged the U.S. for more than a decade.

Kroger, one of the country’s largest supermarket and drugstore chains, said the money will go to states and local governments, including $36 million to Native American tribes, to help fund treatment and other efforts to deal with the ongoing crisis. Another $177 million will go to cover attorney costs and related legal fees. 

Kroger has stores in 35 states, and 33 would be eligible for money as part of the deal. The company previously announced settlements with New Mexico and West Virginia.

“This is an important milestone in the company’s efforts to resolve the pending opioid litigation and support abatement efforts,” Kroger said in a statement. “Kroger has long served as a leader in combating opioid abuse and remains committed to patient safety.”

The company did not admit any wrongdoing or liability under the settlement. 

Opioids kill an estimated 80,000 people a year in the U.S., with the latest wave of deaths tied to illicit synthetic drugs such as fentanyl rather than prescription painkillers.

Jayne Conroy, a lawyer for the governments suing the companies, told The Associated Press in an interview Friday that it is appropriate that major prescription drug providers help fund efforts to deal with the devastating impact of opioids.

“It really isn’t a different problem,” she said. “The problem is the massive amount of addiction. That addiction stems from the massive amount of prescription drugs.”

Many of the nation’s largest retailers have paid out billions of dollars to states and cities around the country to resolve lawsuits over their role in dispensing opioids, which experts say has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the U.S. and other countries around the world. 

In May, for example, Walgreens agreed to pay San Francisco nearly $230 million to settle a case over the pharmacy chain’s distribution of opioids. 

Walmart this summer reached a $168 million deal with Texas prosecutors, who had accused the largest U.S. retailer of worsening the opioid crisis. That followed a $3.1 billion settlement Walmart struck in 2022, while pharmacy gains CVS and Walgreens last year agreed to pay more than $10 billion combined to resolve opioid-related suits. 

Opioid litigation is continuing against other retailers, including supermarket chains Publix and Albertsons. Pharmacy benefit managers such as Express Scripts and OptumRx also face opioid claims from governments.

—The Associated Press contributed to this report.