This is the season when the need for blood goes up, but donations are down. Now, officials are trying to reverse that potentially dangerous trend.

Historically, more car crashes and accidents happen in the summer, sending people to hospitals, with many needing blood transfusions. 

But blood banks traditionally see a decline in supplies in the summer.

New Jersey Blood Services, a nonprofit blood center, has declared a blood supply emergency with collections down 15%. It says that in May, there were 4,500 fewer donations than needed to meet hospital needs.

"From the hospital and blood bank perspective, that means we have to be prepared to respond quickly with life-saving transfusions and emergency care when these critically injured patients arrive," pathologist Dr. Xiomara Fernandez said.

The American Red Cross says  25% of trauma patients require blood transfusions, and up to 5% of them will need 10 or more units of blood, which can quickly deplete a hospital's supply.

Donations tend to go way down in the summer because of school breaks, extreme weather and travel. 

"It definitely impacts the treatment of patients that are coming in for emergency situations, surgery patients, patients that are being treated for leukemia or cancer. If the platelets and stuff aren't there, we have to work to find them from other areas or transfer them from other blood banks," said Linda Wienclaw with New York Blood Center.

To help ensure a stable national blood supply, the Red Cross is calling on eligible donors to roll up their sleeves. 

All blood types are needed, especially type O, which is often used for trauma patients. There's also a need for plasma and for platelets, which only have a five-day shelf life.

"When someone is able to come and donate, that is one of the most simplest and most direct ways to help save lives among your own community," Fernandez said.

In addition to what's called trauma season, officials want to increase blood supply levels to be able to also cover some big upcoming events, including the World Cup.

Learn more about donating blood at RedCrossBlood.org.

It's the first confirmed case in New York state. 

There's no vaccine for the Bourbon virus, nor specific medicine to treat it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

"I just keep feeling worse and worse"

Michael Larkin, 67, is an avid outdoorsman. The husband and father of three was landscaping in his Brookhaven Town backyard when he spotted two tiny lone star ticks clinging to his leg. 

"I removed them. A couple of days later, I was not feeling well. I went to a local clinic, I told them about the tick bites. They tested for Lyme, but it did not show up," Larkin said. 

What followed was a health nightmare that spiraled downward, including rash, fever, and night sweats. 

"I just keep feeling worse and worse," Larkin said. 

He said it was debilitating, despite receiving antibiotics. He developed chronic, intense headaches. 

"Three or four hours later, I would hit rock bottom and can't get off the couch," Larkin said. "I demanded my wife take me to the hospital, because that's how bad it was. I couldn't stand it anymore." 

"This may be the very, very tip of the iceberg"

It was a Stony Brook care team and Dr. Luis Marcos who were able to diagnose and treat Larkin. He didn't have Lyme.

Larkin joined a year-long antibody study. His blood was checked every three months. Finally, just last month, doctors identified his extremely rare Bourbon virus infection. 

"Now we know the virus can be lethal. On Long Island, at least, we have a lot of lone star ticks," Marcos said. "And honestly this may be the very, very tip of the iceberg." 

As of right now, barely more than handful of cases have been reported. The disease is named for Bourbon County, Kansas, where it was first discovered in 2014. 

Larkin's doctors hope his story will offer vital public information regarding tick-borne illnesses, and increase awareness, protection and inspection. As far as checking for ticks?

"Ticks are very tiny. Use a bright light, mirror. Have a friend do it," Marcos said.

Larkin now uses clothing treated with permethrin to keep ticks away while working outdoors. 

Click here for more tick bite prevention tips from the CDC. 

Marie Francillion was diagnosed with cancer after she was feeling heartburn and shoulder pain. Her daughter, who is a nurse, took her to different specialists but didn't get clear answers.

A CT scan ultimately revealed she had lung cancer, which spread to her lymph nodes. 

"I don't drink, I don't smoke -- only water and coffee," Francillion said.

She was first put on a targeted drug to shrink the tumors at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Then she was referred to the New York Proton Center in Harlem to get rid of the remaining disease. 

"Fewer side effects, better preservation of quality of life" 

Dr. Charles Simone, the chief medical officer at the center, said proton therapy can offer a more precise approach than traditional radiation.

"Here, we can send the radiation and directly hit the tumor, and then all the radiation gets deposited in the tumor. So all the normal tissues beyond that area are completely protected, and we can have fewer side effects, better preservation of quality of life for patients," he said.

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Simone said most lung cancer patients receive some type of radiation. 

"Many patients who couldn't be treated safely before now have the option of getting proton therapy," he said. 

Francillion's daughter, Rachelle, said, "You would never know my mom was receiving radiation."

"She was not tired. She was herself, still cooking. You would never know. So it's so amazing to see like how far radiation has come," she said.

"No longer like a death sentence"

Since treatment in 2022, Francillion has marked major milestones. She has celebrated her daughter's wedding, welcomed her two grandchildren and is now cancer-free.

"It's such a blessing that lung cancer is no longer like a death sentence because of people like Dr. Simone that choose to continue the research and continue to not give up so that we can have more birthdays," her daughter said. 

Since her proton therapy, Francillion sees Simone every three months and has shown no signs of cancer recurrence. 

She just turned 65 and continues to celebrate the gift of more time, more memories and the chance to spread more hope. 

One of the cases was diagnosed last June. The second was earlier this month. Both patients were residents of One Haven Plaza, which is located at on 14th Street near Avenue C. 

"The risk of getting sick ... is very low" 

City officials advised high-risk residents of the five-building complex to temporarily stop taking showers and fill bathtubs slowly to minimize exposure to vapors while the water system was being tested. 

"The risk of getting sick from a building's water system is very low, especially for healthy people, but those who are in high-risk groups are recommended to limit exposure to water mist while this work is underway," a DOH spokesperson said.   

The Health Department said the incidents do not amount to a community cluster and are not a result of a cooling tower. There's no risk of community spread from mist outside the complex, the DOH believes. 

Drinking water at the complex is considered safe. 

Last summer, seven deaths were connected to a Legionnaires' outbreak in Harlem. 

What to know about Legionnaires' disease

Legionnaires' disease is caused by Legionella bacteria. The bacteria grow in warm water, and the disease spreads by inhaling mist that has been contaminated. 

Those infected will experience flu-like symptoms, such as cough, fever, chills, muscle aches and shortness of breath. 

Symptoms can occur 2-14 days after exposure.

People over 50 are most at risk, along with smokers, immunocompromised individuals and those with chronic lung disease.

It was a beautiful day to raise awareness at the 41st annual event in New York City hosted by GMHC.

"For pushing and advocating and advancing a cure in treatment, it couldn't be more important," said Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal. 

This year's theme was "Walk Like an Icon," representing every step is one closer to a cure for AIDS and HIV.   

"I do it because I have plenty of friends who are HIV and AIDS-affected, and I've had friends who have unfortunately passed away from complications and from not being able to access services," said Michael Henriquez, a long-time AIDS Walk participant. 

Actress and dancer Rosie Perez was one of the many speakers calling on everyone to take action. 

"It takes a village, right, to fight this. But it also takes a village to create a fighter," Perez said. 

CBS News New York, a proud sponsor of the AIDS Walk, was out in full force as well. Aziza Shuler, Adi Guajardo, meteorologist John Elliott and evening anchor Kristine Johnson connected with the community at our pop-up newsroom, listening to your stories and supporting the cause to find a cure. 

"Some people think that AIDS, HIV, is yesterday's news. But it's really today's news and we still need to fight for effective treatments and make certain that people stay safe," said Hoylman-Sigal. 

According to GMHC, over 132,000 New Yorkers are impacted by HIV and AIDS. 

The AIDS Walk has raised over $170 million since its inception.

"Healthcare workers are the group that I'm really concerned about because they had very close contact with people when they're most contagious, particularly around the time of folks' death," Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency room physician and public health professor at Brown University, told CBS News on Friday.

Authorities in eastern Congo's Ituri province are contending with a new Ebola outbreak that is suspected in at least 246 cases, including 65 deaths, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday.

This is the 17th Ebola outbreak in the Congo since 1976. One of the worst outbreaks killed more than 11,000 people between 2014 and 2016. 

"What we know very well that the country has experience, but the region where it is happening is highly volatile with the humanitarian situation going on and the population moving around from South Sudan to Uganda and other parts," Dr. Abdi Rahman Mahamud, World Health Organization director of health emergency alert and response operations, said during a news conference Friday.

Spencer contracted Ebola while working with the nonprofit group Doctors Without Borders in Guinea in September 2014. He was in Guinea for three weeks working with Ebola patients.

When he returned to New York City the following month, arriving home on Oct. 17, 2014, he said he began to self-monitor, taking his temperature twice a day.

Then on Oct. 23, 2014, just under a week after returning home, he developed a fever and was rushed by ambulance to Bellevue Hospital, a designated Ebola treatment center at the time.

Health officials tested and decontaminated his apartment, and his fiancée at the time and two friends were quarantined.

"The one that I was infected with, the Zaire strain, seems to have the highest mortality, but they all produce pretty similar symptoms of fatigue [that] ultimately leads to vomiting, diarrhea, incredible weakness and weight loss," Spencer said.  

He was hospitalized at Bellevue for 19 days and made a full recovery. He was treated with a combination of antiviral and experimental treatments, as well as blood transfusions from an Ebola survivor.

"Let me tell you, 19 days in a room by yourself, other than a small window, a tiny screen… and providers who came in a few times a day dressed in space suits, that's your only human interaction," Spencer said. "I'm lucky though, because I'm alive, and the majority of people that were infected with Ebola are not, particularly the people that I was taking care of in West Africa and Guinea at that time."

According to CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Céline Gounder, the latest outbreak is believed to be a strain known as the Bundibugyo ebolavirus, or BDV. Gounder says that strain has only been responsible for two known outbreaks prior to this, a 2007 outbreak in Uganda with 55 cases, and an outbreak in the Congo in 2012 with 57 cases.

She said there are no approved vaccines or treatments for BDV.

"Medical professionals seem very concerned about the possibility or the ability to contain this," Gounder said. "It's already a big outbreak at the point that we're hearing about it. There have already been a number of deaths. And this is a strain of Ebola for which we have no treatment, no vaccines."

The Africa CDC reported that of only 20 samples tested so far, 13 have been confirmed positive. 

The U.S. has been the single largest external player in Ebola outbreak response in the past, but now experts worry about the impact of the Trump administration's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and its withdrawal of the U.S. from the World Health Organization.

Spencer said he believes it's possible there's a connection between the shutdown of USAID and the fact that the latest outbreak was not officially announced until Friday. He said it's also concerning that the White House does not have a director for its Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response. Gerald Parker, who Trump tapped to run the office in February 2025, resigned later that year, and the position has remain unfilled. 

"Right now, we don't have that capacity," he said of responding quickly to global outbreaks. "We don't have a director or anyone in the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response. We don't have anyone coordinating across the State Department and the CDC, and our relations with foreign actors and the WHO. We've gotten rid of a lot of those lessons we learned the hard way over the past decade, and over the past five years."

Prior to the latest moves by the Trump administration, Spencer said, the U.S. would have likely had USAID and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials on the ground in the Congo before the outbreak.

"Before the second Trump administration, USAID would have been on the ground," Spencer said. "The CDC would have been on the ground at a moment's notice, maybe even before a moment's notice of a new outbreak of Ebola because we were in a bunch of countries. We created relationships beforehand."

Despite those issues, though, Spencer said he believes the U.S. is still capable of dealing with a virus like Ebola, which he says "is not that great at spreading" despite its high mortality rate. He noted the U.S. response this month to the deadly hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship. Eighteen Americans who were aboard the ship are currently being monitored in a quarantine unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  

"We've seen over the past couple weeks with the National Quarantine Unit we have in Nebraska and the over a dozen centers that we have around the U.S. that are capable of taking care of very high consequence pathogens like hantavirus and Ebola," Spencer said. "These were all commitments that we made as a country, particularly and partly because of cases like my own a decade ago."

In New York, families like his don't collect full damages from hospitals. Instead, the state promises to cover their healthcare for life through a program called the Medical Indemnity Fund.

In 2024, Olivo told CBS News New York's Mahsa Saeidi she had to fight the fund when it delayed or denied her claims. 

After CBS News New York's reporting, funding for the program quadrupled to $211 million, but now it's set to run out in July.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed $75 million to keep the fund open, but the reforms would cut what some providers make. 

Reforms to funding could hurt nurses

The state is proposing to cut reimbursement rates for private duty nursing, according to lawmakers and an attorney for families under the Medical Indemnity Fund.

Nurses currently earn competitive market rates. According to the state's Medical Indemnity Fund website, they are "reimbursed at the 80th percentile of the 'usual and customary rate,' for that type of practice in the geographic area in which the practice is located, as reported by Fair Health, Inc."

Under the proposal, they would drop to the state's lower Medicaid rate. 

According to a lawmaker who works with Medical Indemnity Fund families, this means registered nurses providing home care would make $27.57 an hour in the upstate region and $31.21 an hour downstate.

CBS News New York is working to obtain the current salary for nurses under the Medical Indemnity Fund. 

The state projects it will save $50 million, but Olivo worries about what that will mean for patients.

"It'll be much harder for families to get nurses to actually want to stay in home health," she said.

GianRaul, born GianRaul M. Olivo, also went by the nickname GMO. For eight years, the person who showed up bedside for 12 hours a day, six days a week was his nurse. Kevin Emmanuel was not just GMO's nurse but his companion and, in many ways, a second dad. Emmanuel also had a close connection with the teen because his own son, who died at just 3 years old, also had special needs. 

"He allowed me to care for him the way that I would care for my son," Emmanuel said. "The crazy thing about it is, while GMO was going through the process, it brought back so much memory because it's the same hospital. Same unit that my son passed, GMO was."

Other families who rely on the fund told Saeidi that nurses like Emmanuel are the reason their children have a life worth living. 

"Committed to keeping the fund open"

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said the fund is open for new enrollments. 

"We care deeply about the continued stability of the Medical Indemnity Fund and its mission to support New Yorkers. We remain engaged in ongoing negotiations with the Legislature to enact a responsible state budget," a statement read.

"Governor Hochul remains committed to keeping the fund open," the spokesperson said.  

CBS News New York is in touch with lawmakers in Albany who say the assembly rejected Hochul's proposed $75 million appropriation. They have countered with $207 million. The budget has not been finalized, and negotiations are ongoing.