Dr. Richard Besser travels with American doctors as they race to stop a global threat.
Really? Because local doctors were doing nothing about it? Because it was really a global threat? Come on! The Kikwit outbreak in the 1990s was MUCH worse, occurred in a much more chaotic public health setting - and less than 0.1% of the city of 500 000 was affected, and it didn't spread. Be more afraid of...oh, I don't know, maybe West Nile virus, Dengue virus, Yellow fever virus?? WAAY more cases, and far closer to the US of A!
An emerging strain of influenza that’s killed seals off the New England coast may pose a future threat to humans and other wildlife, warns a new report.
The report, published on July 31 in the journal mBio, said the H3N8 virus caused a fatal outbreak of pneumonia in 162 New England harbour seals from September to December 2011. The researchers believe the virus may have evolved from a strain that is currently found in birds. What’s particularly concerning is that the virus naturally acquired mutations that are known to boost its transmission and intensity in mammals. And it’s this “jumping” from mammal to mammal that’s causing scientists to worry it could one day infect humans, according to the report.
When I drafted my article for TakePart (Don’t Panic – Ebola Isn’t Heading For You), I used the term ‘ebolavirus’ throughout, but the editors changed every instance to ‘Ebola virus’.
Nice little piece on what you should call a virus of interest - but don't expect anyone in the media to take any notice...B-(
"This paper describes the isolation and molecular identification of a novel paramyxovirus found during an investigation of an outbreak of neurorespiratory disease in a collection of Australian pythons. Using Illumina® high-throughput sequencing, a 17,187 nucleotide sequence was assembled from RNA extracts from infected viper heart cells (VH2) displaying widespread cytopathic effects in the form of multinucleate giant cells. The sequence appears to contain all the coding regions of the genome, including the following predicted paramyxoviral open reading frames (ORFs): 3′ – Nucleocapsid (N) – putative Phosphoprotein (P) – Matrix (M) – Fusion (F) – putative attachment protein – Polymerase (L) – 5′. There is also a 540 nucleotide ORF between the N and putative P genes that may be an additional coding region. Phylogenetic analyses of the complete N, M, F and L genes support the clustering of this virus within the family Paramyxoviridae but outside both of the current subfamilies: Paramyxovirinae and Pneumovirinae. We propose to name this new virus, Sunshine virus, after the geographic origin of the first isolate – the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia."
A novel avian influenza virus has acquired the ability to infect aquatic mammals and was responsible for an outbreak of fatal pneumonia that recently struck harbor seals in New England, according to scientists at the Center for Infection & Immunity (CII) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, New England Aquarium, USGS National Wildlife Health Center, SeaWorld and EcoHealth Alliance.
Fear the furry seals...no, wait, they got it from seabirds: fear the seagull, fear the gannet!!
Australian scientists have made an important discovery about prostate cancer.
Nice little video: of course, they don't say WHICH papillomaviruses are involved, along with Epstein-Barr virus. Anyway - as long as it's 16 and 18, good reason to get vaccinated, boys! I thank Russell Kightley for sending me the clip.
More Ugandans Admitted with Possible Ebola ------------------------------------------ A total of 6 more patients suspected to have Ebola have been admitted to the hospital days after investigators confirmed an outbreak of the highly infectious disease in a remote corner of western Uganda, a health official said on Monday [30 Jul 2012]. Stephen Byaruhanga, health secretary of the affected Kibaale district, said possible cases of Ebola, at 1st concentrated in a single village, are now being reported in more villages. "It's no longer just one village. There are many villages affected," Byaruhanga said. In a national address on Monday, Uganda's President advised against unnecessary contact among people, saying suspected cases of Ebola should be reported immediately to health officials.
Officials from Uganda's Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization announced on Saturday [28 Jul 2012] that the deadly Ebola virus killed 14 Ugandans this month, ending weeks of speculation about the cause of a strange illness that had some people fleeing their homes in the absence of reliable answers. If the 6 new cases are confirmed as Ebola fever, it would bring to 26 the number of Ugandans infected with Ebola [virus].
This is the 4th occurrence of Ebola in Uganda since 2000, when the disease killed 224 people and left hundreds more traumatized in norther Uganda. At least 42 people were killed in another outbreak in 2007, and there was a lone Ebola case in 2011. Investigators took nearly a month to confirm Ebola's presence in Uganda this year. In Kibaale, a district with 600 000 residents, some villagers started abandoning their homes to escape what they thought was an illness caused by bad luck. One family lost 9 members, and a clinical officer and her 4-month-old baby died from Ebola, Byaruhanga said.
D.K. Lwamafa, of Uganda's Ministry of Health, told reporters on Saturday that one Ebola patient from Kibaale had been referred to the national hospital in the capital but had then died in Kibaale.
The confirmation of Ebola's presence in the area has spread anxiety among sick villagers, who are refusing to go the hospital for fear they don't have Ebola and will contract it there. All suspected Ebola patients have been isolated at one hospital where patients admitted with other illnesses fled after Ebola was announced. Only the hospital's maternity ward still has patients, officials said, highlighting the deadly reputation of Ebola in a country where the authorities do not always respond quickly and effectively to emergencies and disasters. Barnabas Tinkasimire, a lawmaker from the area, said that some nurses refused to look after Ebola patients after one clinical officer died and another was taken ill.
"They are saying, 'We can't remain here if there is no sufficient allowance'," Tinkasimire said of medical officers handling Ebola cases. The lawmaker said the government's response so far has been poor and that it would have been worse without the technical support of organizations such as the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "It took long for the government to respond, and up to now many people don't know how to guard against Ebola. We need sensitization," he said.
Ebola, which manifests itself as a hemorrhagic fever [But not in this outbreak - Mod.CP], is highly infectious and kills quickly. It was 1st reported in 1976 in Congo and is named for the river where it was recognized. A CDC factsheet on Ebola says the disease is "characterized by fever, headache, joint and muscle aches, sore throat, and weakness, followed by diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach pain. A rash, red eyes, hiccups and internal and external bleeding may be seen in some patients."
Scientists don't know the natural reservoir of the virus, but they suspect the 1st victim in an Ebola outbreak gets infected through contact with an infected animal. The virus can be transmitted through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions. During communal funerals, for example, when the bereaved come into contact with an Ebola victim, the virus can be contracted, health officials said.
-- Communicated by: ProMED-mail from HealthMap alerts
South Africans need not be worried about contracting the Ebola virus after a new outbreak of the disease in Uganda.
The SA National Institute for Communicable Diseases said the risk of South Africans being infected was "extremely low".
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has placed a ban on physical contact in the country after the virus was reported in the capital, Kampala, for the first time.
The institute's spokesman, Professor Lucile Blumberg, said yesterday: "There is no travel restriction. It is unlikely that patients from the Kibaale district, Uganda, who are very sick, will find their way here. One does need direct contact with infected patients to become ill."
As with ANY Ebola outbreak in fact, the peril for any but the immediately exposed is more imagined than real. What Ed Regis once termed "Ebola Preston", or a virus that is spread by print and electronic media, rather than by droplets.
'Health workers in Pakistan have taken the desperate step of calling in the police to force polio drops on children whose parents refuse the vaccine … Doctors in one region of the Punjab have called in uniformed help after ...
Three shots can reduce the risk of cervical cancer but many U.S. girls ages 9-18 are not getting all three human papillomavirus vaccine, researchers say.
Actually, this is alarmist: there are trials going on right now with two instead of three doses, for the simple reasons that (a) it is easier to get compliance, (b) it probably works as well - or to within 90% as well.
HPV infection graphic courtesy of Russell Kightley Media
The Hindu'Many unaware of HBV vaccine'The HinduVarious estimates suggest that in our country, there are 20 to 25 million Hepatitis B virus (HBV) positive persons and another 10 million Hepatitis C virus (HCV) positive cases.
This highlights a serious problem in the developing world - where 3-odd million people a year die of vaccine-preventable diseases, including HBV. Education AND vaccination, people!!
"The Pentagon’s DARPA lab has announced a milestone, but it doesn’t involve drones or death missiles. Scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency say they’ve produced 10 million doses of an influenza vaccine in only one month’s time.
In a press release out of the agency’s office this week, scientists with DARPA say they’ve reach an important step in being able to combat a flu pandemic that might someday decimate the Earth’s population. By working with the Medicago Inc. vaccine company, the Pentagon’s cutting edge research lab says that they’ve used a massive harvest of tobacco plants to help produce a plethora of flu-fighting vaccines."
I do have a soft spot for Medicago: they speak French and come from Canada, after all.
KAMPALA — Officials say Uganda’s Ebola outbreak, which has so far killed 16 people, is now under control. It has now been almost one week since the last reported death from the virus, though teams continue to search for unreported infections.
Though the Ebola outbreak in western Uganda’s Kibaale District is not yet fully contained, Dr. Joaquim Saweka of the World Health Organization says it is under control.
"MEXICO CITY — Eight million chickens have so far been slaughtered in Mexico and 66 million more were vaccinated in a bid to contain a bird flu outbreak in the west of the country, authorities said. The agriculture ministry said in a statement that during the vaccination process in the Los Altos region of Jalisco state, diseased chickens were identified, leading to the destruction of the flu-carrying fowl."
This really is rather concerning - because we should recall where the last pandemic came from....
In South Africa, Clinton notes anti-HIV progressPhiladelphia InquirerPRETORIA, South Africa - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, visiting the country with the world's highest rate of HIV infection, said Tuesday that American-sponsored efforts...
Searching for Sugar Man, the documentary that tells the story of how 1970s musician Rodriguez came to be a huge star in South Africa while remaining unknown in the rest of the world, looks set to be a smash hit in the US.
The Queensland Government says two tourists could be at risk of contracting the deadly lyssavirus after visiting a bat sanctuary in the state's far north.
Fear the winged rats...well, some of them, anyway.
New Ebola cases reported at Kagadi Hospital ------------------------------------------- A total of 19 new Ebola cases [have been reported] at Kagadi Hospital in Kibaale district. Mubende district bordering Kibaale has set up an isolation centre center following reports that Ebola patients from Kibaale were flocking [to] the health unit for treatment. This caused panic as nurses turned away patients for fear that they could be [carrying] the deadly Ebola virus. Mubende Hospital chief Dr. Edward Nkurunziza told New Vision that the isolation center would handle Ebola cases if confirmed.
Meanwhile 7 doctors of Mulago Hospital who treated an Ebola patient from Kibaale district have been placed under quarantine. This was done to prevent the spread of the deadly disease that has claimed 14 lives. Another 13 health workers, who accompanied the patient who died a few days ago, have also been quarantined, President Yoweri Museveni revealed Monday [30 Jul 2012].
In a statement on the outbreak of Ebola, Museveni cautioned Ugandans to avoid activities that could spread the disease. 2 more patients who are suspected to have contracted the deadly disease have been registered in Kibaale, according to the district health officer, Dr. Dan Kyamanywa. By Sunday [29 Jul 2012] evening, there were 5 new cases. "We have taken samples from the patients for testing," Kyamanywa said yesterday.
A total of 14 people have so far died of Ebola in the last 3 weeks. 13 died in Kibaale and [another] of them at Mulago Hospital, where she had been transferred.
Uganda's president has warned against shaking hands and other physical contact after the first death from the deadly Ebola virus in the capital.
The latest outbreak started in Uganda's western Kibale district, about 200km from Kampala, and around 50km from the border with Democratic Republic of Congo.
The fatal case in Kampala was a health worker who "had attended to the dead at Kagadi hospital" in Kibale, Health Minister Christine Ondoa told reporters.
And it's deja vu all over again...this is how I started reporting virology on the Web, back in 1995 - with the Kikwit Ebola outbreak. It's possibly the first time Ebola has hit a major centre, so it could be interesting to see what develops. Let's hope nothing...!
I thank Russell Kightley Media for the Ebola virus graphic
"WASHINGTON -- The face of AIDS is aging. Thanks to major scientific advances in antiretroviral drugs, people with HIV are no longer condemned to early death, and can live near-normal lifespans. But as the epidemic enters its fourth decade, healthcare providers must face the unique challenges and complications that arise when aging and HIV intersect, according to experts.
Throughout the International AIDS Conference this week, speakers said we were just starting to understand the medical and other needs of the aging HIV/AIDS population. And, they cautioned, these individuals must not be forgotten amid increased attention on preventing and treating HIV in the young."
And in the region worst affected by the pandemic in terms of proportion of population infected - souther Africa - we have millions of people who will be getting older on antiretrovirals. The world's biggest experiment in human therapy - and how long can it last?
If you thought oral sex was safer sex, think again. It can actually kill you. That's because having oral sex with someone that has Human Papilloma Virus, or HPV, can lead to cancer in the throat area.
Researchers estimate there are 50,000 new cases nationwide, and 11,500 people that die from the disease every year [in the USA].
I want to go back to the 1960s...when no-one knew about all this stuff that takes the simple joys out of life.
KAMPALA: The deadly Ebola virus has killed 14 people in western Uganda this month, Ugandan health officials said on Saturday, ending weeks of speculation about the cause of a strange disease that had many people fleeing their homes. The officials and a World Health Organization representative told a news conference in Kampala Saturday [28 Jul 2012] that there is "an outbreak of Ebola" in Uganda. "Laboratory investigations done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute...have confirmed that the strange disease reported in Kibaale is indeed Ebola hemorrhagic fever," the Ugandan government and WHO said in joint statement.
Kibaale is a district in midwestern Uganda, where people in recent weeks have been troubled by a mysterious illness that seemed to have come from nowhere. Ugandan health officials had been stumped as well, and spent weeks conducting laboratory tests that were at first inconclusive. On Friday, Joaquim Saweka, the WHO representative in Uganda, told the Associated Press that investigators were "not so sure" it was Ebola, and a Ugandan health official dismissed the possibility of Ebola as merely a rumor. It appears firm evidence of Ebola was clinched overnight.
And so it begins...yet again, Ebola pops up out of nowhere. Bats, I tell you.
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