The White House is gearing up for the smallpox pill; although this article doesn't shine the light on the good of this massive stockpile.

http://rt.com/usa/news/smallpox-obama-siga-administration-327/

Smallpox scandal plagues White House

White House

Move over, Solyndra. The Obama White House has immersed itself in a new scandal with a major Democratic donor. A deal worth half-a-billion dollars has raised questions about the relationship between Washington and the makers of an experimental drug.

The Los Angeles Times reports that for the past year, the Obama administration has urged approval of a $433-million plan to give Siga Technologies Inc. of New York the lone rights to manufacturing a smallpox pill for the US government to keep in stockpiles in case of a biological war outbreak — despite officials agreeing that the disease has been eradicated for nearly 40 years. Citing a 2004 George W Bush administration doctrine that says a smallpox threat could reemerge, the Obama White House is hoping to have Siga provide 1.7 million doses of the drug to be kept on the shelves at a cost far above what officials agreed to.

In observance with FDA regulations, the drug has not — and most likely won’t — be tested on humans, calling to question whether the supposed effectiveness of the pill is even existent— at a price tag of nearly half a billion dollars.

As it happens, Ronald O. Perelman, the controlling shareholder of the pharmaceutical manufacturer, donated over $300,000 through a Siga affiliate to the Democratic cause during the 2008 and 2010 campaigns. Additionally, Perelman himself forked over around $50,000 towards Obama’s inauguration.

Coincidentally, the Obama administration guaranteed Siga rights to provide the pill for the government without seeking competition from any other companies, a move which caused the Small Business Administration to cry foul. The Times reports that the initial federal contract guaranteed the deal to go to a company with fewer than 500 employees, which would exclude Siga from the bidding. In response, the government withdrew its first call-for-proposals and penned a new submission form — one that was delivered to solely Siga.

This latest scandal out of the Obama White House comes amid controversy concerning a deal that the current administration inked to solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. Federal investigators are currently combing through thousands of pages of documents to see if a massive loan guaranteed to Solyndra’s California plant had anything to do with ties between investors in the company that are close to the White House. A federal loan was extended to Solyndra, despite urging from Republicans to vote no, after President Barack Obama touted the manufacturer as a great investment; only months later, the company filed for bankruptcy and left American taxpayers to cover their lost costs.

The deal between the White House and Siga has aroused suspicious given that the government currently has around $1 billion worth of smallpox vaccinations on the ready — which The Times reports would be enough to inoculate the entire population of the country. Aside from trace samples of the disease kept in storage in the US and Russia, the rest of the world is believed to be free of the germ, which has around a one-in-three chance of destroying the infected. America’s current antidote has a shelf-life of deca

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_mysterious-disease-claims-one-...

http://www.unhcr.org/4ec2652b9.html

Rainfall, disease, hitting refugee camps in Kenya, Ethiopia

Briefing Notes, 15 November 2011

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahečić – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 15 November 2011, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

More than a month after the kidnapping of three aid workers in Kenya's Dadaab refugee complex, insecurity continues to affect aid efforts. The situation is being exacerbated by heavy rains and accompanying risks of waterborne diseases.

Nearly 100 additional Kenyan police have been deployed in the camps in the last month. UNHCR is supporting them with vehicles, shelter and telecommunications equipment. Together with our partners, we are exploring options to gradually resume full operations despite continued security incidents in and around Dadaab. In the meantime, refugees are still receiving life-saving aid, namely food, water and health care.

The situation has been complicated by an outbreak of cholera in the camps, which is believed to have started among new arrivals who had most likely acquired it in Somalia or en route to Dadaab. Rains and flooding had affected the trucking of water to parts of the camps, and we fear some refugees resorted to using unsafe water from flooded areas.

There are now 60 cases in the camps, including 10 laboratory-confirmed cases and one refugee death. To manage the outbreak, UNHCR and partners have set up cholera treatment centres for severe cases. Most cases can be managed through oral rehydration solutions (ORS) that can be given at home or at the health posts. We are working with UNICEF and the Ministry of Health to train health workers in the community-based management of diarrhoea so that patients can begin treatment at home.

We have increased levels of chlorine, which kills cholera-causing bacteria, at water points in the camps. These are monitored to make sure they are maintained at the correct levels. We are also promoting hygiene practices among the refugees, especially the use of latrines and hand washing with soap. Each refugee received 250 grams of soap with the latest food distribution and this will continue monthly for several months.

In Ethiopia's Dollo Ado area, a nutrition survey at the Kobe and Hilaweyn camps has found high levels of malnutrition among children under five years of age. Refugees at both camps arrived from Somalia in extremely poor health condition, with many families losing children to malnutrition en route or after arrival in Ethiopia. Health and nutrition programmes have been set up by a range of experienced partners to address malnutrition, especially among the youngest children, but progress has been slow, as this survey confirmed.

However, the number of deaths among children under five has decreased dramatically compared to the very high level seen at the height of the refugee influx this summer. This reflects improved access to quality health care and nutrition services, as well as improved water and sanitation facilities. UNHCR is leading the coordination of a nutrition response to the survey's findings.

Meanwhile, intermittent downpours in Dollo Ado continue to cause flash floods in the area. The airstrip was hit by floods in the past four days and has subsequently remained out of service.

Nonetheless, work continues on the fifth refugee camp in the area, Bur Amino. The ground is rocky and this slows down the digging of latrines, a minimum number of which must be in place before refugees can be relocated from the transit centre. More than 7,600 recent arrivals from Somalia are now encamped at the transit centre, where they receive basic shelter, relief items and hot meals.

http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-health-byo-9225-article-zim+...

Zim hit by a serious outbreak of typhoid

An outbreak of typhoid has hit the country with more than 200 cases having been reported as of yesterday.

A total of 207 cases had passed through their units and that 36 people were currently admitted at the Beatrice Road infectious disease unit.

Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid,is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the faeces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi.

The bacteria then perforate through the intestinal wall and are phagocytosed by macrophages. The organism is a Gram-negative short bacillus that is motile due to its peritrichous flagella. The bacterium grows best at 37°C / 98.6°F – human body temperature.

Harare City Council Director of Health, Dr Prosper Chonzi said "It's a crisis and we have raised the alert ban to red".

"Basically people are drinking their own faeces in places like Dzivaresekwa and as I speak to you, we have dispatched a team to Mabvuku where suspected cases of typhoid have been reported," Chonzi added.

In Dzivaresekwa where the outbreak began, tests carried out at most shallow and makeshift wells where people frequently fetched water, came out positive.

The outbreak comes at a time when the disease is likely to spread due to the rainy season which has just started.

Chonzi who said they had not been any deaths reported since the outbreak a month ago, highlighted the need to move with speed to avoid a case similar to the cholera outbreak in 2009 which claimed thousands of people.

Unicef Zimbabwe, which spearheaded the fight against rapid spread of cholera in the country in 2009, is set to end its assistance programme next year and has notified the relevant authorities of their move.

Asked about Unicef's intentions seeing that the water situation had improved, Chonzi said that  he had actually held meetings with them earlier in the day and  requested for clean water truck deliveries to resume in affected areas.

Sixty-two-year-old patient Magline Makotese from Dzivaresekwa who is admitted at the Hospital spoke to the Daily News and narrated how she  began experiencing abdominal pains and was  rushed to the hospital on Monday morning.

Patients admitted at the hospital were mainly young women and children, though even the elderly were not spared either.

On a positive note, Chonzi did however, state that they had adequate drugs to deal with the outbreak but was quick to discourage public gatherings if possible.

He encouraged public awareness campaigns aimed at fighting the outbreak.

Boy, 4, latest victim of meningococcal

http://www.northernadvocate.co.nz/news/boy-4-is-latest-victim-of-br...

Mike Dinsdale | Thursday, November 17, 2011 12:00

Northland's meningococcal outbreak has a 13th victim after a 4-year-old boy was yesterday confirmed as having the potentially deadly disease.

Northland District Health Board medical officer of health Clair Mills said the boy, from the Mid-North, was admitted to hospital on Tuesday night very ill and he was confirmed as having a yet-to-be identified strain of meningococcal disease yesterday.

He was in a stable condition yesterday.

It is the first confirmed meningococcal case in the region for almost three weeks, but Dr Mills said health officials would not be dropping their guard in the belief that the outbreak was over yet.

Dr Mills said since July there have been 13 confirmed cases of meningococcal in the region, including three deaths. Nine of the cases were of meningococcal C strain and three meningococcal B with the latest type still to be identified.

Dr Mills said the most important thing to remember with meningococcal disease was that early intervention saved lives. Northland DHB is conducting a mass meningococcal C vaccination campaign aimed at inoculating up to 85 per cent of the 44,000 Northlanders aged from 1 to 20 against the potentially deadly disease.

Date: 18/11/11

http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/article/default.aspx?objid=8...

Hepatitis A outbreak in Malaysia: update from The Travel Clinic

This illness is easily spread by poor hygiene (dirty hands on food), or by contaminated or inadequately treated water. It is incredibly infectious.

There is no specific treatment for hepatitis A virus infection. Recovery from symptoms following infection may be slow and take several weeks or months. Therapy is aimed at maintaining comfort and adequate nutritional balance, including replacement of fluids that are lost from vomiting and diarrhoea. It is a debilitating disease causing inflammation of the liver

Hepatitis A is a vaccine-preventable disease. One vaccine protects for 1 year. If another one is given within that time, protection is for at least 25 years or maybe even for life.

Reply by Nancy Lieder 14 hours ago

I have a question regarding disease, infectious tuberculosis in particular.  Recently the CDC discovered a homeless shelter in Atlanta, GA who had several people with the disease and it was found during the Occupy Atlanta protests against Wall St bankers which means thousands of people are in the area of this homeless shelter.  They are now supposedly monitoring these people but how would they know just how many people?      My question is: is this a Black Ops ploy to infect a part of the population and watch it spread (which I gather would be considered part of the 8 of 10) or is this just an opportunistic germ making its way.
[and from another]
http://nation.foxnews.com/occupy-wall-street/2011/11/10/tuberculosi...
The home base for Occupy Atlanta has tested positive for tuberculosis. The Fulton County Health Department confirmed Wednesday that residents at the homeless shelter where protesters have been occupying have contracted the drug-resistant disease. WGCL reports that a health department spokeswoman said there is a possibility that both Occupy Atlanta protesters and the homeless people in the shelter may still be at risk since tuberculosis is contracted through air contact. Over the last three months were have been two persons who have resided in this facility who have been diagnosed with confirmed or suspected infectious tuberculosis (TB). One of these persons was confirmed to have a strain of TB that is resistant to a single, standard medication used to treat this condition. All person(s) identified as positive have begun treatment and are being monitored to ensure that medication is taken as directed.

SOZT
Drug resistant diseases are not new. In the past, ALL germs were drug resistant, in essence, because antibiotics and drugs like interferon were not known. The reason pharma companies constantly develop new antibiotics is because mutations occur, capable of resistance to the current drugs. Thus one has MRSA – resistant staph – which can only be treated by one remaining antibiotic else the flesh eating infection develops. Doctors are now reluctant to give antibiotics freely to patients for trivial concerns, lest this practice incite a population explosion of the resistant germs in a host where no competition exists. Beyond drug resistant germs are the germs not quite stamped out, such as polio and small pox. Backed into a corner now, these germs could start an epidemic in a world where modern medicine can no longer function.

Will this mean epidemics in the Aftertime, where plagues wipe out populations that have contact with one another? Ebola was controlled in human populations in the past by such total destruction, where all infected died so the germ could not be passed human to human. Such means of controlling outbreaks operates in the animal kingdom, and always has. Gradually, natural genetic resistance builds in the population, over many such epidemics, due to those with genetic resistance surviving while all others die. But in the 100 years where mankind will reside on Earth, prior to the Transformation, little progress in this direction will occur. Rather, survivors should not be surprised at news of an infection wiping out whole colonies of survivors, so only the bones remained to greet travelers.
EOZT

http://www.healthcanal.com/infections/23629-Scripps-Research-Team-F...

Scripps Research Team Finds a Weak Spot on Deadly Ebolavirus

LA JOLLA, CA – Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute and the US Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have isolated and analyzed an antibody that neutralizes Sudan virus, a major species of ebolavirus and one of the most dangerous human pathogens.

“We suspect that we’ve found a key spot for neutralizing ebolaviruses,” said Scripps Research Associate Professor Erica Ollmann Saphire, who led the study with US Army virologist John M. Dye.

The new findings, which were reported November 20, 2011, in an advance online edition of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, show the antibody attaches to Sudan virus in a way that links two segments of its coat protein, reducing their freedom of movement and severely hindering the virus’s ability to infect cells. The protein-linking strategy appears to be the same as that used by a previously discovered neutralizing antibody against the best-known ebolavirus species, Ebola-Zaire. The new study suggests that this may be the best way for vaccines and antibody-based therapies to stop ebolaviruses.

Deadly Outbreaks

Ebolaviruses first drew the attention of the medical world with simultaneous deadly outbreaks in 1976 in the nations of Sudan and Zaire (currently known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo). These two outbreaks were caused by the two major viruses: Ebola-Sudan and Ebola-Zaire, and early field studies showed that sera from patients that survived one virus could not help patients infected with the other. . Both viruses persist in animal hosts–probably bats–and when they spread to humans, typically cause severe hemorrhagic fevers, killing up to 90 percent of people they sicken. Although not as contagious as influenza or measles, ebolaviruses can be transmitted in bodily fluids including exhaled airborne droplets, and scientists who study these viruses are generally required to use special “Biosafety Level 4” facilities. The US government regards the ebolaviruses as a potential bioterror threat.

Ebolavirus researchers hope to develop a vaccine that could be used to protect health workers and others in the vicinity of ebolavirus outbreaks, as well as an antibody-based immunotherapy that could help infected people survive. However, these tasks are complicated by the fact that there are now five recognized species of ebolavirus: Ebola-Zaire, also known simply as Ebola virus; Taï Forest virus; Reston virus; Bundibugyo virus; and Sudan virus.

“These species differ enough from each other that neutralizing antibodies to one don’t protect against the rest,” said Ollmann Saphire. “Sudan virus is a particular concern because it has caused about half of the ebolavirus outbreaks so far, including the largest outbreak yet recorded.”

Uncovering the Body’s Natural Protection

US government researchers recently demonstrated that an experimental vaccine containing proteins from Ebola and Sudan viruses provides monkeys with some protection against those viruses. But precisely how the vaccine works is unclear, and it has never been tested in humans. Moreover, until now no laboratory has isolated a neutralizing antibody against Sudan virus.

To find such an antibody, Dye and his colleagues at Fort Detrick, Maryland, injected lab mice wi

http://www.warwickcourier.co.uk/news/local/legionella_bacteria_is_f...

Legionella bacteria is found in hospital water

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/267446/expert-warns-of-leptos...

Poor sanitation and garbage disposal in Bangkok's flood-hit communities could result in an outbreak of leptospirosis, a health expert has warned.

Sumet Ongwandee of the Disease Control Department (DCD) said people should take precautions against leptospirosis and wear protective gear if they want to return home after the waters recede.

"The waterborne disease can be hazardous to people," he said.

Leptospirosis can be transmitted to both humans and animals by direct contact with the urine of infected rodents in contaminated flood water.

The disease gets into the body through cuts and wounds as well as the eyes, nose and mouth, Dr Sumet told the Bangkok Post.

Symptoms are a high fever, severe headache, muscle pain, chills, redness of the eyes, abdominal pain, jaundice, skin haemorrhages, vomiting, diarrhoea and a rash. Severe cases can be fatal if not treated immediately, he said.

"Leptospirosis is very worrying as the floodwater has hit crowded urban communities in the capital.

"So garbage disposal management is needed, for it is the first measure that will help control rodents infected with the bacteria from spreading the disease to people," he said.

Dr Sumet said people should carefully protect themselves by wearing rubber boots, gloves and masks when wading through contaminated floodwater and dispose of garbage to help prevent themselves and others from catching the waterborne disease.

Apart from Bangkok's flood-hit communities, health authorities are speeding up monitoring for leptospirosis in 46 flood-hit provinces nationwide.

Surveillance teams of the Bureau of Epidemiology found a leptospirosis case in Nakhon Sawan after the floodwaters receded there.

Another case with similar symptoms to leptospirosis was reported on Nov 18 in Ayutthaya's Pachi district and is still under investigation, the bureau said.

Bangkok has in the past experienced three leptospirosis outbreaks after flooding. The last outbreak in the capital was reported in 1964, said Wirongrong Jirakul, of Mahidol University's faculty of tropical medicine.

Dr Wirongrong said major outbreaks in the country were reported between 1997 and 1999. Up to 15,000 cases and 400 deaths were reported.

In Thailand, an estimated 2,000-3,000 people are infected with leptospirosis every year.

The disease is endemic in the Northeast where farmers work in fields and rice paddies without proper protection. Leptospirosis cases usually peak during the monsoon season.

http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-bacterial-meningitis-reported-centra...

Central Indiana student infected with Bacterial Meningitis

A second-grader was diagnosed with Bacterial Meningitis last Thursday. Now, school officials are working to prevent an outbreak.

Indianapolis

A second-grader was diagnosed with Bacterial Meningitis  last Thursday. Now, school officials are working to prevent an outbreak.

Clifty Creek Elementary School officials contacted the state health department and with their advice, started retracing the child's steps.

"Where has this student been?  Who does this student sit with? That sort of thing," said Principal Adam Ulrich.

According to the state health department, only students who had close contact to the child are at risk.  The school said that's about 50 students who were exposed in class, the cafeteria or on the bus. All of those students' parents were notified Friday by phone and a letter that said in part:

How AIDS really got started

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/11/23/how-aids-really-got-started/

Daniel Rosenthal/laif/Redux

In 1976, a handful of Belgian nuns were operating a badly needed hospital in Yambuku, a remote village in Zaire. Some 300 patients a day came, many seeking antiviral drugs, which nurses provided via the poorly funded hospital’s five reusable syringes. The result of the inevitable cross-infection was the first outbreak of the blood-borne virus Ebola, which killed 280 of its 318 victims—far more deaths than if there had never been a hospital in the first place.

The Yambuku incident is one of the most harrowing proofs ever recorded of the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished. But the story of the Ebola outbreak differs little in its essentials from that of an exponentially more lethal disease, AIDS. Now marking its 30th official birthday—counting from the 1981 U.S. Centers for Disease Control paper about an unlikely pneumonia cluster in Los Angeles—AIDS has so far killed 30 million people. And in Dr. Jacques Pepin’s convincing account of its history, The Origins of AIDS, it emerges as the greatest man-made health disaster of our times.

The disease itself is much older than 30. Molecular studies show that chimpanzees, hosts to the virus that causes AIDS in humans, have carried it for centuries. Pepin, an infectious disease physician and professor at Quebec’s Université de Sherbrooke, uses mathematical modelling to show that dozens of people—chimp hunters or their wives preparing the meat—must have thereby contracted AIDS. One spouse would then infect the other sexually, but those couples became what Pepin calls in an interview “epidemiological dead ends: the disease would develop in them for a decade, and then they would die, with no effect on the larger population.”

But a disease is one thing and an epidemic very much another. The latter requires—as shown by the way tuberculosis exploded as 19th-century Europeans crowded into unsanitary housing in burgeoning cities—helpful social conditions. In Africa, during the first half of the 20th century, Western imperialism obliged. Vast construction projects designed to exploit the continent’s resources turned thousands of African men into forced labourers, housed in work camps that became disease epicentres. With far less altruism than the Yambuku nuns—the driving motivation was the need for a functioning workforce—colonial regimes launched medical programs against malaria and sleeping sickness.

Antiviral drugs delivered by reusable syr- inges were the main—double-edged—weapons, and, as in Yambuku, AIDS quickly spread among the male population. Enter the second factor in the coming epidemic: the same massive disruption of traditional life that dragooned so many men away from home into nearly all-male enclaves spawned an industrial-scale sex trade, with some h

http://newsblaze.com/story/20111123094529zzzz.nb/topstory.html

Outbreak of Acute Watery Diarrhoea Engulfs Horn Of Africa

Recurring drought, insufficient hygiene and ongoing regional conflict are driving a deadly outbreak of acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) across the Horn of Africa, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported today.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva that more than 50,000 cases of AWD have been recorded in the region this year, resulting in over 700 deaths in Djibouti and Somalia.

A clinical form of deadly diarrhoeal disease, AWD can last several hours or days, depriving the body of water and salts that are necessary for survival. Most people who die from diarrhoea succumb to severe dehydration and fluid loss.

Pointing to reports from the health ministry in Djibouti, Mr. Jasarevic said the incidence of AWD had rapidly spread across the country, more than doubling since last year with 5,000 cases announced in 2011 alone. He noted that the number of cases was likely to be under-reported as not all were being detected.

But Mr. Jasarevic emphasized that prevention and contingency planning from WHO and the health ministry was already having an impact in Djibouti, with both entities providing training for health workers, pre-positioning oral rehydration salts and essential medicines, and chlorinating and monitoring water supplies. WHO had also supplied five emergency kits for diarrhoea and cholera, and they will arrive shortly, he added.

The spread of AWD was being facilitated by the overall situation in the Horn of Africa, Mr. Jasarevic said, as recurring drought in both Djibouti and neighbouring countries was weakening the population and exposing it to contagion.

He also noted that 54,000 cases of AWD had been reported in south-central Somalia, resulting in 795 deaths, while the outbreak of the disease was also on an upward trend in the all five refugee camps at the Dadaab complex in Kenya.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/droppings+cause+central+Alberta...

Bat droppings cause central Alberta outbreak of rare disease

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=186869

A VILLAGE in the Navosa highlands has been closed off to the outside world as a typhoid outbreak forced the closure of a school this week.

More than 50 per cent of the people of Nanoko village as well as students are believed to have been infected.

Commissioner Western Commander Joeli Cawaki said the villagers and students had been given an ultimatum to remain in the village for 21 days.

A team of health officers was deployed to the village early this week to prevent the disease from spreading to other parts of the area.

He said the villagers were quarantined and no one was allowed to move out of the village until the disease was fully contained.

"The Thomas Baker School is now closed," said Cdr Cawaki.

"We have a good number of villagers believed to be infected and the health team is busy treating the disease. The disease needs to be treated fast to avoid it spreading to other areas.

"This is a huge concern for the villagers especially for the school students."

Cdr Cawaki urged villagers in the Western Division to always clean their backyards.

"Healthy living is one of the main focus of the government, people must therefore take heed of this advice. Health teams were first to this village and surrounding villages in the beginning of the year to educate villagers on the importance of keeping their villages clean. The spread of typhoid in Nanoko should be a wake-up call for other villagers to take care of the environment and keep their compounds tidy."

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/25/mccaskill-calls-for-probe-int...

McCaskill calls for probe into smallpox-vaccine boondoggle

Almost two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times reported on the peculiar case of Siga Technologies, which got a no-bid contract to supply the Pentagon with an experimental vaccine for smallpox, a dead disease, when we have a plentiful supply of traditional vaccine to handle an outbreak.  Siga Technologies has close ties to the Democratic Party with its primary investor, party donor Ronald Perelman, and relatively new board member Andy Stern, the former head of the SEIU and a frequent visitor to the Obama White House.  The deal amounts to almost a half-billion dollars for Perelman and Stern, and the White House appears to have intervened to relax contract requirements and eliminate any hint of competition for the project.

Under those circumstances, it should come as no surprise that a member of Congress wants this deal investigated.  Should it surprise us that the demand comes from a Senate Democrat?

Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, has asked The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to review the Obama administration’s award of a $443 million sole-source contract to a company owned by a major Democratic donor. …

Citing “serious questions” about the contract, the Los Angeles Times reported that McCaskill has asked the inspector general of HHS to investigate. McCaskill is the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting and Oversight.

It turns out that there was another questionable call in awarding the contract to Siga:

In October 2010, Siga announced it had been awarded a multi-billion dollar contract to develop ST-246, despite the fact that the contract stipulated only a small business could be the winning bidder. A smaller company protested, and in response, the Obama Administration blocked everyone except Siga from bidding for a second offering of the contract.

The government’s justification for only talking to Siga was that an antiviral was needed within five years, and Siga was the only company who could do it. That justification troubled some HHS officials, one of whom called it “a stretch” in an internal email obtained by the paper. As much as $115 million in taxpayer money had already been spent developing the drug, which had not been approved by the FDA.

The kicker?  The FDA has no idea how it will approve the drug for use in humans.  In order to do the double-blind testing required for certification, they would have to expose test subjects to live samples of smallpox, since the disease no longer exists outside of a few military laboratories in Russia and the US.  Who would want to volunteer to expose themselves to smallpox and hope they don’t draw the placebo card in the trials?

McCaskill deserves one cheer for demanding an investigation into this contract, but it’s almost certainly not a selfless act.  She faces an almost impossible task in 2012 in winning re-ele

Thank you for creating and updating this blog post.

Unidentified Illness (rash on the skin), Haverhill, Massachusetts, USA (Nov 22)

At least 10 teachers at the troubled Hunking Middle School have contracted a poison ivy-like rash, according to the head of a parents group who is calling for the building to be vacated and closed. Parent Kelly Valaskatgis, president of the newly formed Haverhill Parents Shaping Our Schools group that is pushing for a new school, said she spoke to two teachers yesterday afternoon about the situation. "I'm told they all have a rash that looks like poison ivy," Valaskatgis said. "Some are having bronchial problems. They all believe something in the school is making them sick." Valaskatis said some of the affected teachers have been put on prednisone, a steroid used to suppress inflammation. "Our goal now is to get the kids and the teachers out of the building," Valaskatgis said. "We want it evacuated immediately." School Superintendent James Scully said he is aware of only two teachers who have complained of rashes, not including principal David Cook, who has been on sick leave but is expected back later this week or early next week, Scully said. Scully maintained the building is safe and that there is no reason to close the school. "In an hour it's going to be 20 teachers with rashes, then 40," he said, suggesting the situation is being exaggerated by teachers there. "I only know of two teachers with rashes. And it's unclear whether their illnesses have anything to do with conditions inside the building." Scully said a just-completed analysis of the school's air "shows there is no need to remove students." HUB Testing Laboratories of Waltham has been monitoring the building's air quality daily for several weeks, he said. Valaskatgis said she believes Scully that air inside the building is safe, but said something there is making teachers sick. "Maybe it's something in one of the teacher rooms that they are coming into contact with," she said. Hunking's entire sixth grade was moved to another school last month when half the building was closed over fears it could collapse due to structural problems. A week later, a parent said his daughter told him windows in the school must be left open because of asbestos. And at a recent School Committee meeting, a seventh-grader said he and other students there sometimes suffer headaches due to poor air quality. But since then, daily checks of the building's air have not indicated problems caused by mold, asbestos or anything else, Scully said. The testing showed "indoor mold spores" in the air, but not at high or unsafe levels, he said. The full report was posted on the Hunking website yesterday afternoon. "Most of our schools have asbestos under them, but Hunking does not have an asbestos problem in the building," Scully said. "There are rumors out there and one teacher is trying to get everyone alarmed. But the truth is the building is safe or we wouldn't have kids there." Marc Harvey, president of the Haverhill Education Association teachers union, did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment. School Committee member Paul Magliocchetti said he is receiving daily updates on issues at Hunking, but that he has seen nothing to suggest teacher illnesses are related to the building's air quality. "If there are staff or students who are sick or who have rashes, I invite them to get a note from their doctor that it's related to the building, and I'll move to vacate the rest of the school immediately," Magliocchetti said. "We have an outside firm monitoring and testing the air, and they are telling us it's safe."

Source

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-11/29/c_131277539.htm

Six more found infected after Hepatitis C outbreak in central China

http://www.sudantribune.com/Kala-azar-disease-kills-27-people,40854

Kala-azar disease kills 27 people in Unity state

November 29, 2011 (BENTIU) - Unity state’s health ministry said Friday that an outbreak of Kala-azar disease had killed 27 people in Koch and Mayiandit counties.

A MSF doctor examines a kid, who suffers from kala azar, in Malakal Upper Nile (photo MSF)

Health officials say that the disease spread from neighbouring Jonglei state, which had an outbreak in January.

Koch county’s Leer Hospital - the only health centre in the state that can treat the disease - has diagnosed over 100 cases officials told Sudan Tribune.

Dr. Manong Thot Teny director general of ministry of health in Unity state said that cases were on the rise, particularly in Koch county.

The state ministry of health and the World Health Organization have come to an agreement to train staffs at Koch County Hospital to investigate and treat the disease, which is spread by the bite of female sand flies.

"There is a need of establishment centre in Koch, but they had some challenges that Koch Hospital is very small, and at the end we are still need some support,” said Thot.

The health ministry director said that Medicine Sans Froniter (MSF) is the only organisation that clinics treating cases of Kala-Azar in Leer County. He said that they needed support from other organisations to fight the disease, which causes diarrhea, fever, general body weakness and swelling of some internal organs.

If left untreated, the disease kills around 95% of people who have been infected.

Thot said, they are planning to open a centre in Koch county, as the health centre there was too small to cope with the number of patients.

Unity states health facilities have attracted patients from Jonglei state.

MSF Holland visited Koch County on Tuesday with state health ministry staffs and found that the high rate of detection indicated that civilians were at an increased risk.

Health authorities in Unity state are urging citizens to use mosquito nets as a way to minimize the risk of contracting the disease.

The Kala azar or Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease transmitted through sand fly bites which breed in forest areas, caves, or the burrows of small rodents. It can cause death by attacking a person’s internal organs and bone marrow and has a mortality rate of 95 per cent if it is not treated.

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported that October that the Kala azar killed some 720 people in South Sudan. However, UN officials stress that the real number of victims can be higher than reported.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said that more than 18,000 cases of the disease have been recorded in South Sudan since the outbreak emerged in September 2009. Children are the first victims, she underscored.

http://www.mmail.com.my/content/86869-lockdown-rmaf-base

Lockdown at RMAF base
24 trainee commandos in hospital for suspected leptospirosis infection

Friday, December 2nd, 2011 10:21:00
Bukit Jugra RMAF base

SHUTDOWN: Health Ministry officers will conduct checks at the Bukit Jugra RMAF base (top) while infected commandos are being housed in the maternity ward at Hospital Banting

BANTING: The Bukit Jugra RMAF base is under lockdown after 24 trainee commandos were admitted for suspected leptospirosis infection.

Two of them are in critical condition, while Health Ministry officials have descended on the army base since Monday to ensure there is no outbreak.

The trainees have been quarantined in the maternity ward of the Banting Hospital. Two of them are in critical condition, with one trainee transferred to the Kuala Lumpur Hospital yesterday.

The condition of the remaining 22 trainees was reported to be stable. Thery will be released only after tests are complete — expected to be in a few days.

According to sources, the patients were brought there on Monday evening for food poisoning.

A security guard said family members and friends of the trainees, who turned up at the hospital earlier in the day, were not allowed to enter the ward.

“They just sat here and waited for hours. All they wanted was to see the trainees, but no one was allowed to go in. They left after talking to doctors on duty,” he said.

The guards said they were given strict orders by the hospital management not allow anyone to enter.

A hospital staff who contacted The Malay Mail said they were given strict orders by hospital management and military commandants to keep the situation under wraps.

Hospital Banting director Dr Rozita Mohamed confirmed the commandos were admitted there but declined to comment further.

Visiting the hospital yesterday, The Malay Mail found the 22 commandos housed at the maternity ward.

A hospital staff said there were two maternity wards and whenever a high number of patients were admitted with the same problem, they were kept at one of the wards, also known as “Ward 2”.

A nurse, who declined to be identified, said as patients were quarantined, they had to be housed in a separate ward.

“The hospital is taking precautionary measures as the disease may be contagious.”

Defence Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi yesterday confirmed the soldiers were infected by leptospirosis, which is commonly associated with rat’s urine.

Sources said it was believed the commandos could have been infected from the food or water they consumed.

Health Ministry officers are conducting checks at the RMAF base, including scouring the Bukit Jugra jungle area where the victims are believed to have undergone final training.

The health officers are also inspecting the airbase’s water tanks and water outlets to see if the food or water source could have been contaminated.
Disease spread through animal urine

PETALING JAYA: Leptospirosis is a rare disease which infects humans exposed to bacteria contaminated by animal urine and is contagious as long as the bacteria remain moist.

The main carriers are rats, moles and mice but a large range of other mammals, such as dogs, deer, rabbits, hedgehogs, cows, sheep, raccoons, opossums, skunks, and certain marine mammals, are able to carry and transmit the disease as secondary hosts.

Wikipedia states: “There have been reports of ‘house dogs’ contracting leptospirosis apparently from licking the urine of infected mice that enter houses. The types of habitats most likely to carry infective bacteria are muddy riverbanks, ditches, gullies, and muddy livestock rearing areas where there is a regular passage of either wild or farm mamma

http://www.ktvl.com/articles/measles-1202822-cases-europe.html

Europe experiences measles outbreak
December 01, 2011 1:33 PM
Maria Cheng/AP Medical Writer

LONDON (AP) -- After years of decline, measles is on the rise in Europe, according to a new report released Thursday.

As of October, European health officials reported more than 26,000 measles cases this year and nine deaths. That's a threefold increase in cases from the same time period in 2007, said the World Health Organization.

France accounted for about 14,000 cases, mainly in children older than five and in young adults.

Other big outbreaks of the highly-contagious disease have been identified in Spain, Romania, Macedonia, and Uzbekistan. So far, measles has killed nine people in Europe and hospitalized thousands of others. The report was published Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We are seeing a surge of cases much larger than we've seen in the past five or six years," said Rebecca Martin, immunization program manager for WHO's Europe office in Copenhagen. Measles cases had been dropping for years, but began to increase sharply in late 2009.

Martin said the epidemic was fueled mainly by low vaccination rates and noted about half the cases were in people older than 15.

"Over the years, people who haven't been vaccinated are now giving the virus a big opportunity to spread," Martin said.

The report said overall vaccination rates in Europe were high, but still didn't meet the 95 percent target needed to stop outbreaks. Of the people who got measles, about half weren't vaccinated and the vaccination histories of many of the others was unknown.

More cases in Europe have also meant spillover elsewhere. The U.S. has 205 cases this year - the most in a decade - and virtually all are linked to other regions, including 20 cases from Europe. Because North America has so little measles, every imported case requires a thorough investigation and response costing tens of thousands of dollars, Martin said.

The U.S. normally only has about 50 cases a year. In May, international health officials posted an alert urging travelers everywhere to get vaccinated before flying overseas.

Measles is highly contagious and up to 90 percent of people exposed to an infected person get sick, experts say. The virus spreads easily through the air, and in closed rooms, infected droplets can linger for up to two hours after the sick person leaves.

It causes a fever, runny nose, cough and a rash all over the body. The disease kills about one to two children for every 1,000 it infects, and can also cause pregnant women to have a miscarriage or premature birth.

In 2008, there were about 164,000 measles deaths worldwide. More than 95 percent of those deaths were in poor countries.

Health officials say controlling measles outbreaks in Europe is still being compromised because of ignorance of the disease's severity and skepticism about the vaccine.

The measles shot was tainted by now discredited research published by Andrew Wakefield in 1998 suggesting a possible link between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. Parents abandoned the vaccine in droves and suspicion about its safety still lingers, even though repeated studies have shown no connection.

Unlike in the U.S., where most states require children to be vaccinated against measles before starting school, no such regulations exist in most of Europe.

Spain and Switzerland exclude unvaccinated children from school during measles outbreaks, but don't otherwise insist on vaccination. In France and Britain, parents are advised to have their children immunized if they haven't received the measles shot, but there is no penalty for not doing so.

WHO's Martin said Europe's measles epidemic appeared to be on the decline. She said France

http://www.570news.com/news/local/article/305920--c-difficile-outbr...

C. difficile outbreak at GRH
570 News Dec 02, 2011 13:33:44 PM

There's an outbreak of C. difficile in one unit at Freeport Hospital.

Hospital staff are taking steps to protect patients while working to stop further spread of the disease.

Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. William Ciccotelli told 570 News five new cases total have been recorded in the past three weeks, three of those in the Union Terrace Four unit.

Vulnerability to C. difficile isn't limited to the elderly, Ciccotelli said, "a lot of patients who have chronic health problems or maybe antibiotic exposures are people who can actually aquire this disease, but certainly the elderly are a group that we are concerned about getting this infection."

Ciccotelli says they're agressively looking for cases that are symptomatic of C. difficile, putting those patients in isolation as soon as possible, and getting them tested and on treatment.

The hospital is also ramping up cleaning of the facility in the areas that are infected in hopes of breaking the cycle of transmission.

While there has not been visitor ban, Ciccotelli said if you are visiting the unit the outbreak is on to consider holding off. Ciccotelli says if you have to visit, "please help us by washing and sanitizing your hands regularly before, during and after your visit. Hand hygiene is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of many infections,” he said.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/172329.php

What Is Clostridium Difficile (C. Difficile)?

Main Category: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Also Included In: GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology; Seniors / Aging
Article Date: 26 Nov 2009 - 11:00 PDT

Clostridium difficile, also known as C. difficile, or C. diff, is a bacterium which infects and can make humans ill, as well as other animals. Symptoms can range from diarrhea to serious and potentially fatal inflammation of the colon.

Elderly hospital patients, as well as those in long-term care facilities are most commonly affected by C. difficile - especially after or during the use of antibiotic drugs.

C. difficile infection is gradually becoming more common, symptoms more severe and harder to treat. In North America, Europe, Australasia and many other parts of the world a significant number of people become ill from C. difficile - not only hospitalized patients taking antibiotics, but also otherwise healthy individuals.

Patients with mild symptoms may improve if they stop taking antibiotics. Those with severe symptoms need different antibiotic medications and sometimes further therapy.

C. difficile is present in the gut (intestinal tract) of approximately 3% of all adults and 66% of children. Healthy people are not usually affected by C. diff. However, some antibiotics may alter the balance of good bacteria in the gut, allowing C. diff to multiply and cause diarrhea, and possibly more serious illness.

The reason most cases of C. diff infection occur in healthcare environments is because of their link to antibiotic therapy - a significant number of hospitalized patients are on antibiotics. In industrialized countries approximately four-fifths of all C. diff cases occur in patients aged over 65 years.

The majority of patients with C. difficile infection recover completely without any long-term consequences. A small percentage, unfortunately, do have complications and some of them die.

In the UK there were 7% more cases of C. diff infection in 2006 compared to 2005. Experts say that improvements in testing technology and methods are partly responsible for the apparent increase. However, there is concern that the numbers are rising regardless.

Experts say that with good hygiene practices in healthcare environments, many C. diff infection cases can be prevented.

According to Medilexicon's medical dictionary:

Clostridium difficile is "a bacterial species found in feces of humans and animals. It colonizes newborn infants, who are spared from toxin-induced diarrheal disease. Pathogenic for human beings, guinea pigs, and rabbits; frequent cause of colitis and diarrhea following antibiotic use. Found to be a cause of pseudomembranous colitis and associated with a number of intestinal diseases that are linked to antibiotic therapy; also the chief cause of nosocomial diarrhea."

What are the signs and symptoms of Clostridium difficile?
A symptom is something the patient feels and reports, while a sign is something other people, including a doctor or a nurse may detect. For example, pain may be a symptom while a rash may be a sign.

Mass vacinations being issued due to outbreak of rabies from bat bites, Amazon region

The Health Minister David Chiriboga, announced a mass vaccination against rabies outbreak in various parts of the Amazon by bat bites. However, Chiriboga lamented the difficulties in diagnosing the disease and the resistance of indigenous communities to the vaccine.Three remote communities in the canton Taisha in Morona Santiago province, have been affected by the outbreak of the deadly disease, which occurs after bat bites infected with the virus and so far there have been ten deaths from this cause .

Chiriboga said that medical teams have been deployed for mass vaccination in communities east of the province, but the refusal to be vaccinated “is a complicated issue.”

http://latinamericacurrentevents.com/mass-vacinations-being-issued-...

http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/314684-measles-confirmed-in-14-dist...

 By Prossy Nandudu

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/12/15/outbreak-of-he...

Outbreak of Hepatitis A on Vancouver Island Hitting Aboriginals Hard

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Public Health Image Library

Cropped image of an electron micrograph of the Hepatitis A virus (HAV).

   

Aboriginal people on the West Coast of Vancouver Island are being hit hard by an outbreak of Hepatitis A, according to Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) chief medical health officer Paul Hasselback.

“Of the last 17 cases that were diagnosed, 15 of them are from the Alberni Valley and West Coast,” Hasselback said in early December. “We’ve seen clusters of Hep A in various locations, but right now the cluster is there.”

Ninety-one cases of Hepatitis A have been diagnosed on Vancouver Island so far this year, Hasselback said. Although he said the aboriginal population has been hit particularly hard, he would not disclose any numbers.

Socio-cultural factors such as close family and children-to-children interaction, as well as interaction generated by cultural activities, create conditions in which Hepatitis A can spread with greater frequency, Hasselback said.

According to VIHA’s website, hepatitis A is caused by a virus that affects the liver. This virus is found in the feces of infected people and is spread through close personal contact or via contaminated food that has been handled by an infected person. Symptoms include fever, tiredness, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

“It very uncommonly results in death or liver failure,” the site notes.

VIHA officials are working closely with Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council health staff in a public education and immunization initiative. The tribal council is the political and public service arm for 14 tribes on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Vigorous tracing is being done by VIHA staff to find patients’ closest contacts and vaccinate them against the disease. Aboriginal communities on the island were already undergoing hepatitis A vaccinations as part of a province-wide program. More than 8,000 people on Vancouver Island have been given Hepatitis A immunizations so far this year.

But now the disease is infiltrating a younger demographic.

“Of those 15 [diagnosed], nine of them are under age 19,” Hasselback said, adding that few cases are commonly diagnosed among people over 30. “Older people usually have developed an immunity to it already.”

The outbreak started in early August, Hasselback said. It originated in Cowichan, VIHA spokesperson Shannon Marshall said. VIHA officials have declared it an outbreak because of the rapid spread of the disease.

“It’s spreading beyond patients’ immediate circle of contacts,” Hasselback said. “We don’t have full control of it yet.”

The Hepatitis A outbreak is different than the tuberculosis eruption three years ago in which more than 45

http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/brain-eating-tap-w...

Brain-eating tap water amoeba kills at least two in Louisiana

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/lifestyles/2011/dec/19/tdmet05-cases-...

Your Health: Cases of rare amoeba infections total 5 nationally

Q: Have there been any other deaths from infections with the waterborne amoeba that killed a Henrico County boy last summer?

A: Officials at the Virginia Department of Health say there have not been any additional deaths in the state linked to Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba that grows in warm, stagnant lakes, ponds, rivers and other bodies of fresh water.

A person swimming or playing can get infected when water goes up the nose. The amoeba travels up the sinuses and infects the brain, causing primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, a rare and almost always fatal disease that destroys the brain.

Christian Alexander Strickland, 9, of Henrico County, died in August after being infected with the amoeba. He had attended a fishing camp the week before he died, a relative said.

"One thing that surprised me is that a $2 pair of (swimming) nose plugs would have prevented all of this," said Bonnie Strickland, Christian's aunt. She said Christian was the family's youngest grandson.

This year in the United States, there have been a total of five deaths linked to Naegleria fowleri infections, said Jonathan S. Yoder, an epidemiologist and waterborne disease and outbreak surveillance coordinator at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

"That's fairly typical, generally somewhere between three and five cases. Some years it's as high as eight cases. … Each case is very tragic," Yoder said.

The cases reported this year include two that don't fit the typical pattern. The two cases occurred in Louisiana. Both people apparently used neti pots, small genie-like pots with a long snout to irrigate the sinuses, but the investigation has not determined that's what caused the infections.

The deaths prompted the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals to issue an advisory Dec. 6 that urged people who use neti pots to follow some precautions.

"If you are irrigating, flushing, or rinsing your sinuses, for example, by using a neti pot, use distilled, sterile or previously boiled water to make up the irrigation solution," Louisiana State Epidemiologist Raoult Ratard said in a statement.

"Tap water is safe for drinking, but not for irrigating your nose." The statement also advised rinsing the irrigation device after each use and leaving it open to air dry.

Yoder, at the CDC, said the investigation is continuing in those cases.

"It's hard for us to say with certainty that we know it was caused by the neti pot," Yoder said.

Yoder was lead author on a research paper that examined 111 Naegleria fowleri cases that occurred in the United States from 1962 to 2008.

"Nearly all cases have documented exposure to recreational water," Yoder said. "Nearly all of those are during the summer months. That is why these cases in Louisiana seem a little bit different."

Among the 111 cases reviewed, most patients were age 13 or younger (62 percent) and most were male (80 percent). More than half the cases occurred in two states (30 in Texas and 29 in Florida). Of the 91 cases in which a source of water exposure was known, lakes, ponds and reservoirs were named in 74 percent of cases.

Of the 111 cases examined, there was only one case in which the patient survived. Because the infections are so rarely diagnosed, it's difficult to tell people how to prevent infections, Yoder said. Millions of people swim in lakes and ponds without getting infected.

"We think people should know that there's Naegleria fowleri out there, and that there's a low level of risk, and be informed and take whatever prevention they feel is appropriate for themselves and thei

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gDg7VcgHMzawGJaf...

TAIPEI — Taiwanese authorities said Thursday they had slaughtered nearly 1,000 pigs following the island's worst outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in more than 14 years.

The pigs were culled earlier this week at a farm in the southern city of Tainan after showing symptoms of the disease.

Altogether 983 out of the 2,667 pigs on the farm were culled and the rest were vaccinated, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement.

No foot-and-mouth symptoms have been found so far in animals at 11 other farms within a three-kilometre (1.8-mile) radius of the affected farm, it said.

More than three million pigs were slaughtered in 1997 in the wake of a foot-and-mouth epidemic.

The highly contagious virus affects cattle, pigs, sheep and other cloven-hoofed livestock. It is not usually fatal, but an outbreak leads to losses in the production of meat and milk.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-22/hong-kong-live-poultry-...

Hong Kong Live Poultry Ban, Cull Hurts Solstice Banquet Plans

Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong celebrates winter solstice today without fresh chickens in the feast marking the occasion after officials culled tens of thousands of birds and banned the sale and import of live poultry to prevent a bird flu outbreak.

The government slaughtered a total of 19,451 birds, including more than 15,000 chickens, yesterday after the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was found in a chicken carcass at a wholesale market.

“It is unfortunate that an avian influenza case is detected before the winter solstice,” Secretary for Food and Health York Chow said. “I understand that it will cause inconvenience to the public. However, to safeguard public health, we need to adopt decisive and effective measures to prevent and control the spread of the virus.”

Hong Kong takes a tough line on the highly pathogenic strain of flu virus, first recorded in humans in the city in 1997 and which has since spread through Asia, Europe and Africa, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds and killing more than half of the people that caught it. The city of 7 million people was also hit by an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003 in which 299 people died.

The Cheung Sha Wan Temporary Wholesale Poultry Market, where the carcass was found, was disinfected and will be closed until Jan. 12, the government said in a statement yesterday evening. The city’s 30 chicken farms were tested, with all samples free of avian influenza, according to the statement. The Agricultural, Fisheries and Conservation Department will conduct further testing.

Health Concern

Avian flu is a serious public health concern with the potential to cause a deadly pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Since 2003, more than 500 people have been infected with the H5N1 strain worldwide and about 60 percent have died, according to the Atlanta-based agency.

Public hospitals in the city activated their “serious” response level and enhanced surveillance after the government discovered the H5N1-infected chicken carcass at the Cheung Sha Wan market, in the western part of Kowloon. It wasn’t clear whether the chicken was local or imported, Chow said.

The Department of Health is testing workers at the market, farmers and other people who may have come into contact with the birds, according to a separate statement yesterday. So far no human H5N1 infections have been discovered, it said.

“Hong Kong has the best H5N1 contingency plan to be found in any part of the world,” said Yuen Kwok-yung, chairman of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong’s department of microbiology. “We should not panic. Every winter there is increased H5N1 activity in poultry and migratory birds.”

Swine Flu

During the 2009 swine flu scare, Hong Kong quarantined almost 400 people in a downtown hotel who may have come into contact with a Mexican visitor confirmed as having caught the flu strain.

No live ducks or geese are sold in Hong Kong, said Sally Kong, a government spokeswoman. Chow said the government will pay compensation of HK$30 for each chicken destroyed.

In 1997, the government ordered all poultry in Hong Kong to be culled. Many families in rural areas kept chickens in back- yard wood-and-wire hutches that can still be seen lying empty and rusting in villages across the territory. Ducks, geese and pigeons are also widely eaten in Hong Kong.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/ranchi/30653-12-dead-in-...

12 dead in W Singhbhum in mysterious viral attack

At least a dozen people are dead while several others have fallen ill following the outbreak of a mysterious disease in several villages of Tonto block in the mineral-rich West Singhbhum district, about 40 km from the district headquarters, over the past week.

An unknown virus is tormenting residents for the past one month. A mysterious fever which causes drop in platelet count and gives rise to dengue-like symptoms is baffling doctors and heath officials. Tests performed on blood samples sent to National Centre for Disease Control, New Delhi, and School of Tropical Disease, Kolkata, have confirmed dengue and chikungunya. However, the health department is not ruling out possibilities of an unknown viral attack.

“This mysterious strain of virus must be identified. It is leading to drop in platelet and leukocyte counts but all test reports for dengue are showing negative results,” said a health department official. The district health department has announced steps to check the casualty rate but adequate steps haven’t been taken so far.

Deputy Commissioner K Srinivasan said senior officials of the health department are inquiring into the matter. “The administration learnt about the matter through media reports. Senior officials of health department are looking into the matter,” Srinivasan said. The DC, however, refused to speak on the apparent cause behind the casualties.

Earlier, officials at the district civil surgeon’s office said a medical team led by the district medical officer has been rushed to the block to provide adequate medical treatment to ailing villagers. A few villagers have been admitted to Chaibasa Sadar Hospital.

“A medical team is camping in the affected area distributing necessary medical help to affected villagers,” said an official, adding that more teams are likely to be sent to the affected block. However, the civil surgeon himself was not available for comments.

The administration has not concluded the exact cause behind the mysterious death of villagers. It has decided to send the sample of the contaminated water to the lab to ascertain the cause behind the casualties.

“Diarrhoea could be one reason, so the department has decided to send a sample of the contaminated pond water from the affected area to the lab for examination,” informed an official.

About five months ago, ten people died of diarrhoea in Kanskel village under Birkel panchayat limits in Gudri block of the district. “In 2009 it was swine flu and in 2010 it was dengue and this year we are confronting a viral fever outbreak. We are sure that the visit of an experts’ team will help us determine the nature of the new disease,” Swaran Singh said.

“I have never seen an outbreak of such a disease in my medical career spanning over three decades. While the number of dengue cases is rising everyday, this new virus which is yet to be identified has made things more complex,” UK Srivastava, a prominent city doctor, said.

The spread of the mysterious disease has become a cause of concern for the medical fraternity and for citizens. Doctors say that this unknown strain of virus causes a steep fall in leukocyte and thrombocyte counts in the body apart from a drop in the number of blood platelets.

Outbreak of The Mysterious Nodding Syndrome in Africa

There's another mysterious disease that emerged out of Africa: a nodding syndrome, which causes young children and adolescents to nod violently when they eat food.

Large areas of northern Uganda are experiencing an outbreak of nodding syndrome, a mysterious disease that causes young children and adolescents to nod violently when they eat food. The disease, which may be an unusual form of epilepsy, could be linked to the parasitic worm responsible for river blindness, a condition that affects some 18 million people, most of them in Africa.

According to Wikipedia, it's not as funny as it sounds: the disease also causes mental retardation, stunted growth, and a near 100% fatality rate.

Ebola makes a comeback?

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/africa-emerge...

NAIROBI, Kenya — The mysterious death of a 29-year old woman after she turned up bleeding profusely at a Nairobi hospital has raised fears of an outbreak of Ebola.

The Ebola virus is a so-called hemorrhagic disease and kills nastily: vomiting, diarrhoea, extensive bleeding. There is no known cure.

Outbreaks in rural areas of Congo, Uganda and Sudan over the last 35-years have killed hundreds of people at a time.

Gladys Muthoni was taken to Kenyatta National Hospital by three people who were quarantined. After her death tests were carried out to determine the cause.

Kenya's director of public health, Sharif Shanaaz tried to ally fears on Friday announcing that the “blood specimen obtained was analyzed ... and is negative for all viral hemorrhagic fever including Ebola." But it remains unclear exactly what killed the woman and Kenya's government said it would continue to monitor the situation.

Neighboring Uganda coped with a death attributed to Ebola in May this year.

Hepatitis outbreak grows

http://www.thewesternnews.com/news/article_fe33dde2-2bf4-11e1-adc1-...

Health Department secures vaccine; now seven cases confirmed

An outbreak of Hepatitis C has surfaced in Lincoln County, according to Marci Johnson, communicable diseases coordinator of Lincoln County.

“We’re still investigating it, but right now we’ve got seven confirmed cases,” Johnson said Sunday afternoon. “I’ve been in contact with the state, and they have agreed to supply us with the vaccines for Hepatitis A and B at no charge.”

The outbreak comes as the Lincoln County Commission has scheduled to close the local Health Department office on Friday, Dec. 30, for budget cuts.

HCV (Hepatitis C) is a viral infection that is spread when the blood of an infected person enters the blood of a non-infected person. Approximately 75 percent of those who contact the virus will develop a chronic infection that can result in long-term health problems including liver damage, liver cancer, and possibly death.

According to the CDC, approximately 8,000-10,000 people die every year from HCV-related liver disease. Those with HCV should be monitored regularly by their health-care provider and evaluated for treatment. However, not everyone with HCV will benefit from treatment. Vaccination against Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B is recommended to help protect a person’s liver.

Asked about the spread of the local infections, Johnson said she is concerned about persons trying drugs for the first time.

“We’re concerned about young people caught in the moment. Those are the ones we want to have checked,” Johnson said. “The longtime users know the risks.”

Johnson said she also is working with the Flathead Valley Chemical Dependency Center in Libby to assist intravenous drug users.

The Libby Health Department office was scheduled to receive the vaccines Tuesday. Vaccine times will be scheduled later, Johnson said.

“Right now, I just want people to call the Libby Health Department to set up an appointment,” Johnson said. “The county has agreed to keep me on for awhile. There’s just no way Mickey (new County Nurse Carvey) can handle this working just two days (a week) in Eureka.”

Johnson said she planned to put flyers in area bars recommending people who may be users call her office to make an appointment to be checked.

Prior to 1992, when screening and testing became widespread in the U.S., HCV was spread through blood transfusions or organ transplants. Today, most people become infected by sharing needles while injecting drugs. Even those that do not share needles but do share related paraphernalia or “fixings” can and do contact the disease.

Sharing is also a common means of transmitting HIV and other diseases. The risk of transmission of HCV through sexual contact is believed to be low; however the risk increases for those who have multiple partners or sexually transmitted disease.

Johnson recommended people who have injected drugs in the past or are doing so currently that they be tested.

Persons are urged to talk to their health-care provider.

The Hepatitis screenings will be offered at no cost, and all inquiries and testing are strictly confidential.

http://crystallake.patch.com/articles/county-whooping-cough-outbrea...

County Whooping Cough Outbreak Hits Record 254 Cases

Health officials are hoping school winter break will slow the spread of the disease.

The McHenry County whooping cough outbreak has reached a record number of 254 cases.

The McHenry County Health Department released the latest statistics on Dec. 23. The outbreak surpasses the previous record of 191 cases reported during an outbreak in the county in 2004, said Mary Ellen Howell, staff development coordinator for McHenry County.

The age of those affected range from 3 months to 59 years, Howell said.

The actual number of cases could be slightly higher as some illnesses go undiagnosed or unreported.

Through the communicable disease program, the county has supplied area doctors with forms to complete when they suspect a patient has come down with whooping cough — otherwise known as pertussis.

“When doctors are treating someone for pertussis, but that person hasn’t been tested, someone from the communicable disease department will call that person, interview him and try to confirm whether he has the disease,” Howell said.

Howell said the county health department hopes school vacation will slow the outbreak; however, health officials realize children visiting other relatives for the holidays actually may spread the illness further outside the county.

The 6- to 10-year-old age group has the most cases reported in McHenry County with 60 confirmed illnesses.

Cases among 11- to 14-year-olds are next highest at 49; and 15- to 19-year-olds account for 53 reported illnesses, Howell said.

“As you can see, the bulk of the outbreak is among the school-age population,” Howell said.  

Whooping cough is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the bacterium, Bordetella pertussis. The illness is known for the uncontrollable, violent coughing that makes it very difficult for patients to breathe. After fits of many coughs, pertussis sufferers often need to take deep breaths, which result in a whooping sound, according to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Pertussis most commonly affects infants and young children. The most common complication for children is that 1 in 10 w

http://grendelreport.posterous.com/news-of-smallpox-outbreak-in-ind...

News of Smallpox Outbreak in India Raises Fear

Early this week news began to break of an outbreak of smallpox in Jharkhand India. Three people in Gumla were reported to have died of the infectious disease and another five people were reported to be ill. The local health department have immediately rushed in to see if the deaths were from the ‘so called ‘ eradicated disease smallpox.

According to the Indian news channel ZeeNews. the Health Secretary AK Sarkar said that the health department was in the process of authenticating reports. However, he later added that he was not in a position to confirm or deny whether the outbreak was smallpox.

For further reading see ‘Small pox resurfaces in Jharkhand?’ (http://www.zeenews.com/news695012.html)

News has sent shock waves and fear around district of Jharkhand.

We should now ask ourselves was smallpox ever really eradicated by the vaccine as we have been led to believe?

The World Health Organization are confident that the vaccine put an end to smallpox. In 1979 they recommended that the smallpox vaccination programme cease worldwide. The only exception has been special groups, such as researchers working with smallpox and related viruses. By 1996 vaccination had stopped throughout the world.

The WHO certainly appear to have believed in the vaccines success. So much so in fact that on the 17 May 2010 in Geneva a statue commemorating the 30th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox was unveiled in front of the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters by the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Margaret Chan. A press release from the WHO at the time states:

“The eradication of smallpox shows that with strong mutual resolve, teamwork and an international spirit of solidarity, ambitious global public health goals can be attained,” says Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General, WHO.

‘Statue commemorates smallpox eradication’ (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2010/smallpox_20100517/en/index.html)

Certainly a convincing show of solidarity wouldn’t you say? If this latest outbreak of smallpox turns out to be genuine the WHO would look pretty stupid wouldn’t they?

However, supposing the eradication of smallpox was one big hoax to completely convince the public that a vaccine had eradicated a disease. In doing this the WHO could brainwash the world into believing that vaccines could eradicate all diseases and therefore push worldwide vaccination. Many believe that smallpox is still with us but under a new name. Meryl Doyle – Australian Vaccine Network is convinced that smallpox is still around and she is not alone. She says:

“

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/12/28/Underreported-Health-Stories/

The Ten Most Underreported Health Stories of 2011

Sickening inequality, climbing cholera, drug resistant bugs, and more.

By Crawford Kilian,

For almost seven years, for reasons still unclear to me, I have been following online news reports about various infectious diseases. My blog H5N1 started with a rare, potentially catastrophic virus also known as bird flu. But it soon expanded.

Especially since 2009's swine flu pandemic (the virus is H1N1), I've been blogging about many diseases and the conditions that spread them: climate change, earthquakes, political violence. Again and again, I've been reminded of the terrible truth spoken by the German pathologist and politician Rudolf Virchow long ago: "Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale."

The media cover disease in a predictable pattern. Normally, local outbreaks get only local attention. For an outbreak to gain worldwide interest, it must be sudden, surprising, and as fatal as possible. Even then, media interest is likely to fade within three or four weeks.

As well, governments are usually keen to discourage media interest in disease. Outbreaks make the local government look bad, and they discourage tourism. Apart from that, the public itself doesn't want to think about disease and dying if it can possibly avoid it.

Given such widespread attitudes, I found it easy to compile this list of the 10 most underreported health stories of the year:

10. Neglected tropical diseases. These diseases afflict people in hot, humid countries with few resorts catering to North Americans wanting to get away from it all. They include roundworm, hookworm, lymphatic filiariasis (120 million cases), river blindness (37 million cases), snail fever, trachoma, and trichuriasis. They're not glamorous, and people in temperate-zone countries don't have to worry much about them.

9. Pakistan floods, and dengue. Apart from being bombed by U.S. drones, Pakistan has had two consecutive years of disastrous floods resulting in crop failures and many waterborne diseases affecting millions. Since Pakistan is widely regarded more as enemy than as ally, funding to help the victims has not been generous. As well, the country has suffered a brutal outbreak of dengue (also known as breakbone fever). Dengue is a worldwide problem but gets little attention in North America.

8. Social determinants of health. While income inequality has suddenly become a big issue thanks to the Occupy movement, neither public nor media have really grasped why it's an issue: inequality makes you sick and then it kills you early. But it does so by inducing stress-related diseases, often self-induced like smokers' cancer and alcoholism. So the media and the public both prefer to blame the victims.

7. African cholera. Cholera has been sputtering away from

Mysterious Nodding Syndrome Spreading Through Uganda

http://empowerednews.net/mysterious-nodding-syndrome-spreading-thro...

In northern Uganda, large areas are experiencing an outbreak of nodding syndrome, a mysterious disease that causes young children and adolescents to nod violently when they eat food. The syndrome may be an unusual form of epilepsy that might be linked to the parasitic worm responsible for river blindness.

The recent outbreaks affected the districts of Kitgum, Pader and Gulu. In Pader alone, 66 children and teenagers have died. More than 1000 cases were diagnosed between August and mid-December.

Nearly all the children with nodding syndrome are thought to live near permanent rivers which may connect the syndrome to river blindness. Onchocerca volvulus, a nematode worm that causes river blindness, is known to infest all three affected districts.

Scott Dowell, who researches pediatric infectious diseases and is lead investigator into nodding syndrome with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that we know that [Onchocerca volvulus] is involved in some way, but it is a little puzzling because [the worm] is fairly common in areas that do not have nodding disease.

Despite the unknown cause and cure for syndrome, Uganda’s Ministry of Health has begun using anticonvulsants such as sodium valproate to treat its signs and symptoms.

It has now reached the borders the Republic of South Sudan. Since gaining independence from the rest of Sudan in July, South Sudan has remained on track to eradicate one of humanity’s oldest diseases – guinea worm.

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2011-12-16/Hand-foot-mout...

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) – Vietnam says an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease has killed 156 people, mostly children, and sickened more than 96,000 through late November

An official at the Ministry of Health says the average number of weekly cases dropped from about 3,000 in September to 2,460 in November.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel alert Monday urging people visiting Vietnam to protect themselves from the disease by practicing "healthy personal hygiene."

This year's outbreak is a sharp uptick from recent years. Since 2008, about 10,000 to 15,000 cases were reported per year with about 20 to 30 children dying annually.

The common childhood illness typically causes little more than a fever and rash, and most recover quickly.

Location of affected villages in Falam Township, Chin State

28 December 2011: Over 80 people have fallen ill after being contracted with a mysterious infectious disease in three villages in Falam Township, Chin State.

The outbreak, which started on December 18, has overwhelmed local health officials who scrambled an emergency response team to respond to a rapidly growing number of people falling ill in Hnahthial, Ngailan and Haimual villages.

At least 47 villagers are now described as being in 'serious' conditions.

A local villager told Chinland Guardian, "People came down with Flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache, nausea and coughing. Children under 10 years old particularly have contracted the disease."

While there has been no reported death, the local said that there are reasons to be concerned about such a possibility.

Hnahthial village, which has about 40 households, has been hardest hit with about 50 of the villagers being sick. In Ngailan Village, which has only 14 households, 20 people have fallen ill. With a total of 22 households, Haimual Village has also seen 10 locals struck by the mysterious illness.

Local health officials have yet to identify the disease.

Recently named Burma's poorest state by the United Nations, Chin State has only 12 full-fledged hospitals for a population of half a million people.

Despite the extreme needs, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party government did not set up a health or education ministry at the State level.

http://news.bioscholar.com/2011/12/rat-borne-disease-kills-10-in-ch...

Rat-borne disease kills 10 in China

A fatal disease spread by rats has claimed 10 lives in an eastern Chinese province this year, officials said.

Between October and November alone, around 140 people in Qingdao of Shandong province were diagnosed with haemorrhagic fever that can cause kidney failure, the Shanghai Daily reported.

The outbreak occurred mainly in the rural outskirts of Qingdao, said officials.

Symptoms for haemorrhagic fever include high temperature, headaches and bleeding, the Shandong TV station said.

People can contract the disease through contact with infected rats or their droppings or by eating food or drinking water contaminated by the rodents. However, it does not spread between humans.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/315192/hepatitis-c-outbreak-15-dead-ove...

Talking to The Express Tribune, Basti Jakaani villagers complained that there were no public health facilities for treatment and diagnosis of hepatitis-C in the area.

They alleged that facilities at the Rajanpur district headquarters (DHQ) hospital were only available through references from influential people. They said most of them had had to go to private laboratories for hepatitis-C tests, where they were tested positive for the disease. They said they could not afford the treatment and most of them returned to the village after getting their test reports. They said people from nearby villages had refused to come to their village fearing that they too might get infected by the disease.

Residents said there was no sanitation system in the village and the only source of drinking water was underground water. They said the water was contaminated and demanded that the government install a filtration plant in the village.

The casualties from the disease have included twins born to Alam Mai, who herself has been diagnosed with hepatitis-C. Mai said she and the babies had tested positive for the disease over a month ago. She said she could not afford treatment.  Other casualties include Manzoor, 50.

Waso Mai, 70, said she had lost her husband and two grandsons to the disease.

District Officer (Health) Dr Musa Kalim expressed ignorance of a hepatitis-C epidemic in the area. He said he would look into the matter and take action to address the grievances of the Basti Jakaani villagers.

The DO, however, rejected the suggestion that anybody was declined treatment at the Rajanpur DHQ hospital. He said they had a hepatitis-C camp at the hospital where diagnostic facilities were available.

He said those diagnosed with the disease were given hepatitis-C kits and vaccines and only those in critical condition were admitted at the hospital.

Basti Jakaani was among the Rajanpur villages affected by the floods in 2010.

Scabies outbreak hit East Sussex hospital wards: Spread of skin disease among reported incidents

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9446848.Scabies_outbreak_hit_St_Leon...

An outbreak of the highly infectious skin disease scabies struck patients on three wards at a hospital.

The spread of the disease was among eight serious incidents reported by East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust in November.

Another case involved a throat pack not being removed from a patient after dental surgery, which was carried out during general anaesthetic.

The pack was left inside the patient after the surgery and risked obstructing the patient’s airway.

The mistake was classed by the trust as a “never event”, which is one that should not happen if the right preventative measures are put in place.

A third incident involved a case where a patient’s confidential information was faxed via an insecure route.

Other cases were two incidents of bed- sores, intestinal bleeding following an operation, a delay in a doctor review following a patient having a leg amputated and a failure to respond to Freedom of Information requests.

The scabies case affected Egerton, Baird and Irvine wards at Conquest Hospital in St Leonards.

The trust, which also runs Eastbourne District General Hospital, revealed details of the incidents at its latest board meeting.

Director of nursing Jane Hentley said in the report the trust had dealt with 64 serious incidents so far this year compared to 47 last year.

She said this was partly due to the trust’s expansion to include more services earlier this year and changes in reporting criteria.

The report said: “The higher numbers in 2011 are due to the integration of the organisation with community services on April 1, 2011 and the requirement to report pressure ulcers Grades 3 and 4 as serious incidents.”

A trust spokesman said the outbreak of scabies had been contained and dealt with and all reported incidents were being looked into.

The trust has been given between 45 and 60 days to finish a full investigation into each case.

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cagayan-de-oro/local-news/2012/01/02/lept...

Leptospirosis outbreak declared in Oro

CAGAYAN DE ORO -- The Department of Health (DOH) in Northern Mindanao declared Monday an outbreak of leptospirosis in Cagayan de Oro City after five persons have died while more than 200 have been infected with the disease.

“We have more cases now compared in 2009 with less than 70 patients infected with leptospirosis while we only have 10 cases in 2009,” DOH Regional Director Dr. Jaime Bernadas said in a television interview Monday.

Plan your Sinulog week ahead and find out what's in store for Sinul...

The outbreak was spurred by flash floods that ravaged 24 barangays in the city last December 17 following torrential rains brought by Tropical Storm Sendong (international codename: Washi). The incident left thousands of residents dead and scores still missing.

Councilor Dante Pajo, chairperson of the City Council’s committee on health and sanitation, said the City Government is alarmed over the increase in the number of persons infected with leptospirosis.

Pajo said 142 of the patients are now confined at the Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC), while 12 are at the J.R. Borja Memorial City Hospital. Some have already been discharged.

He said two of the fatalities were reported at NMMC, while another was “unreported”, who allegedly died in Barangay Balulang.

He said the “unreported” case was identified as leptospirosis based on the signs and symptoms.

Based on an advisory from the National Center for Disease Prevention and Control (NCDPC), leptospirosis is caused by leptospira bacteria that enter a person’s body through breaks in skins/wounds, eyes and nose when in contact with flood waters and vegetation, moist soils contaminated with the urine of infected animals, especially rats.

Among the signs and symptoms of leptospirosis include fever, non-specific symptoms of muscle pain and headache, calf muscle pain and reddish eyes in some cases.

In severe cases, some vital organs such as liver, kidney and brain are affected which might be evident by yellowish body discoloration, dark-colored urine and light stools, low urine output and severe headache.

The NCDPC listed the incubation period of the disease at between two to 25 days.

“Leptospirosis is very common nowadays and it is alarming. We have to see to it that those who were soaked in flood waters would take doxycycline,” Pajo said.

Doxycycline is a prophylactic medicine and antibiotic against leptospirosis.

Bernadas said they are hoping that cases of leptospirosis would not increase as the DOH and the City Health Office (CHO) have been distributing doxycycline to affected residents, especially those who are staying in evacuation centers.

The DOH has reportedly started distributing doxycycline as early as December 18.

Bernadas also encouraged those who were affected by the flood but are staying in their homes to visit the health centers for the free medicine.

Pajo, meanwhile, assured there would be no shortage of medicines in the city.

“We are very thankful that the City Government purchased the medicines, while the DOH also gave medicines along with other donors like the Cebu Medical Society,” he said.

He also encouraged the residents especially those who are residing in subdivisions affected by the flood and are not in evacuation centers to go to the health centers or at the CHO for free medicines.

Pajo said a team of doctors will visit different subdivisions in the city, especially those in Macanhan and Barangay Balulang.

“Our campaign is that people should not be careless and complacent with regard to the disease since it a very fatal,” he said.

Related to this, Pajo said they are al

http://www.theafricareport.com/index.php/east-horn-africa/mysteriou...

Mysterious disease hits Uganda

As Ugandans celebrated Christmas and New Year, most people in the northern parts of the country were seeking answers about a mysterious disease that has mainly affected children.



Map of Uganda

The head nodding disease which mostly attacks children aged between five and 15 has killed over 50 children in the last three months alone.

"The major symptom of the disease is the continuous nodding of the head" said community officer Jacob Okello.



"Over 2400 children in the districts of northern Uganda are suffering from the disease.

"Some of the victims faint after several minutes from the continuous head nodding".



There are fears that the little known disease might escalate into an outbreak amid admissions by authorities that they have no knowledge of the ailment.

"The nodding disease which is at times called the nodding syndrome is a little known disease in Uganda," said Gregory Obulu, a medical officer in northern Uganda.

"It is alleged that it even hit South Sudan in the 1980's."

According to Obulu, some health workers have associated the disease with epilepsy.

Joseph Wamala, an official at Uganda's epidemic and surveillance department of the Ministry of Health said the nodding disease could be a new type of epilepsy.

He said it could be associated with a parasitic worm known as Onchocerca Volvulus, which is also known to cause river blindness. 



"Studies are being carried out to get facts on that" Obulu said.



Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Rukia Nakamatte said the government had dispatched a team to the affected areas to carry out investigations.



Nakamatte said research was being done with assistance from the United States' Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.



Experts who have been monitoring the situation in northern Uganda say victims start nodding their heads once food is presented to them.



"Giving food to the (affected) children triggers the attack," said Carol Acani, a nurse.

"In most of the children the seizure begin when they start eating.

"They nod helplessly with uncoordinated hand movements and even fail to direct the food to their mouths."

More deadly bacteria at Tamar

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=11&art_id=...

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Top occupants of the Hong Kong government's new headquarters were shocked to learn last night that their offices are home to a deadly bacteria.

Legionella bacteria were found in water samples taken from the chief executive's office and those of other top government officials at the showpiece HK$5 billion Tamar complex less than five months after it was opened to occupation.

Centre for Health Protection controller Thomas Tsang Ho-fai revealed last night that nine out of the 31 samples collected on December 28 and 29 at the chief executive's office, offices in the East and West wings and the Legislative Council complex were positive for the bacteria.

Tsang said six bacteria-laden samples were found in the chief executive's office and the private washrooms of top secretaries in the East and West wings.

But he did not identify the secretaries whose offices were involved, saying that the center needs to analyze the results. But details are to be released today.

The checks came after Secretary for Education Michael Suen Ming-yeung came down with what can be fatal Legionnaires' disease late last month.

His office's private washroom was found to have bacteria levels 13 times higher than is acceptable under international standards.

Suen, 67, was discharged from hospital on December 29 after 12 days of treatment.

The additional checks have also included the bacteria being found in samples from three kitchens - a coffee shop on the second floor in the East Wing, a ca
nteen on the first floor between the East and West wings, and one in the Legco complex.

Tsang said Legionella can be found in water easily enough, but whether people catch the disease depends on factors such as the density of the bacteria and whether a person has a weak immune system or inhaled water mist contaminated with the bacteria.

Legionnaires' disease is caused by a type of bacteria that got its name in 1976 when many people who went to a Philadelphia convention of the American Legion suffered from an outbreak of this disease - which can be a virulent pneumonia.

"Finding Legionella bacteria in the water is not equal to an outbreak of the Legionella disease," Tsang added.

Bureaus involved have been warned, he said, but it is not necessary for the chief executive and the top secretaries to stop working. They can use filters to minimize risk or not use the washrooms where the bacteria have surfaced.

In fact, a spokesman for the chief executive's office said a filter will be installed on a pantry tap and there will be disinfectant liquid in toilets and the lift lobby along with other safety measures.

But the center's Tsang also said the scare had nothing to do with Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's absence from a public function on Friday, and the center has not received reports of any more people afflicted with the bacteria.

The Centre for Health Protection also announced yesterday that laboratory results on water samples taken from a tap at Suen's private washroom confirmed preliminary findings that the bacteria were there.

But the water source for the government headquarters is supposedly free from contamination.

Immediate control measures include disinfecting water systems where the bacteria are found, and workers from the Architectural Services Department were still busy last night. They are expected to finish disinfecting today.

The Centre for Health Protection will next collect post-disinfection water samples for analysis.

http://www.pstimes.com/2012/01/04/8-die-of-disease-outbreak-in-phil...

8 die of disease outbreak in Philippine flood area

CAGAYAN DE ORO: An outbreak of a deadly water-borne disease has claimed at least eight lives in the flood-stricken areas of the southern Philippines, officials said yesterday.

The health department said that there were almost 300 cases of leptospirosis recorded so far in areas that were inundated by floods brought by tropical storm Washi last month. “These people had a history of wading in flooded areas. Now government hospitals are full, they are overloaded already,” said regional health department director,

Cholera cripples Haiti, two years after quake

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-01-05/haiti-cholera-o...

More than half a million people have become ill with the disease and at least 7,000 have died since the outbreak began in October 2010, said Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization. Health providers report about 200 new cases a day. He expects that number to increase when Haiti's rainy season begins in April.

The disease has spread across the island of Hispaniola to Haiti's neighbor, the Dominican Republic, which has reported 21,000 cases and 363 deaths from cholera, he said.