Deadly New Disease Affecting Dogs

A warning from local vets is being issued to dog owners about a deadly new disease affecting dogs in other parts of the country.

It comes on suddenly, and there’s no vaccine to prevent it from killing.

"What we see is a lot of vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy,” says Dr. Andrea Dennis of Bloomfield Animal Hospital, describing the symptoms.

Until 2012, the virus was only detected in pigs and chickens.

Now, “circovirus” is hitting dogs.

The symptoms are the same as more common viruses like Parvo, but within two or three days, the dog is dead.

Dr. Dennis says it’s especially concerning with holidays coming up, when people board their dogs.

"You just don't know. And you just have to be prepared, that this virus can hit this state at any time,” she says.

While there's no vaccine yet, circovirus doesn't have to be a death sentence for a dog. In fact, if they're brought in early, with supportive care, dogs can be saved.

If you bring your dog to a vet right away, after the first signs of symptoms, they can get IV fluids and avoid dehydration, which Dennis says actually leads to most of the deaths.

As a dog owner and president of Enfield’s Big Fluffy Dog Rescue, Elizabeth Zaccaro is aware of circovirus, even though it’s not yet in Connecticut.

"Most people are anxious about it. It's going around on Facebook so everybody's kind of like, ‘Oh my god, what is it?’ ”

At “Dog Days of West Hartford,” owner Bob Duncan is taking preemptive action by double-checking his cleaning supplies, making sure his disinfectant is “circo-proof.”

"It cleans 99.9 percent of the viruses out there, but this is one that I'll be asking the manufacturer if it does cover this new virus that we're hearing about,” he said.

Dr. Dennis offers this bottom line to pet owners:

"Don't wait 24, 48 hours to see if it's going to get better on its own. That's the best advice I can really give."

Source- http://www.courant.com/news/breaking/hc-deadly-new-virus-affecting-...

http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/708872

Mass disease outbreak in Ulyanovsk Region caused by water infection

ITAR-TASS/Artyom Geodakyan

ULYANOVSK, November 25. /ITAR-TASS/. The mass disease outbreak in the city of Inza in the Ulyanovsk Region could be caused by rotavirus infection (intestinal flu), as most experts believe, said the region's Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Valentina Karaulova.

The final results will be known later this Monday.

Tests of water from sources in Inza have confirmed there was intestinal infection. Specialists of the local department of the Rospotrebnadzor federal public health control service believe one of the main causes of the mass disease was utilities' negligence to timely check and properly purify tap water. When experts examined the lines they found four ruptures. Everything has been repaired for the present.

In the group of risk are children under two. Symptoms of the disease are clear in one-three days. These are diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and high temperature, Karaulova said.

According to the Emergencies Ministry's Ulyanovsk regional department, a total of 255 cases have been reported — 53 adults and 202 children. Eighty seven people (12 adults and 75 children) remain in hospitals. Sixty six patients have been discharged. Thirty one new cases (eight adults and 23 children) were reported on Sunday. Thirty are outpatients, and one child was taken to the district's central hospital in Inza.

Regional police have opened a criminal case on charges of non-observance of sanitary and epidemiological regulations, which caused mass infecting of people. The regional prosecutor's office and the regional investigative department are continuing their inquiry.

Bottled water is supplied to the population according to schedule. Medics continue to visit homes to find out whether there are ill people.

Bubonic plague killed 20 villagers in Madagascar, health experts confirm

50 head of cattle die from mysterious disease in one week

UP to eight families in BH3, Jambezi in Hwange, lost more than 50 head of cattle last week to a yet-to-be identified disease in the latest mass animal deaths in Matabeleland North.

Chief Shana of Jambezi confirmed the mass cattle deaths and said about eight households had been affected.

"At the moment we don't know what is killing the cattle; we are waiting for the veterinary people to come back to us. So far they have not identified the disease because they are still conducting tests. What I can tell you is that a lot of families, about eight of them, lost their cattle to the disease," said Chief Shana.

Villagers said veterinary officials, who came and took samples which they sent to veterinary laboratories in Hwange for tests, fear that the cattle were wiped out by an infectious disease whose exact cause remains unknown.

One of the owners of the cattle, Mr Sizwangendaba Ncube, made the grim discovery on Thursday and immediately alerted Chief Shana and the police who called the veterinary personnel.
In an interview, Mr Ncube's son, Alfa, said six cows died as a result of the unknown illness.

"We are now left with just two cows from eight. Six have died but we don't know what is killing them. Some of them just fell down and died but we had to slaughter the other cows which were very ill and had no chance of survival. We had to slaughter them because we feared that they were infected with a contagious disease which might spread to other cows.

"We are not the only family that has lost cows, a number of families also lost their cattle. I can't tell you the exact number but what I know is that a lot of people have lost their livestock. I know one woman who also lost six cows. I know her because we usually share grazing areas with her," Alfa said.

He revealed that the veterinary officials had advised them not to consume the dead animals as they might pose a danger to humans.

"They don't know what killed the cows so they told us not to take chances because the disease might also be fatal to humans," he said.

http://www.bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-regional-byo-40271.html

Caribbean Travelers Warned About Mosquito-Borne Illness

Travelers to the Caribbean island of St. Martin are being warned that, for the first time, a mosquito-borne illness called chikungunya has been detected there. Chikungunya causes fever, headache and severe joint pains that last about a week, and sometimes longer. There is no vaccine, so the only prevention is to avoid mosquito bites, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. So far, 10 cases have been confirmed in St. Martin, and health officials believe the virus is present in the island’s mosquito populations — the first time that it appears to have established itself anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. Previous outbreaks have occurred in Africa, Asia and parts of Europe.

Source- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/health/caribbean-travelers-warned...

California high school tests all 1,800 students and staff for tuberculosis  after one student is infected and 45 test positive for possible  exposure

• Indio High  School in Riverside County is conducting tuberculosis testing for all staff and  students today
• The  screenings come after one student has been diagnosed with the disease and a  further 45 tested positive for possible exposure
• Tuberculosis is highly infectious and requires a six  to nine month course of antibiotics to treat
• If left  untreated, it kills 50 per cent of those infected

All students and staff members at a southern  California high school will be screened for tuberculosis today after 45 students  tested positive for possible exposure to the illness.

The decision to test the 1,800 students and  staff from Indio High School in Riverside County comes after a student last  month was diagnosed with active tuberculosis.

Earlier this week, 131 students were screened  and 45 tested positive for possible exposure. Of those, five were identified as  requiring further examination for signs of the illness.

Indio High School: All students and staff are required to have the free TB test  and may not return to school after the Christmas break unless they have been  screened

The numbers of those potentially infected  were higher than expected, but the 'the likelihood of the illness being passed  from one person to the  next is remote,' said Cameron Kaiser, a Riverside County  health official who ordered the expanded school-wide testing.

'Someone who is exposed does not necessarily  have active tuberculosis, a condition that must be confirmed with more tests,'  spokesman for Riverside County Public Health Jose Arballo told CNN.

According to MyDesert.com, active tuberculosis was brought to Indio High  by a student who attended the school from September until mid-November. The  student, who has not  been identified by authorities, is expected to make a full  recovery.

Officials say it is very unlikely that the  disease has spread and that the tests are being performed on all staff and  students out of 'an abundance of caution.'

The initial test is a skin test. A small  needle is used to inject a material called tuberculin under the skin. After two  to three days, a follow-up examination will determine whether the patient had a  reaction to the test.

If the result is positive, the patient will  have further tests, including a lung X-ray, to determine whether they have the  disease.

Indio students will return to the school  Monday for their follow-up examinations.

Tuberculosis is an infection caused  by a  bacterium that generally affects the lungs. It can also spread to  other parts  of the body and if left untreated, kills more than 50 per  cent of people  infected.

The symptoms includes fever, chills, night  sweats, chest pain, coughing up of sputum and weight-loss.

Tuberculosis is spread through the air when  an infected person coughs or sneezes. It cannot be caught through kissing,  sharing drinks or touching.

According to the Press-Enterprise, Riverside County has has  other active cases of tuberculosis this year,  including one student from Vista  Murrieta High School. There were 250  people screened after that case but none  were found to have active  tuberculosis.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  reports that one-third of the world's population is infected with  tuberculosis.

In the early 1900s, the infection killed one  in every seven people in the United States. Since the 1940s, cases of  tuberculosis have decreased with the introduction of effective  medicines.

Treatment involves an aggressive regimen of  antibiotics for a total of six to nine months.

A letter to parents on Indio High School's  website states that testing for the disease is mandatory and that until students  have been tested, they may not return to school after the break on January 6.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2527042/California-high-sch...

http://www.kolotv.com/news/southernnevadanews/headlines/59-Test-Pos...

59 Test Positive for TB After Vegas Outbreak

Posted: Mon 2:05 PM, Dec 23, 2013

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Las Vegas public health officials say dozens of people linked to a tuberculosis outbreak at a neonatal unit have tested positive for the disease.

The Southern Nevada Health District reported on Monday that of the 977 people tested, 59 showed indications of the disease and two showed signs of being contagious.

Dr. Joe Iser, chief medical officer at the health district, says the report demonstrates the importance of catching tuberculosis early.

Health officials tested hundreds of babies, family members and staff who were at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center's neonatal intensive care unit this past summer, saying they wanted to take extra precautions after the death of a mother and her twin babies.

They contacted the parents of about 140 babies who were at the unit between mid-May and mid-August.

There is an outbreak of scabies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I can't get a translation from Google Translate, but I'm providing you a link so you can try to translate it:

http://www.dnevno.ba/vijesti/bih/97749-od-suge-oboljelo-blizu-1-000...

Eitherway, it made me think and research a little bit. This kind of parasites and others (like lices) will be common in the aftertime, and curing cream now is very expensive or not available without doctors prescription. Instead we can buy permethrin solution for treating farm animals,  mix it with body lotion and use it for treatment. For example:

http://www.amazon.com/Martins-Permethrin-10%25-1-pint/dp/B002TMB4DE...

It is sold in concentration of 10% and you have to get 5% solution so this one should be mixed 1 part of permethrin and 1 part of lotion. If it is 20%, then you mix it 1:4 etc.

Massage the cream into the skin from the head to the soles of the feet, paying special attention to creases in the skin, hands, feet, between fingers and toes, underarms, and groin. Scabies rarely infests the scalp of adults, although the hairline, neck, side of the head, and forehead may be infested in older people and in infants. Infants should be treated on the scalp, side of the head, and forehead.

• Leave the permethrin cream on the skin for 8 to 14 hours.
• Wash off by taking a shower or bath.
• Put on clean clothes.

It is of great importance to treat all the furniture, clothes and bedding that was in contact with infested person. All household members and close contacts should be treated even if they have no symptoms. This is because it can take up to six weeks to develop symptoms after you become infected. Close contacts may be infected, but have no symptoms, and may pass on the mite.

Re-apply the same treatment 7 days after first application.

For head lices it is used diluted to 1%.

Permethrin can also be used like a repelent on clothes or for desinsection of living quarters (diluted to 2-5 g/l or 0.2-0.5%). The other stuff which is not that toxic for humans and can be used for desinsetion is alpha-cypermethrin (diluted to 0.3-0.6 g/l or 0.03-0.06%). It can be bought as an insecticide for agriculture under various brand names.

Spread of H1N1 flu across Canada calls for more people to be vaccinated

The Public Health Agency reports that H1N1 has been responsible for most flu-related hospitalizations across the country. At least 13 deaths so far this season have been connected to H1N1. Three deaths in Saskatchewan have been linked to the flu. Five deaths have been reported in a massive Alberta flu spike and the two recent Toronto deaths doubled the number for the province of Ontario.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/spread-h1n1-flu-across-can...

Blow to fishermen after outbreak of killer disease in Lough Foyle oyster bed

An outbreak of an incurable disease that affects oysters has been discovered in Northern Ireland.

Oyster fishermen have been ordered to stop harvesting in one particular bed in Lough Foyle in Co Londonderry after an outbreak of bonamia ostreae, a condition that has wiped out native oysters in parts of Europe and in other parts of Ireland.

This means the Foyle is now the most significant habitat for oysters across Europe, making the protection of the shellfish that remain critical and of the highest importance.

Barry Fox, director of aquaculture and shellfish with the Loughs Agency, said saving the oysters was his main priority. He said the disease was a bit of a mystery.

"This is a blood parasite that can lie dormant in young oysters and attacks them when they get stressed, but there is very little known about it and no cure.

"It was first detected in Lough Foyle in 2005, but unfortunately the strict controls that now exist governing the harvesting of oysters only came into effect in 2008 and the numbers of oysters in the Foyle are not what they could have been.

"When oysters are harvested from the bed, the ones that are too small are thrown back, but this causes stress to the oyster, which is when bonamia can take hold, and it has been known to completely wipe out the supply of oysters.

In fact, this has happened in a number of places across Europe and in Westport in Co Mayo and Lough Swilly in Donegal.

"We conducted a significant survey before Christmas and found that in this sizeable bed in the middle of the Foyle, 80% of the oysters are undersize and 70% of the stock in the bed are infected with bonamia ostreae, which is why we stopped harvesting of this particular oyster bed.

"We know the oysters are stressed because they remain open when they are brought up from the bed. Normally the shell would remain closed."

The oyster fishing season runs from September to March, when licensed fishermen can harvest them from Monday through to Friday, from 6am to 6pm.

During any season, oyster harvesting is worth approximately £500,000 to the local economy.

Source- http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/environment/blow-to-fisherme...

http://www.roanoke.com/news/article_e55ec46c-8c7d-11e3-8ddd-001a4bc...

UVa helping Russians fight outbreak of TB

The strain of tuberculosis surfacing in Irkutsk is resistant to many of the usual medications.

CHARLOTTESVILLE — One of the world’s deadliest diseases until being nearly eliminated by antibiotics and better hygiene, tuberculosis is making a comeback in certain corners, especially in parts of Russia.

Two University of Virginia physicians are working with Russian researchers seeking to curb the outbreak of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, which has more than twice the mortality rate of the disease’s normal — or drug-susceptible — strain.

The physicians, Scott Heysell and Eric Houpt, said it’s crucial to get the disease under control before it spreads to other parts of the world.

“It threatens to really erase all the prior gains in TB treatment,” Heysell said. “If we were to see a small increase in drug resistance [in the United States], that would have a significant impact on public health resources.”

Heysell and Houpt have received a $340,000 grant from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases for a two-year study looking for ways to more effectively diagnose and treat drug-resistant tuberculosis.

They will spend much of their time in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, which sees roughly 1,000 cases of drug-resistant TB a year.

Irkutsk and the surrounding area comprise an important trade hub with Mongolia and China, making it especially vulnerable, Heysell said. Nearby prisons also might have been a breeding ground for the disease, and cold weather forces everyone inside for much of the year, making it easier for the disease to spread.

“There was mixing of different strains and intense crowding,” Heysell said. “That certainly contributed to the rise of drug-resistant TB.”

Modern Americans have very little exposure to tuberculosis, but it has been with humanity for millennia. Also known as consumption, it is a bacterial infection that causes fever, chills, severe coughing and weight loss.

The discovery of antibiotics in the 1940s and the development of new drugs in the 1950s eliminated the threat throughout much of the developed world.

But the disease is still around. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported about 9,000 cases in 2012, a rate of 3.2 per 100,000 people. Many more people have the bacteria in their bodies, but their immune systems prevent spreading. The World Health Organization estimates one-third of the world’s population is infected.

With the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, less than a week away, the CDC has named drug-resistant pathogens, including tuberculosis, a major health concern.

“Many countries have high rates of tuberculosis and we’ve seen lots of drug resistance, as well,” CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said at a recent news conference. “It generally requires long, prolonged contact with someone who has not been effectively treated.”

Treatment of tuberculosis is complex and expensive, requiring precise dosages of the right medications. All of that depends on the strain the patient is diagnosed as having, and how patients respond to the drugs.

Heysell and Houpt said they want to help train health professionals in testing, diagnosis and devising treatment regimens.

“Identifying the right drugs for treating TB is complicated,” Houpt said. “It requires sophisticated lab methods. … A lot of our project is transferring state-of-the-art diagnostic methods to Russia.”

In the best-case scenario — which would be drug-susceptible tuberculosis — patients would have to stick to a strict drug regimen for six months. Treatment of drug-resistant strains can take up to two years.

If the dosages aren’t right, or not enough of the drugs are absorbed into a patient’s bloodstream, that could help make the bacteria more drug resistant. Treatment is usually overseen by a nurse, Houpt said.

Outside Siberian cities, the population might be spread out, making it difficult to oversee treatment.

“The scope is much more challenging there, and so are the scale and the logistics,” Houpt said.

http://reliefweb.int/report/uganda/uganda-hepatitis-e-virus-disease...

Uganda: Hepatitis E Virus disease outbreak DREF Operation n° MDRUG036 - Emergency Plan of Action (EPoA)

Published on 06 Feb 2014 

Description of the disaster

The Ministry of Health (MoH) has declared an epidemic of Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) outbreak in Karamoja sub-region of North Eastern Uganda in Napak after ¾ samples sent to UVRI1 tested positive for HEV by PCR on 1 Dec 2014. The case loads continue to increase from the initial cluster of acute jaundice syndrome cases that was reported in Napak by October 2013 to the MoH, to the latest 656 cases reported as of 26th January 2014. Most deaths (68 % or 13/19) occurred amongst pregnant mothers.

Napak district was curbed out of Moroto in July of the year 2010. The district has a population of 209,100 people of which 110,500 are male and 108,700 are female. Napak District is made up of one county (Bokora), seven sub-counties and one town council. The district health system is made of 1 District Hospital, 12 health facilities (10 Government and two Private not for Profit (PNFP) Hospital): 1 PNFP hospital, 6 Health Centre level III’s and the rest are Health Center level II’s.

The population of the district constitutes majorly the Karamojong who are agro-pastoralists. Access to healthcare has remained relatively low with up to 41 % of the population living more than 5 km from health facilities. This situation is worse in sub-counties like Lokopo, Lotome, Lopeei and Lorengechora that are served by 1 health facility each. Napak is bordered by Moroto, Nakapiripirit, Abim, Katakwi, Kotido and Amudat Districts. The district is part of the Karamoja sub-region, home to an estimated 1.2 million Karamojong. HEV has caused more morbidity and mortality compared to any other epidemic in this sub region.

The predisposing factors causing the Hepatitis E epidemic in Karamoja sub-region are low latrine coverage, poor access to safe water and poor hygiene practices. Currently, the districts are implementing routine interventions (surveillance, case management, community mobilization/sensitization, and water and sanitation activities). These response activities are being implemented in a piecemeal manner due to lack of resources. The current interventions are not adequate to interrupt the increased transmission of HEV.

Currently, there is an upsurge of HEV cases in Napak District in Uganda. Over the four weeks, the number of cases of HEV reported on a weekly basis has increased from an average of 10 cases to an average of over 57 cases. This rapid increase in the trend of HEV cases demonstrates an exacerbation in the evolution of the epidemic. Of special note is the concern for the vulnerability of pregnant women who are most at risk from an HEV outbreak, evident from the statistics of deceased due to the disease (13 out of 19 deaths were pregnant women). continued.......

http://www.livescience.com/43024-mental-health-hurt-by-climate-chan...

A Service to Self disease..........

Cannibalism seems to be on the rise again with 2 incidents in Delray Beach Florida this week and last.  My mom let me know about this so I did a google search.  I wonder how much more we'll see of it.  I understand it's drug related or at least that's what they're saying but this is sick sick sick.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/florida-superhuman-cannibal-shot-dead-afte...

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw

A naked man was shot dead after eating an 18-year-old's face and assaulting a retired policeman, the Pam Beach Post reported.

The man, who possessed what authorities described as a superhuman-like strength, died Tuesday night during a confrontation with deputies near Delray Beach, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.

The naked man, who had previously assaulted the retired officer who reported serious injuries, attacked the 18-year-old boy near South Military Trail, north of Lake Ida Road.

The teen attempted to defend himself with a box cutter knife. The victim sustained serious injuries during the fight and was taken to Delray Medical Centre. Deputies arriving on the scene tried to calm the attacker and attempted, unsuccessfully, to subdue him with a Taser.

"He's obviously delirious on something," Bradshaw said. "He is a huge guy. He takes a fighting stance. They're trying to get him on the ground. He starts charging them. The Taser did not affect him," Bradshaw explained.

At that point, a sheriff's sergeant fired three shots, one to the torso and two the lower part of the man's body. The man was rushed to Delray Medical where he died.

"We don't know right now if he's expired from the gunshots, or if he's expired because of obviously he's on some type of drugs that have made him act like this," Bradshaw said.

"There's no way to know if those are the shots that actually killed him, or if he's died from what they called exited delirium. He's obviously on some type of narcotics to make him act like this," Bradshaw continued.

Neither the names of the deceased man nor of the assault victims were released late Tuesday.

The motiv behind the assaults is still unknown. 

https://www.facebook.com/Jacks

The homeless man whose face was permanently disfigured after he was attacked by Rudy Eugene in May 2012

A similar case of 'face-eating' occurred in December 2012 when Rudy Eugene, renamed Miami Cannibal, ate the face of homeless ... in Florida.

Poppo underwent intensive medical treatment as 80 per cent of his face was eaten by Eugene as he was under the influence of drugs.

Eugene was shot dead by the police following the attack.

Initial tests revealed that Eugene had a number of undigested pills in his stomach, according to the Miami Herald. Marijuana was also in Eugene's system at the time of the attack.

http://www.zetatalk.com/ning/09ju2012.htm

Last week the Zetas said that a highly Service-to-Self soul was in possession of the guy who ripped another person’s face off. The agenda of that spirit being to cause extra fear once starvation gets really bad due to the upcoming earth changes. It gives one the feeling that this cannibal story must stop, so that the agenda won’t be successful. But then a few hours later, a new story about a guy who killed and ate a guy’s heart and part of the brain was front and center on my local newspaper’s website (Maryland Cannibal), and then a couple of days later, it was reported that the Canadian guy who mailed different body parts of a guy he killed also ate part of him. (All 3 of those murders happened on May 24 – 25, so they couldn’t have been copycats.) The question is how successful could this agenda by the Service-to-Self be? And if it continues, what would be the best way for any media person who reads ZT to combat the agenda. Even though the real reason is a possession, perhaps completely focusing on drug use, rather than giving the idea that such a horror is something that the average person is capable of.

Why is cannibalism suddenly in the news? Because it fascinates the public, and every TV station and newsprint organization is hungry for ratings. Those who eat the dead, as Jeffrey Dahmer did to over a dozen of his lovers, are not news. Being a highly Service-to-Self individual, Dahmer sought control over his victims, and eating them represented their inability to escape him, even in death. Many primitive cultures practice cannibalism as a means of gaining the strength of the enemy, incorporating it into oneself. One should look to the ancient form of the Chinese practice of Bon and even to the Christian ritual ofCommunion – eating the body and blood of Christ – to see that this practice can be ritualized into a religious practice. What made the subject suddenly media worthy was eating another while they are still alive. Recent copycats are only attempts to bite another during human combat. But the media will make the most of this until the public tires of it.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/bizarre-cluster-severe-bi...

'Bizarre' Cluster of Severe Birth Defects Stuns Health Experts

Federal and state officials won’t say how many women in a three-county area near Yakima, Wash., have had babies with anencephaly, a heart-breaking condition in which they’re born missing parts of the brain or skull. And they admit they haven't interviewed any of the women in question, or told the mothers there's a potentially widespread problem.

But as of January 2013, officials with the Washington state health department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had counted nearly two dozen cases in three years, a rate four times the national average.

Since then, one local genetic counselor, Susie Ball of the Central Washington Genetics Program at Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, says she has reported “eight or nine” additional cases of anencephaly and spina bifida, another birth defect in which the neural tube, which forms the brain and spine, fails to close properly.

“It does strike me as a lot,” says Ball.

And at least one Yakima mother whose baby is part of the cluster says no one told her there was a problem at all.

“I had no idea,” said Andrea Jackman, 30, whose blue-eyed daughter, Olivia, was born in September with the most severe form of spina bifida. “I honestly was really surprised that nobody had said anything. If my doctor hadn’t wanted us to see the geneticist, I wouldn’t have known.”

James Cheng / for NBC News

Andrea Jackman comforts her 4-month-old daughter, Olivia, after her MRI scan at Seattle Children's Hospital.

There’s no secret, state and CDC officials said, and they noted that small clusters of birth defects often turn out to be nothing more than sad coincidence.

The agencies released a report last summer detailing an investigation of 27 women with pregnancies that resulted in neural tube defects in Yakima, Franklin and Benton counties between 2010 and 2013. That included 23 cases of anencephaly, a rate of 8.4 per 10,000 live births, far higher than the national rate of 2.1 cases per 10,000. There were three cases of spina bifida and one with encephalocele, a sac-like protrusion of the brain through the front or back of the skull.

They publicly posted the results of the investigation in press releases and on state and federal websites. Those were picked up in news stories, including one in the local newspaper, the Yakima Herald-Republic. "State says no cause found for birth defect in Yakima County," the July headline read.

But it's not clear whether affected women saw those stories, and there was no effort to reach out to individual families, said Mandy Stahre, the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer based in Washington state, who led the inquiry. “There were very few of us that could spend time doing this investigation,” Stahre said. “I’m not sure the women knew they were part of a cluster.”

Health officials originally were alerted to the problem by a nurse, Sara Barron, 58, who was in charge of infection control and quality assurance at Prosser Memorial Hospital, a 25-bed medical center in the farm town set on the Yakima River. A 30-year nursing veteran, she’d seen perhaps one or two devastating cases of anencephaly in her wide-ranging career.

“And now I was sitting at Prosser, with 30 deliveries a month and there’s two cases in a six-month period,” Barron said. “Then, I was talking to another doctor about it and she has a third one coming. My teeth dropped. It was like, ‘Oh my god.’”

At a regional medical meeting, there were more anecdotal reports. So Barron notified state health officials, who started looking into the problem.

“This is bizarre,” Barron said. “This is a very, very small area."

Investigators pored over medical records of the 27 area women with affected pregnancies and 108 matched controls who received care at the same 13 prenatal clinics, Stahre said. They examined where the women worked, what diseases they had, whether they smoked or drank alcohol, what kind of medications they took and other factors. They looked at where they lived and whether they got their water from a public source or a private well. They looked at race and whether the problem was more pronounced in the area's migrant farm workers or in other residents.

In the end, there was nothing — “no common exposures, conditions or causes,” state officials said — to explain the spike.

“No statistically significant differences were identified between cases and controls, and a clear cause of the elevated prevalence of anencephaly was not determined,” the CDC wrote.

The results were disappointing, but not entirely unexpected, said Jim Kucik, a health scientist with the CDC’s Birth Defects Surveillance Team who reviewed the results. There’s not usually one single factor that causes such birth defects and it can take an examination of a much larger population to find when something’s wrong.

“This cluster is fairly small in size. It makes it challenging to find that smoking gun,” he said.

A group of birth defects can appear to be related, when it’s actually just coincidence, Kucik added. “I think that there is a lot of frustration when dealing with these type of cluster investigations because they end up without a lot of answers,” he added.

Adding to the problem is that investigations take time and personnel. Stahre and her crew relied only on medical records for their study because there weren’t resources for a full “boots-on-the-ground” effort, Kucik explained.

“We certainly don’t shrug off any indication of high rates of birth defects,” he said.

But that doesn’t help Amanda Jackman, who was an assistant manager at a Yakima Blockbuster Video store when she discovered she was pregnant — and then that the baby had spina bifida.

“The doctor who did the ultrasound said she’d be in a wheelchair the rest of her life. He pretty much told us she’d be a vegetable,” said Jackman, who now lives with Olivia at the home of her aunt and uncle in Ellensburg, Wash.

The news was devastating, and Jackman initially considered ending the pregnancy.

“Then I decided that it wasn’t my decision to make,” she said. “If she wasn’t going to live, it wasn’t going to be my decision.”

James Cheng / for NBC News

Four-month-old Olivia Jackman of Ellensberg, Wash., waits for her MRI exam at Seattle Children's Hospital in Seattle, WA. Olivia has spina bifida.

That choice was a good one, she said, cradling a smiling Olivia as they waited for a medical appointment at Seattle Children’s Hospital. The tiny girl has survived surgery to close the gap on her back and endured multiple MRI procedures to measure the fluid inside her brain. So far, she hasn’t needed a shunt to drain fluid, and she’s meeting all typical developmental milestones.

“It was scary at first, but every time they see her, she gets better and better,” Jackman said.

Olivia's defect isn't as severe as some, but she's still considered part of the cluster of neural tube defects in the region. Jackman said that if she’d known that other area women had babies with similar birth defects, she would at least have been aware that the issue existed.

That concern is shared by experts in neural tube defects, who say health officials should look harder — and spread the word about what what they find.

“Any time you see a geographic cluster of a pretty severe birth defect, it does make you wonder if there is a common exposure contributing,” said Allison Ashley-Koch, a professor at the Duke University Medical Center for Human Genetics, whose focus is anencephaly. “If there were resources, it really would be wonderful to go back to the families to conduct more intensive interviews regarding common environmental exposures."

That's been true in high-profile clusters, including one in Texas in April 1991, in which three babies with anencephaly were born in a Brownsville hospital within 36 hours. It sparked years of surveillance and research that found that the problem could be traced in part to the lack of folic acid in the diets of the mostly Hispanic women who lived on the Texas-Mexico border. Obesity and diabetes appeared to be factors, as did exposure to fumonisins, or grain molds.

Research has shown that there are potential links between anencephaly and exposure to molds and to pesticides, Ashley-Koch said. Central Washington is a prime agricultural area that produces crops from apples and cherries to potatoes and wheat, which may require pesticides that contain nitrates.

“They may have eaten the same type of produce from a particular grower or farmer, which essentially put all those folks at risk,” she said.

A Texas A&M University Health Science Center study published last year found that mothers of babies with spina bifida were twice as likely to ingest at least 5 milligrams of nitrate daily from drinking water than control mothers of babies without major birth defects.

The study, led by Jean Brender, associate dean of research at the School of Rural Public Health, found that nitrate levels in drinking water varied widely according to the source, with average levels of 0.33 miligrams per liter in bottled water, 5.0 milligrams per liter in public water supplies and 17.5 milligrams per liter in private wells.

“I have a daughter in her childbearing years,” Brender said. “If she were on a private well, I would tell her to have her well-water tested or drink bottled water.”

Ashley-Koch, the Duke professor, acknowledged that CDC and state officials faced a tough task. It's difficult tracing back through previous pregnancies and trying to find a common cause for birth defects, particularly when not all of defects are the same. Still, she suggested that the investigation may have been a “cursory approach.”

“Without actually conducting interviews, it’s pretty difficult to discern what potential exposures may or may not have occurred,” she said.

Sara Barron, the nurse who discovered the problem, thinks that health officials could — and should — do more.

“I definitely believe something is going on,” she said. “There was something. Maybe it just hit once and blew through, God willing. If there are still cases going on, we need to know.”

James Cheng / for NBC News

Dr. Joffre Olaya, a neurosurgeon at Seattle Children's Hospital, has been monitoring the care of Olivia Jackman. Her mother, Andrea Jackman, says the baby is doing better than anyone expected.

CDC and state officials refused to tell NBC News how many new cases they’d received in 2013, saying they plan a full report later this spring. Stahre had previously said they’d received “a few more cases” after the original investigation.

Susie Ball, the genetic counselor who has reported additional cases, said she's "not convinced — yet" that there's a problem in the area and that it may take more time to tell. She wouldn't want to scare people, she said. Still, she said the situation should be more widely publicized to let local women of child-bearing age know the risk — and to help them take action to prevent birth defects.

“Make sure that everyone who could become pregnant knows they should be taking folic acid,” Ball said, referring to the B vitamin that can help prevent spina bifida. “Look at this unexplained spike here in the valley. Take your folic acid.”

It’s the lack of information that still haunts Amanda Jackman, who said she lived near a pesticide-laden apple orchard and drank well water in the couple years before her surprise pregnancy.

“There’s got to be something. I mean, something causes it,” she said. “Every mother wants their child to be perfect. If you could find a way to stop this from happening, why wouldn’t you want to do that? Why would you not want to tell people?”

http://twocircles.net/2014feb18/over_70_mn_indians_afflicted_rare_d...

Over 70 mn Indians afflicted with rare diseases

http://www.wptv.com/news/health/mysterious-polio-like-illness-found...

Mysterious polio-like illness found in California children

Feb 24, 2014

These MRI scans show acute encephalitis caused by enterovirus 71 in an adult. Five children in California have a 'polio-like syndrome,' and two have tested positive for enterovirus 68.

CDC, CNN Newsource

(CNN) -- Doctors are looking for more information about a "polio-like 

syndrome" that has caused paralysis in a few children in California.

Neurologists have identified five patients who developed paralysis in one or more of their limbs between August 2012 and July 2013. All five children had been vaccinated against the poliovirus. Treatment did not seem to help the children regain their motor function.

Samples from two of the children tested positive for enterovirus 68, a rare virus that has been linked to severe respiratory illness in the past. Samples from the other three children were not collected or tested soon enough to yield conclusive results, said Dr. Emmanuelle Waubant, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

Waubant and her colleagues will present a case report about these patients' illnesses at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in late April. They are asking health care providers to be on the lookout for similar cases and send in samples from any patient exhibiting these symptoms.

Dr. Carol Glaser, chief of the Encephalitis and Special Investigation Section at the California Department of Public Health, said the state is aware of the paralysis cases but believes the risk to families is very low.

"We are evaluating cases as they are reported to us," Glaser said in an e-mail to CNN. "We have not found anything at this point that raises any public health concerns."

The poliovirus has been eradicated in the United States for more than 30 years. Only three countries in the world are not yet free of the disease: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria, according to the World Health Organization.

Poliovirus is part of the Picornaviridae family, which also includes enteroviruses and rhinoviruses (better known as the common cold). There are more than 100 types of enterovirus that cause 10 million to 15 million infections in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most people who become infected with an enterovirus do not get sick or experience only mild symptoms, said Dr. Steven Oberste, chief of the Polio and Picornavirus Laboratory Branch at the CDC. Common symptoms include fever, runny nose, cough, skin rash and body aches.

Enterovirus is often the cause of "summer colds," whose cases spike in July, August and September. Children and teens are more likely to fall ill because they have not yet built up immunity to these common viruses.

However, some types of enterovirus are more serious. These can cause hand, foot and mouth disease; viral meningitis; encephalitis (inflammation of the brain); an infection of the heart; and paralysis in some patients.

Enterovirus 68 was first identified in a California lab in 1962, after four children came down with a severe respiratory illness. Between 1970 and 2005, only 26 cases of enterovirus 68 in the United States were reported to the CDC. Since 2000, the government agency has kept a closer watch and has seen 47 cases, Oberste said. Outbreaks have occurred over the years in Asia and Europe, but it's still one of the rarest types of enterovirus.

More common -- and more concerning to health officials -- is enterovirus 71, which was discovered by the same California lab in 1969, Oberste said. Enterovirus 71 is usually associated with severe neurological issues, including aseptic meningitis, polio-like paralysis and encephalitis.

According to a CDC report, several outbreaks of paralysis caused by enterovirus 71 were seen in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, fatal encephalitis was a big problem in Malaysia and Taiwan.

"Ever since then, the virus has circulated in high levels in Southeast Asia," Oberste said.

In recent years, the outbreaks have spread to Australia; a cluster of cases near Sydney drew media attention in 2013.

Between 1983 and 2005, 270 cases of enterovirus 71 were reported in the United States. But none has resulted in a larger outbreak, despite the virus's infectious nature.

"That's the really odd thing," Oberste said. "We see cases from time to time in the United States. Occasionally they'll be severe. Basically it's identical to what's circulating in Asia ... but it doesn't cause the same big outbreak in disease. And we really don't know why."

The CDC is aware of the small cluster of cases in California but is not actively involved in an investigation, a spokesman told CNN. Waubant and her colleagues don't want to alarm anyone with their case report presentation; they're simply seeking help in finding the cause of these seemingly connected cases.

"We would like to stress that this syndrome appears to be very, very rare," one of Waubant's colleagues, Dr. Keith Van Haren, said in a prepared statement.

Parents need to know that vaccination is key to preventing polio from returning to the United States, Glaser said. While there is no vaccine to protect you from a non-polio enterovirus, washing your hands frequently and avoiding close contact with others who are sick

http://thecelebritycafe.com/feature/2014/02/fordham-university-hit-...

Fordham University hit with mumps outbreak

Fordham University reported an outbreak of mumps that has infected 13 students. The school reported cases of the disease present at both the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx and the Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan.

According to the New York Post, every student received an e-mail informing them of the outbreak and advising them to be aware of the situation while interacting on campus.

The infected students have been temporarily removed from the campuses. According to News Week, the university said, “All the students with suspected mumps infections have either returned home or have been isolated from other residents during the infectious phase of the illness.”

The disease is highly contagious and can cause fever, muscle aches, loss of appetite, and swollen glands. Although all students are required to receive the MMR vaccination to prevent against mumps, measles, and rubella it does not provide 100 percent protection against the diseases. The students that became infected had been vaccinated.

Nice. (France) Three young people die from lightning meningitis

A meningitis epidemic in Nice? That's the rumor concern after three young men have died in the space of two days and a fourth is currently in intensive care. From Nice-Matin is meningitis méningoque which was behind these devastating deaths.

The most dangerous strain B,

Two Nice, aged 20 to 30 years, have lost their lives due to meningitis during the last weekend. A third person, apparently the brother of one of the victims, also died. Shortly after, a teenager was accepted to the ICU Lenval hospital in a state being strongly suspect the same disease. It would be achieved in the most virulent and dangerous strain B meningitis.

A "worrying situation"

This series of four cases in two days has greatly worried, while the state statistics are normally only one or two cases per year

source in French

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&a...

First Case of Zika Virus reported on Easter Island

Easter Island Ahu Tongarikiby    Nicolas de Camaret August 2009 via Flickr

Zika virus (ZIKV), a rare but benign mosquito borne illness, is spreading across the islands of the south pacific. The Disease Daily recently published a spotlight piece on Zika virus, highlighting current outbreaks on 15 different Polynesian islands including Tahiti and Bora Bora.

Most recently, according to local news reports and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, one confirmed and 40 suspected cases of the mosquito-borne virus were detected on Easter Island, also located in the south pacific. Easter Island, or Isla de Pascua, is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world; the nearest continental point lies in central Chile, more than 2,000 miles away. The Island is governed by Chile’s Valparaíso Region and is most famous for its ancient monolithic rock statues carved by the indigenous Rapa Nui.

To control the outbreak, Chile increased preventive measures against both Zika and dengue virus, since they are both transmitted through a bite from the Aedes Aegypti mosquito. Travelers are advised to practice precautions such as applying insect repellent and wearing protective clothing. Additionally, Chilean health authorities strengthened surveillance methods by tracking and monitoring any cases of fever and rash on the island.

Authorities believe that tourists from other vacation islands in the area may have carried the virus onto Easter Island. From January to February, Easter Island celebrates its annual Tapati Festival, which attracts thousands of tourists due to the mix of dances, music, sports, and theatrical presentations, all of which pay homage to the island’s rich history and people.

Chilean health authorities decided not to raise a health alert, stating that the outbreak is contained and under control. 

- See more at: http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/first-case-zika-viru...

 http://www.ubalert.com/yAHb

Mysterious Fever Disease Outbreak Kills 23 People in Guinea Region

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-26696629

22 March 2014 Last updated at 13:19 ET

Tuberculosis infects Cambridgeshire factory workers

Staff at two vegetable packing plants in Cambridgeshire have been infected with tuberculosis, Public Health England (PHE) has confirmed.

Officials said 17 staff at two sites in the Chatteris area had been diagnosed with the disease since 2012.

Six patients were diagnosed with TB in 2012, nine in 2013 and two so far this year.

The PHE said there was "no evidence" tuberculosis could be caught from consuming the factories' vegetables.

The agency added the affected workers from the un-named plants were receiving treatment and were "no longer infectious".

Symptoms of TB

TB develops slowly in the body and it usually takes several months for symptoms to appear. They include:

• Fever and night sweats
• Unexplained prolonged cough
• Unexplained weight loss
• Blood in phlegm or spit at any time

Details of the infections came to light on Friday when Paul Bullen, leader of UKIP on Cambridgeshire County Council, said he had "been hearing rumours" about the infection.

He alleged the county council had known it "for some time" but had "made no effort to alert the public".

Mr Bullen said he had been advised TB was "endemic" at the plants.

He added: "I believe that officers of the council in various departments have known about this for some time and have made no effort to alert the public. This cannot be right."

'Not easily spread'

A spokesman for Cambridgeshire County Council said it was "working closely with PHE" and that "advice had been displayed in the affected factories and TB fact sheets had been circulated with staff payslips".

A PHE spokeswoman confirmed one person withtuberculosis had died, but it was not known the death was related to the disease as the patient had other health problems.

Dr Giri Shankar, consultant in communicable disease control with the PHE, said the disease was "not easily spread unless you have had close prolonged contact with an infected individual."

She added the PHE was "following up on close contacts of cases and will also be carrying out screening.

"There is no evidence to suggest TB transmission can occur from consumption of vegetables from the factories," she said.

Foot and mouth disease spreads to cattle in North Korea -

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Wed, 26 Mar 2014 02:19 PM

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - North Korea is struggling to contain foot and mouth disease, which was earlier reported in pigs and has now spread to cattle, officials from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Wednesday after returning from a visit to North Korean farms and markets to assess the outbreaks.

North Korean officials originally reported to the FAO and the World Organisation for Animal Health on Feb. 18 that foot and mouth disease (FMD) had affected 3,280 pigs in an area near the capital Pyongyang and killed 369, FAO health officer Carolyn Benigno said on Wednesday after a week-long visit to North Korea.

FAO officials found that the disease was still spreading among pigs and was also affecting cattle on at least two farms in a remote mountainous region in southern Kangwon province near the border with South Korea, she said.

“Foot and mouth disease was first reported on Jan. 8, on a pig farm near Pyongyang, and continued to spread in pigs despite containment measures taken by veterinary services,” Benigno told reporters at a briefing in Bangkok. “The first report to us is that FMD was in pigs, but when we were there, we received reports that some cattle were infected.”

The FAO officials visited the Pyongyang market, pig farms near Pyongyang and one cooperative cattle farm, where they saw four sick cows with lesions.

“The team was able to confirm that the FMD outbreak in DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is still ongoing at the time of our visit,” Benigno said.

The FAO officials visited the DPRK after its chief veterinary officer requested emergency assistance to improve his staff’s ability to diagnose and control the disease, she said.

The FAO advised North Korea on basic control measures, including disinfecting farms and limiting people’s movement to prevent spread of the disease to other farms, and is now preparing to provide training on farm biosecurity, field and laboratory equipment and training in animal handling and collection of samples.

Source- http://www.trust.org/item/20140326141907-8tonu/

Follow up on post by Kris H

Guinea faces Ebola epidemic on unprecedented scale, doctors warn

Médecins sans Frontières says lethal virus has broken out in areas hundreds of miles apart, while death toll passes 80

The warning from an organisation used to tackling Ebola in central Africa came after Guinea's president appealed for calm as the number of deaths linked to an outbreak on the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone passed 80.

The outbreak of one of the world's most lethal infectious diseases has alarmed a number of governments with weak health systems, prompting Senegal to close its border with Guinea and other neighbours to restrict travel and cross-border exchanges.

"We are facing an epidemic of a magnitude never before seen in terms of the distribution of cases in the country," said Mariano Lugli, the co-ordinator of Médecins sans Frontières' project in Conakry, the capital of Guinea.

source

http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/GeneralInfectiousDise...

Lassa Fever Reported in U.S.

Published: Apr 4, 2014

A man is in stable condition in a Minnesota hospital with Lassa fever after returning from a trip to West Africa, where an outbreak of Ebola virus is now raging.

The Minnesota Department of Health said the man flew to Minneapolis-St. Paul on March 31 and soon after his arrival visited a physician.

Because of his travel history and symptoms, the doctor suspected a possible hemorrhagic fever. The man was admitted to the hospital with fever and confusion and CDC testing confirmed a diagnosis of Lassa fever on April 3, the department and the CDC said in separate statements.

"This imported case is a reminder that we are all connected by international travel," CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, said in a statement. "A disease anywhere can appear anywhere else in the world within hours."

Lassa fever is rarely seen in the U.S., with only seven cases recorded, the latest in 2010, according to the CDC.

The agency reported that preliminary information suggests the man flew from West Africa to New York City and on to Minneapolis on another flight. The agency did not say where in West Africa the trip started.

The CDC is working with public health officials and airlines to identify anyone who might have had close contact with the infected person, although Lassa fever is not easily spread from human to human.

"Casual contact is not a risk factor for getting Lassa fever," said Barbara Knust, DVM, a CDC epidemiologist in the lab that tested the patient's blood for Lassa virus.

"People will not get this infection just because they were on the same airplane or in the same airport," she said in a statement.

The Lassa virus is carried by rodents and transmitted to humans through contact with urine or droppings, but in some cases people can catch it from another person through direct contact with blood or bodily fluids, the mucous membranes, or sexual contact.

"Given what we know about how Lassa virus is spread to people, the risk to other travelers and members of the public is extremely low," Martin Cetron, MD, of the CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, said in a statement.

Between 100,000 and 300,000 cases of Lassa fever occur in West Africa each year, with up to 5,000 deaths.

A significant outbreak of Ebola virus -- a different hemorrhagic fever -- is currently affecting Guinea and Liberia in the region.

Although Lassa virus can produce hemorrhagic symptoms, the disease is not related to Ebola, the CDC noted.

The World Health Organization said the Ebola outbreak in Guinea is now at 137 confirmed or suspected cases with 83 deaths, while in neighboring Liberia there have been 14 confirmed or suspected cases with seven deaths.

The current outbreak is caused by a strain of Ebola virus with 98% homology to the Zaire strain, which caused the first recorded outbreaks of the disease, the agency said. This is the first time the disease has been detected in West Africa, aside from a single case reported in Ivory Coast in 1994.

Scarlet fever at record high with nearly 900 cases of the illness in just a week

http://www.examiner.com/article/massive-samoa-pink-eye-outbreak-hit...

Massive Samoa pink eye outbreak hits thousands, forces school closures

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/bd397f2075f74f158325bcf8d2f20...

Health officials: Unvaccinated person with measles may have spread disease around Phoenix area

Killer Pig Virus Wipes Out More Than 10 Percent Of Nation's Hogs, Causing Spike In Pork Prices

By Meredith Davis and Theopolis Waters

CHICAGO, April 27 (Reuters) - John Goihl, a hog nutritionist in Shakopee, Minnesota, knows a farmer in his state who lost 7,500 piglets just after they were born. In Sampson County, North Carolina, 12,000 of Henry Moore's piglets died in three weeks. Some 30,000 piglets perished at John Prestage's Oklahoma operation in the fall of 2013.

The killer stalking U.S. hog farms is known as PEDv, a malady that in less than a year has wiped out more than 10 percent of the nation's pig population and helped send retail pork prices to record highs. The highly contagious Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus is puzzling scientists searching for its origins and its cure and leaving farmers devastated in ways that go beyond financial losses.

"It's a real morale killer in a barn. People have to shovel pigs out instead of nursing them along," Goihl said.

Since June 2013 as many as 7 million pigs have died in the United States due to the virus, said Steve Meyer, president of Iowa-based Paragon Economics and consultant to the National Pork Board said. United States Department of Agriculture data showed the nation's hog herd at about 63 million as of March 1, 2014.

PEDv was first diagnosed in Ohio last May and has spread within a year to 30 states with no reliable cure in sight. U.S. packing plants may produce almost 2 percent less pork in 2014, according to Ken Mathews, USDA agricultural economist.

Last week the USDA responded to calls for more reliable data and classified PEDv as a reportable disease, a step that requires the pork industry to track its spread.

"It's a positive step that I wish they had taken last summer when it became obvious this was spreading rapidly," said Meyer.

Most farmers and researchers believe PEDv is transmitted from pig to pig by contact with pig manure.

"Something like a tablespoon of PEDv infected manure is roughly enough to infect the entire U.S. hog herd," said Rodney "Butch" Baker, swine biosecurity specialist at Iowa State University.

The National Pork Board has spent about $1.7 million researching the virus, which is nearly always fatal in pigs younger than 21 days. With pork prices at an all-time high of $3.83 a pound, the loss of baby pigs cuts into profits for hog farmers.

"If you have four weeks of mortality in a PEDv break, that's pretty devastating to the financial wellbeing of that operation," said Greg Boerboom, a Minnesota hog farmer.

"I think most producers are scared," Boerboom said. "They stay up at night."

PEDv does not pose a risk to human health and is not a food safety issue, the USDA says.

ORIGIN MYSTERY

Months of forensic research so far have turned up no clear evidence of how the disease entered the United States.

The virus is nearly identical to one that infected pigs in China's Anhui province, according to a report published in the American Society of Microbiology journal mBio. Researchers also are exploring whether the widespread use of pig-blood byproducts in hog feed might have introduced the disease.

There have been outbreaks in recent years in Europe, Japan, Mexico and parts of South America, though in milder forms than seen in the U.S. and China.

The disease has taken root in Canada, too, where the pork industry is deeply integrated with U.S. pork production.


LIKE A LAWN MOWER

PEDv thrives in cold, damp environments, and after slowing last summer its spread accelerated during the past winter. In mid-December, there were over 1,500 cases but by mid-April, that had more than tripled to 5,790, according to USDA data.

Altogether, of nearly 15,000 samples tested for PEDv about 32 percent have been positive.

The virus "acts like a lawn mower" on the villi in a pig's intestines, which are the tiny projections that aid digestion, said Tony Forshey, chief of animal health at the Ohio Department of Agriculture. With their villi gone, the piglets cannot absorb nutrients from food or water, contract diarrhea and die from dehydration.

So far, no vaccine has been able to completely protect pigs from the disease. An Iowa company, Harrisvaccines Inc., has made some progress, while pharmaceutical giants Merck Animal Health and Zoetis Inc have joined with universities to begin vaccine development.

"There is no silver bullet for PEDv," said Justin Ellis, marketing manager at Alltech, which developed a feed additive designed to reduce risk of the disease.


STRINGENT MEASURES

The disease is spreading even as farmers and truckers impose stricter cleanliness measures across the so-called Hog Belt, which stretches across most of the U.S. Midwest and Plains States and extends south to North Carolina, the nation's No. 2 hog producer. Iowa ranks first.

"It's a complete lifestyle change," said Iowa State's Baker. "In the past the truckers haven't thought of biosecurity much."

Some hog farmers prohibit outside visitors. Others require workers to change clothes when entering and leaving barns. Truck drivers wipe down the step into their cabs, disinfect their steering wheels and change boots or wear disposable booties before entering farm yards.

The industry wants truck washes to use fresh water instead of recycled, since PEDv can live in room temperature water for up to 13 days, a University of Minnesota study said.

"The only truck I regularly allow on site is the feed truck and last November I told the driver not to get out of the truck," said Bill Tentinger, an Iowa farmer who so far has kept PEDv at bay.

The extra washing, drying and disinfecting can consume at least two hours and cost up to $500 per load, industry sources said.


DEATH TOLLS

Bright yellow signs marked "PED" are popping up outside North Carolina farms warning the virus is present. One-third of North Carolina's 3,000 hog farms have been struck by PEDv since the first diagnosed case there in June 2013, the state says.

So many piglets have died that Tom Butler, a farmer who fattens hogs for market in southeastern Harnett County, is having difficulty finding animals. His herd is down 25 percent to 6,000 pigs, costing him more than $100,000.

"We were spiraling downhill for a while but I think we've leveled off," Butler said. "The industry is learning to cope." (Additional reporting by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago, Marti Anne Maguire in Sampson County, N.C. and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Editing by David Greising and John Pickering)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/27/pig-virus-wipes-out-nation...

MERS Cases Spike As Virus Makes First Appearance In Egypt

ISTANBUL -- A highly deadly and little-understood virus that has struck fear across the Middle East and caused more than 100 deaths in the region made its first appearance in Egypt last week, coinciding with a spike in patients in Saudi Arabia, its place of original identification.

The virus, known as Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS, is closely related to the Asian flu SARS, which sickened thousands of people and left nearly 800 dead a decade ago. Thus far, MERS, which was first detected in 2012, is not believed to be nearly as contagious as SARS, and not everyone who contracts the disease becomes ill. However, MERS is significantly more fatal, with no known vaccine or cure.

Despite the relative difficulty of acquiring the disease, it continues to spread. Over the weekend, Saudi Arabia reported 26 new cases of MERS and 10 deaths, an alarming increase, according to health officials there.

Also over the weekend, Egyptian authorities confirmed their first official case of the virus in a 27-year-old civil engineer who had recently returned from a trip to Saudi Arabia.

Public health advocates and watchdog groups have criticized Saudi officials for failing to fully acknowledge the severity of the crisis. More than three hundred cases have already been linked to the Kingdom.

A week ago, in apparent response to these criticisms, the Saudi leadership fired its Minister of Health, Abdullah al-Rabia, who a day earlier had told reporters that he had no idea why cases of MERS were rising so dramatically.

But the government has also continued to caution against panic, saying that the spike in cases could be tied to the changing seasons.

"We have faced an increase in the number of cases around the same time last year at the end of winter," a Saudi health official told reporters, according to CNN.

In a recent report on the virus, the World Health Organization also suggested that seasonality may play a role, as could an increased vigilance for testing. But the report warned that more cases of MERS seem to be spreading through person-to-person contact, a worrisome development. Previously, most cases were believed to be linked to people who acquired the disease from contact with camels.

Still, the WHO said there is little evidence that patients who acquired the disease in Saudi Arabia before traveling abroad have spread it further, suggesting the virus remains relatively contained to the Middle East, and has not grown more contagious since it was first detected.

Most of those who have acquired the disease, the organization said, are health care workers who did so through contact with sick patients in the hospital.

Some public health experts have cautioned against overreacting, pointing out that as long as the virus remains difficult to contract, it is unlikely to develop into a full-blown epidemic.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/28/mers-saudi-egypt-spike_n_5... 

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/world-headed-for-dangerous-post-antibi...

World headed for dangerous 'post-antibiotic era,' WHO warns in landmark report

Unless immediate action is taken, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era where infections that were once treatable will turn deadly, according to a landmark report from the World Health Organization.

The report, issued Wednesday, says that antibiotics resistance is found in all parts of the world and can affect anyone of any age in any country. Antibiotics resistance, which the WHO says occurs when bacteria change and antibiotics no longer work against infections, “is now a major threat to public health.”

“Without urgent, coordinated action by many stakeholders, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill,” Dr. Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general for health security at the WHO, said in a statement.

Hospitals across Canada are struggling to deal with new strains of killer bacteria that seem to be resistant to antibiotics.

“Effective antibiotics have been one of the pillars allowing us to live longer, live healthier, and benefit from modern medicine. Unless we take significant actions to improve efforts to prevent infections and also change how we produce, prescribe and use antibiotics, the world will lose more and more of these global public health goods and the implications will be devastating.”

The study, entitled “Antimicrobial resistance: global report on surveillance,” gathered data from 114 countries. While it is not a complete picture of antibiotics resistance, it is “the most comprehensive picture that we’ve had to date,” Fukuda told reporters at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

The report focused on antibiotics resistance in seven different types of bacteria that are responsible for common but serious diseases. These include blood infections such as sepsis, diarrhea, pneumonia, urinary tract infections and gonorrhea.

Rates of resistance to treatment among bacteria that cause some of the most common serious infections are “very high,” Fukuda noted.

In all regions of the world, hospitals are reporting “untreatable or nearly untreatable” infections, he said. And medications of “last resort” for some infections are proving completely ineffective.

For some infections, such as bacteria-related diarrhea or urinary tract infections, “we really are beginning to run out of medicines that can be taken by mouth.” This means patients require treatment in hospital, Fukuda said.

Not only will some infections simply become “untreatable,” but antibiotics will also become ineffective at preventing infections in people with compromised immune systems: cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, premature babies and elderly patients undergoing joint replacements, he said.

What antibiotics resistance means “is that all of us, our family members…our friends, when we are most vulnerable and in need of these medicines, there is a chance that they simply are not going to be available and we are not going to be able to have access to effective medical care in a number of instances,” Fukuda said.

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2014-05-03/mers-outbreak-confirmed-o...

Mers outbreak confirmed on Britain-bound flight

The man, a non-British national, took a British Airways flight 262 on April 24 from Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia, to London, where he changed flights at Heathrow to fly to the US.

Public Health England said it has contacted UK passengers on the BA flight to London who were sitting in the vicinity of the affected passenger and is working with US health authorities to contact any British passengers on the April 24 onward flight to Chicago, American Airlines Flight 99.

It said that the risk of the infection being passed to other passengers "is extremely low" but was contacting the passengers "as a precautionary measure."

Any UK based passengers on Flight 262 on April 24 who have since become unwell or experienced respiratory symptoms, such as shortness of breath, are advised to contact NHS 111.

Unusual new penguin flu found in Antarctica

WASHINGTON: A new kind of bird flu has been detected for the first time in Adelie penguins in Antarctica, though the virus does not seem to make them sick, researchers said Tuesday.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/e-coli-contaminates-portland-or...

All of Portland, Oregon, was told Friday to boil its tap water after the city found E. coli in water samples.

An alert sent to people who live in the city and nearby warned that they "should boil all tap water used for drinking, food preparation, tooth brushing and ice for at least one minute. Ice or any beverages prepared with un-boiled tap water on or after May 20 should be discarded."

In all, 670,000 customers are under the order, health officials said at a news conference. "Animal waste" — fecal matter — in the water was the likely source of the E. coli, they said.

Samples taken three times between May 20 and May 23 "confirmed the presence of total coliform and E. coli in routine drinking water samples," the Portland Water Bureau said.

Tigard and King City, Oregon, as well as parts of Gresham and other districts, also received the alert, NBC affiliate KGW reported. A full list of areas affected is available at KGW com.

Rick Bowmer / AP file

A water reservoir in Mount Tabor Park in Portland, Ore., in 2011.

Most types of E. coli, a bacterium, are harmless or cause brief diarrhea, according to the Mayo Clinic. But some strains can cause abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhea and vomiting.

Based on test results, officials said they believed the risk to the public was low.

This is the second water problem in two months for Portland. In April, the Portland Water Bureau diverted nearly 36 million gallons of water from a reservoir after officials feared it was tainted by a teenager's urine.

— Elizabeth Chuck

First published May 23rd 2014, 3:01 pm

23 people dead, 670 sickened

http://www.irinnews.org/report/100146/south-sudan-capital-faces-wor...

South Sudan capital faces worsening cholera outbreak

Photo: Matthew Abbott/IRIN

A cholera patient receives treatment at Juba Teaching Hospital.

JUBA, 28 May 2014 (IRIN) - Health officials are warning that a cholera outbreak in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, which has left 23 people dead and forced more than 670 others to seek treatment, could be getting worse. Laboratory tests have confirmed that at least one person living in a Juba displacement camp has contracted cholera and there are fears the disease could spread rapidly within the crowded site.

Officials are setting up new treatment centres across the city and treating the water sources they believe are responsible for spreading the disease, but said they anticipate at least 1,000 more people might need to be hospitalized before the outbreak ends. And that is only if cholera does not spread to other areas of the country.

Health Minister Riek Gai Kok officially announced the cholera outbreak nearly two weeks ago - the first in South Sudan since 2009 - and pledged “as the government, as a country [we] will support any efforts made to contain this disease.”

The outbreak was not unexpected. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Abdinasir Abubakar said the ministry and health partners had already started preparing for the appearance of cholera and other communicable diseases “because of the context. Because we had a lot of population movement and that population movement always brings some health problems.”

Five and a half months of fighting in South Sudan has forced more than a million people to flee their homes - and the situation continues to deteriorate. Despite a renewed cessation of hostilities agreement signed nearly three weeks ago by President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar, fighting has continued. The UN reports an additional 70,000 people have been displaced since then, some into areas without clean water or enough latrines.

When the outbreak was announced, UN agencies and partners began focusing on some of the most serious water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) concerns - both in the displaced populations and among long-term Juba residents.

Much of the water people use for drinking and cooking is collected from the Nile and delivered by tanker truck. UNICEF’s WASH chief Lillian Ukwiri said they are trying to track down every truck and make sure each shipment is chlorinated, something which should kill cholera bacteria.

They have also put out radio advertisements instructing people to boil water for at least 10 minutes before drinking it or cooking with it, and to wash their hands regularly. The messages also encourage people to report to a health centre as soon as they show any symptoms, including watery diarrhoea or vomiting, because the disease can kill swiftly.

Isolation ward 

When the outbreak was announced, Juba Teaching Hospital set up an emergency isolation ward. It filled quickly, with patients sleeping in open-air corridors that have been covered with tarps. Trina Helderman from Medair, a humanitarian group providing emergency services in the country, has been stationed at the ward since it opened. She told IRIN that initially they were seeing more than 100 patients a day, though the intake has slowed.

“It seems that the cases are going down, but based on what the experts have told us, it could be that the peak comes back up again,” she said. “We’re just waiting to see how things play out.”

Helderman said the messaging does seem to be working, with many people arriving as soon as they exhibit any symptoms, which makes it easier to treat them. They receive either oral rehydration salts to replace fluid lost in diarrhoea or vomiting or - in severe cases - an intravenous drip.

But some people are still not making it to the health centres in time. Samuel Moro’s family said they recognized the symptoms of cholera immediately, but first attempted to treat the disease with a homemade rehydration solution of sugar and salt. His condition worsened over the next 48 hours. By the time he arrived at the isolation ward, it was too late. He died a few hours later.

His brother, Kagwa Apolo, told IRIN Moro’s family was aware of the outbreak and had heard the messages encouraging them to seek treatment, but “we were hoping we could treat him at home. People left him to stay at home for a long time.”

Photo: Matthew Abbott/IRIN

The government has doubled its revisions of expected cholera cases.

High fatality rate

WHO’s Abubakar said the outbreak’s fatality rate is still too high. To bring it down, he said they needed to increase the surveillance teams so they could more quickly identify people in need of treatment, like Moro. They also needed more cholera treatment centres (CTCs). Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) opened a clinic last week in one of the hardest-hit areas of the city and Abubakar said health officials are considering opening two additional centres in the coming weeks.

Those are not the only shortages. Abubakar said because the outbreak has been worse than officials initially anticipated, it has forced them to revise the expected number of people showing symptoms of cholera from 5,000 to 10,000, 2 percent of the population. 2,000 people are expected to be hospitalized. 

“We need to go back to our planning and bring more supplies. We need to bring more staff in. We need to set up more CTCs. We need to train more staff and we need to expand the response.” And that was before MSF reported this week that the disease had officially entered one of Juba’s two displacement camps.

When the fighting started in mid-December, thousands of people crowded into the UN Mission in South Sudan’s two bases in the capital. More than 14,000 people are still living in each of the camps, which do not have enough latrines or other basic sanitation facilities.

Stefan Liljegren, MSF’s field coordinator, told IRIN there was one laboratory-confirmed case at the UN House camp on the outskirts of Juba and seven other patients who showed symptoms of cholera.

Because of their conditions, health officials already viewed the camps as high-risk areas for a cholera outbreak. Earlier this year they provided two doses of oral cholera vaccines to more than 96 percent of the people living in the camp in an effort to mitigate the impact of a possible outbreak.

But Liljegren said the vaccine offers only 65 percent coverage, which means there is still the potential for thousands of people to become sick. MSF has already set up CTCs in each of the camps.

“The advantage in the camp is that the population is aware,” he said. “They have a very close access to the CTC, so hopefully they will be able to access treatment very quickly, and thus, also be discharged very quickly.”

Abubakar said they are also waiting for reports from three other areas of the country where potential cases have been reported and acknowledged. “Our estimation is the cholera outbreak might spread outside Juba.” Even without any confirmation, the government has encouraged state officials to start rolling out public awareness campaigns and preparing people for the possibility that the outbreak could spread. 

Mosquito-Borne Virus That Causes Severe Pain Spreading Rapidly In The Caribbean

SAN CRISTOBAL, Dominican Republic (AP) –  They suffer searing headaches, a burning fever and so much pain in their joints they can barely walk or use their hands. It's like having a terrible flu combined with an abrupt case of arthritis.

Hospitals and clinics throughout the Caribbean are seeing thousands of people with the same symptoms, victims of a virus with a long and unfamiliar name that has been spread rapidly by mosquitoes across the islands after the first locally transmitted case was confirmed in December.

You feel it in your bones, your fingers and your hands. It's like everything is coming apart,"

Outbreaks of the virus have long made people miserable in Africa and Asia. But it is new to the Caribbean, with the first locally transmitted case documented in December in French St. Martin, likely brought in by an infected air traveler

"It's building up like a snowball because of the constant movement of people," said Jacqueline Medina, a specialist at the Instituto Technologico university in the Dominican Republic, where some hospitals report more than 100 new cases per day.

Source

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/eleven-cases-of-new-baby-virus...

Parechovirus commonly causes mild respiratory or gastrointestinal symptoms in babies, such as fever, irritability, a rash and diarrhoea.

However in some young infants, the virus can lead to more serious complications such as hepatitis or encephalitis, and can be fatal.

Brisbane parents Kimberley and Philip Rawson recently had to have their five-week-old daughter Lilly resuscitated in intensive care when she started having breathing difficulties and seizures as a result of the virus.

Queensland Children’s Medical Research Institute paediatric infectious diseases director Professor Theo Sloots said the virus “affects the brains of young children, and in severe cases can result in death’’.

Some infected babies recover within a few days. In very young babies the virus can cause infection in the central nervous system and lead to a sepsis-like illness, which can lead to long-term damage to brain cells.

“We don’t know what the long term affects are, the virus is newly recognised and we don’t know enough about it,’’ Prof Sloots said.

All 11 cases are believed to have been found in babies six months and under, with the first discovered in an infant in Bundaberg in December.

The virus – for which there is currently no vaccine – is spread from person to person through contacts with respiratory droplets, saliva or faeces.

Young babies appear to be at a higher risk.

Good hygiene is the best protection against the virus, with parents encouraged to wash their hands regularly and ensure the mouth and nose are covered when coughing or sneezing.

Nationally, 46 babies have been confirmed positive with parechovirus infections.

“The outbreak is Australia-wide now and we believe there are at least 4 types of the virus and we don’t know what type is in Queensland compared to other states,’’ Professor Sloots said.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF PARECHOVIRUS?

Some infected babies get unwell quickly with fever. Other symptoms include a red rash, irritability and diarrhoea.

WHAT SHOULD PARENTS DO?

If concerned, contact your GP.

Doctors Without Borders: Ebola 'out of control'

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa is "totally out of control," according to a senior official for Doctors Without Borders, who says the medical group is stretched to the limit in responding.

"The reality is clear that the epidemic is now in a second wave," Janssens said. "And, for me, it is totally out of control."  

The current outbreak, which began in Guinea either late last year or early this year, had appeared to slow before picking up pace again in recent weeks, including spreading to the Liberian capital for the first time.

Source

http://www.thehealthsite.com/news/tripura-malaria-outbreak-31-child...

Tripura malaria outbreak – 31 children, 10 adults dead

http://firsttoknow.com/highly-infectious-polio-virus-discovered-bra...

Highly Infectious Polio Virus Discovered in Brazil’s Sewage System

June 24, 2014

(Reuters) – The polio virus has been found in sewage samples near Sao Paulo, one of the venues for the soccer World Cup in Brazil, but no human case of the disease has been reported so far, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

The virus discovered in Sao Paulo sewage collected in March at Viracopos International Airport, and reported by Brazilian health authorities last week, is a close match to a strain isolated in a case in Equatorial Guinea, the WHO said.

“(The) virus has been detected in the sewage only … To date no case of paralytic polio has been reported,” it said in a statement.

Polio invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours. There is no cure for the disease but it can be prevented by immunization. Children under age five are the most vulnerable.

The Brazilian Health Ministry said the presence of people carrying infectious agents from other parts of the world was to be expected as a result of increased international travel. “It is important to clarify that this detection does not mean any change in the epidemiological situation of Brazil or a threat to the elimination of the disease,” it said in a statement.

Brazil has been polio-free since 1989 and the Americas region was declared free of wild polio transmission in 1991, according to the WHO, which is spearheading a global campaign to eradicate polio.

Brazil’s last national immunization campaign was conducted a year ago and coverage in Sao Paulo state has been higher than 95 percent, the WHO said, adding: “The high immunity appears to have prevented transmission.”

The U.N. agency said it assessed the risk of further international spread of polio virus from Brazil as “very low”, and from Equatorial Guinea as “high”.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/ohio-mumps-outbreak-now-w...

Health officials say 439 people have been diagnosed with mumps in Ohio, more than in the entire United States last year. Last year 438 people in the entire United States caught mumps, one of the infections prevented by the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. This year, more than 800 cases have been reported from 25 states.

The problem is a less-than-perfect vaccine and continual imports from other countries, health officials say. “Mumps is a problem because the mumps vaccine that we have is a good one, but it is not a perfect vaccine,” says Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University. “Even after two doses of mumps vaccine, if you wait 10 or 15 years and you’re exposed to mumps there is only about 85 percent protection.”

The Ohio mumps outbreak is separate from a measles outbreak linked to Amish volunteers who have brought the virus back from the Philippines, where they have been doing relief work.

Judy Silverman

http://www.nation.com.pk/national/27-Jun-2014/brain-eating-amoeba-c...

Virus strikes hard in Haiti’s crowded shantytowns

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Within a dense cluster of flimsy shacks made mostly of plastic tarp and wooden planks, a young mother cradles her sick, whimpering toddler while trying to guard against a fierce tropical sun.

Delimene Saint Lise says she’s doing her best to comfort her 2-year-old daughter and control her spiking fever during what has quickly become a familiar agony in their makeshift community of shanties by a trash-clogged canal in the Haitian capital.

“For the last three days, her body gets very hot and she’s hurting all over,” Saint Lise said as she sat on a mattress inside their sweltering home with flapping plastic walls in the capital’s dusty Delmas section. “I know because I had this awful illness before her.”

This latest scourge in Haiti is chikungunya. It’s a rarely fatal but intensely painful mosquito-borne virus that has spread rapidly through the Caribbean and parts of Latin America after local transmission first started in tiny French St. Martin late last year, likely brought in by an infected air traveler.

Haiti is proving to be particularly vulnerable because so many people live like Saint Lise and her neighbors, packed together in rickety housing with dismal sanitation and surrounded by ideal breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carry the illness.

“Chikungunya has been merciless in Haiti. Lack of basic infrastructure, poor mosquito control measures, and deep social and economic disparities hampered prevention and treatment efforts,” says a new report on Haiti’s epidemic by the Igarape Institute, a Brazil-based think tank.

Since the virus was first documented in Haiti in May, there have been nearly 40,000 suspected cases seen by health workers, the Pan American Health Organization says. The only places with higher numbers are the neighboring Dominican Republic and Guadaloupe.

But there are many signs that the actual number is far higher in Haiti, a country of 10 million people that struggles with many burdens, from crushing poverty, lack of access to clean water and the fact that some 146,000 people displaced by the January 2010 earthquake still live in makeshift homes.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is now assisting Haiti’s health ministry to confirm new cases. But statistics are notoriously unreliable in Haiti, and public health experts say the number of people with the illness is unknown. Many poor Haitians don’t bother seeking care at clinics so their cases go unrecorded, said Dr. Gregory Jerome of Zanmi Lasante, the Haitian program of the Boston-based nonprofit organization Partners in Health.

It’s clear the “attack rate of this infection is very high all over the country,” Jerome said. And it’s not just impoverished districts. People in wealthier areas such as the tree-lined Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville and the scenic southern coastal town of Jacmel are complaining of cases.

Instances of local transmission have been reported in about 20 nations or territories in the region, from the Virgin Islands, Dominica, Martinique and Puerto Rico to El Salvador in Central America and French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname on the northern shoulder of South America.

In Haiti, it’s gotten so bad so quickly that many people are resigned to catching the virus known in Creole as “kaze le zo,” or “breaking your bones,” for joint pain so intense some patients can barely walk or use their fingers for days. There is no vaccine and the only treatment is basic medication for the pain and fluid replacement for dehydration.

Painful symptoms of chikungunya generally dissipate within a week and people develop immunity after getting infected. But some patients can develop severe and even life-threatening complications including respiratory failure. It can also contribute to the deaths of people with underlying health issues. Just last week, former Haitian President Leslie Manigat died after a long period of illness and a deputy secretary of his political party said his condition might have been complicated by a recent bout with the virus.

Outbreaks of chikungunya have long made people miserable in Africa and Asia. In the Western Hemisphere, where the illness is new and advancing rapidly, health officials are working to educate the public and knock down the mosquito population. U.S. states are warily monitoring “imported” cases among residents who recently traveled to the Caribbean and were bitten by an infected mosquito.

Haiti’s government has stepped up fumigation and education campaigns. Public service announcements about the illness appear regularly on radio and TV stations broadcasting World Cup games. Officials also recently distributed free pain-relief medicine at public health facilities, especially because there were signs of predatory price increases by pharmacies and freelance pill vendors.

But Dr. Gretta Lataillade Roy, head of a small public clinic in Delmas who was ill with the virus last month, said the free pain-relief medication ran out at her facility within 48 hours as a surge of patients showed up. Most people with the virus are now opting to suffer at home, she said, and high prices for acetaminophen are back.

Many health clinic workers have been falling ill with chikungunya after being bitten by infected mosquitoes, resulting in temporary staff shortages.

Although other mosquito-borne illnesses such as malaria and dengue exist in Haiti, simple precautions to deter bites are often not taken because many people can’t afford bug repellant and window screens. The Igarape group’s recent survey of 2,807 randomly sampled households suggested that treated mosquito nets, another recommended precaution, are seldom used.

Complicating matters, nearly one in five respondents told researchers they believe rumors that chikungunya was intentionally brought to Haiti by businessmen as a way to make money or possibly as a form of social and political control.

“There are some difficulties in many parts of the population to accept the reality that the virus is transmitted by a vector,” said Dr. Jean-Luc Poncelete, the Pan American Health Organization’s representative in Haiti.

In Delmas, Saint Lise and her neighbors say they’ve heard on the radio that mosquitoes spread the strange virus. But they say they are skeptical in part because the government has not been fumigating around their camp.

“They say it’s the mosquitoes doing this,” said Eliamese Derisier, whose 6-month-old son is struggling with the virus in a tent next door to Saint Lise’s family. “But I’m not sure if I believe them.”

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/virus-strikes-hard...

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/07/02/6528896/tuberculosis-outbreak-at-s...

http://fox4kc.com/2014/07/11/brain-eating-amoeba-kills-johnson-coun...

Brain-eating amoeba kills 9-year-old Johnson County girl

MISSION, Kan. — An extremely rare brain-eating amoeba has killed a nine-year-old girl from Johnson County.

Hally Yust, 9, from Spring Hill was an avid skier and died two days ago on Wednesday.

The amoeba is found in fresh water. A county disease investigator tells FOX 4 that Yust had several potential exposures in fresh water in Kansas, so the actual source of infection cannot be determined.  She was taken to a hospital with meningitis-like symptoms and testing revealed the amoeba infection.

It’s called Naegleria fowleri.  It’s in lakes, rivers and hot springs.  Infection is extremely rare.  There have been fewer than 200 cases in the U.S. in more than 50 years.  There was also a death in a Wichita-area resident in 2011.

“The amoeba goes up through the nose and into the brain and once it’s there, there’s really nothing anybody can do.  There’s only been one case that actually lived through this.  All the other cases have passed away,” said Tiffany Geiger, the investigator with the Johnson County Health Department.

Geiger says even though the chances of getting the brain-eating amoeba are very low, you can lower the chances by wearing noseplugs when swimming, skiing or doing other fresh water activities.  The risk does increase in the summer with warmer water temperatures.

Symptoms usually appear five days after infection.  They include headache, fever, nausea, stiff neck and confusion.

The health department says infection cannot be spread from person to person, and you cannot get it from a swimming pool which is properly maintained.

On Friday, FOX 4′s Abby Eden spoke with Yust’s mother about her little girl.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/sindh/12-Jul-2014/no-grassroots-awaren...

No grassroots awareness as brain-eating amoeba cases increase

Karachi: Naigleria Fowleri, a rare disease, is spreading in Karachi and so far at least five deaths have been reported in the city this year, while the number of unreported death cases might be high.
The disease spreads through non-chlorinated potable water and is dreaded because there is no treatment available and the survival chance of diagnosed patients is almost zero. The government policymakers at the provincial level are still unmoved despite five deaths this year alone. In past the government used to issue daily reports about such diseases including dengue, but the issuance of these daily reports was abruptly stopped. Though the suppression of information from public is the hallmark of dictatorial governments, the elected governments when marred with corruption and bad governance also suppress vital information from the general public.
The main issue related to the disease is that it reaches the brain of the victim via nose and eats up its brain tissues, resulting in a certain death. In Karachi millions of people, young and old, men, women and children irrigate their noses during ablution before offering a prayer. People use normal non-chlorinated water in homes and mosques, which means highly increased chances of catching naegleria fowleri amoeba. This is really a grave public health threat but the related government departments have yet to realize its gravity.
Karachi not only needs a hundred percent chlorinated water supply but also a detailed guidelines for general public about the use of water in washing their noses. Here also come the role of religious scholars, TV channels airing religious programs, radio and print media.  The religious scholars should guide the people how to perform ablution in conditions where the proper chlorination of water is not ensured. Should people keep small bottles of boiled water or saline water in their pockets and use this water during the ablution. This is a very serious matter trhat involves the lives of millions of people and also their health and life.
It is high time the provincial government including its health and local government departments, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, religious learning departments of leading public and private universities, noted seminaries, religious scholars, Muftis, theologians and jurisprudence experts should realize their responsibilities and ensure a grassroots awareness   in Karachi as how to fight the threat of naegleria fowleri. 
Further 10 persons were diagnosed of naegleria in Karachi on Friday.
According to media reports, the Health Department of Sindh has put the hospitals on high alert after the persons were diagnosed of the silent killer disease.
The illness slowly attacks the nervous system which results in death within a few weeks. According to the doctors, 97 per cent of the patients are killed by the illness. The disease is borne due to insufficient amount of chlorine in the water. It should be noted that there is no chlorine present in 40 per cent of the homes in Karachi. There is no proper treatment available for the disease.

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14919&ArticleId=364269

Bolivia Declares Bubonic Plague Alert on Peru Border

LA PAZ – Bolivia’s public health authorities declared the province of La Paz on epidemiological alert owing to an outbreak of bubonic plague detected in communities along the border with Peru, the government said Tuesday.

The provincial head of epidemiology, Rene Barrientos, told the media that a boy of 14 has died of the illness and another three suspected cases have been found in the municipality of Apolo, in the northern part of the region.

The alert was declared to take action in the area and “avoid there being more victims and to keep the illness from leading to pneumonic plague,” which, unlike bubonic plague, can be transmitted orally, Barrientos said.

Bubonic plague affects rodents like rats and hares and is transmitted by vectors like fleas, but never person to person.

It causes fever and inflammation of the ganglia, and can be life-threatening if it gets into the bloodstream.

At the beginning of August an outbreak of bubonic plague was reported in the northern Peruvian province of Ascope, where up to now one person has died and around 30 have been affected, between confirmed and probable cases. EFE