Category Archives: pandemic

DRC Ebola cases surge to 785 | CIDRAP

Also, experts call for the WHO to reconvene its Ebola emergency committee and consider declaring a public health emergency of international concern.

Source: DRC Ebola cases surge to 785 | CIDRAP

Genes linked to antibiotic-resistant superbugs found in Arctic | Society | The Guardian – Holy Crap!

Antibiotic resistance threatens a global “apocalypse”, England’s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, has warned, and last week the health secretary, Matt Hancock, called it a bigger threat than climate change or warfare. Common operations could become life-threatening and rapidly spreading and evolving diseases could overcome our last medical defences, reversing nearly a century of remarkable progress in human health.

Source: Genes linked to antibiotic-resistant superbugs found in Arctic | Society | The Guardian

Avian Flu Diary: Emerg. Microbe & Inf: MERS Infection In Non-Camelid Domestic Mammals

It took roughly a year after the first human infection with MERS-CoV was announced out of Saudi Arabia for dromedary camels to be identified as a host species for the MERS coronavirus (see 2013’s The Lancet Camels Found With Antibodies To MERS-CoV-Like Virus). While bats are believed to be the primary host reservoir for MERS, SARS, and an array of other novel pathogens (see Curr. Opinion Virology: Viruses In Bats & Potential Spillover To Animals And Humans), the hunt continues for other susceptible species where these viruses may reside.

Source: Avian Flu Diary: Emerg. Microbe & Inf: MERS Infection In Non-Camelid Domestic Mammals

NH: There had been a significant increase in date tree cultivation in Saudi Arabia to serve increased worldwide demand for dates. That increase led naturally to an increase in the bat population and the possibilities of a new variant of disease to be passed on to animals and humans.

Flu science points to another culprit when vaccines fail — us

The idea is that the first flu viruses your immune system encounters make indelible marks on it. A person born in 1970 whose first influenza A infection was caused by an H3N2 virus will always mount a better immune response to H3N2 viruses — or that component of the vaccine — than she will to an H1N1 virus or vaccine. But a person born in 1949, when H1N1 was the only influenza A virus circulating, will likely always have an underwhelming response to the H3N2 component of the flu shot. The phenomenon is called “original antigenic sin” in the influenza literature. It’s also known as “imprinting.”

Source: Flu science points to another culprit when vaccines fail — us

DRC Ebola total hits 699 amid more resistance, insecurity | CIDRAP

The number of confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Ebola outbreak has jumped by 19 since Friday, most of them in Katwa, where responders face more community resistance. Over the course of the outbreak, responders have been grappling with evolving challenges in different areas. In today’s update, the health ministry described a security incident at a health checkpoint in Komanda that injured two workers.

Source: DRC Ebola total hits 699 amid more resistance, insecurity | CIDRAP

Opinion | How to Inoculate Against Anti-Vaxxers – The New York Times

It’s no mystery how we got here. On the internet, anti-vaccine propaganda has outpaced pro-vaccine public health information. The anti-vaxxers, as they are colloquially known, have hundreds of websites promoting their message, a roster of tech- and media-savvy influencers and an aggressive political arm that includes at least a dozen political action committees. Defense against this onslaught has been meager. The C.D.C., the nation’s leading public health agency, has a website with accurate information, but no loud public voice. The United States Surgeon General’s office has been mum. So has the White House — and not just under the current administration. That leaves just a handful of academics who get bombarded with vitriol, including outright threats, every time they try to counter pseudoscience with fact. The consequences of this disparity are substantial: a surge in outbreaks of measles, mumps, pertussis and other diseases; an increase in influenza deaths; and dismal rates of HPV vaccination, which doctors say could effectively wipe out cervical cancer if it were better utilized. But infectious disease experts warn that things could get much worse. Trust in vaccines is being s

Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico – Volume 8, Number 4—April 2002 – Emerging Infectious Diseases journal – CDC – 25 million deaths in Mexico 1519-1576

The native people of Mexico experienced an epidemic disease in the wake of European conquest (Figure 1), beginning with the smallpox epidemic of 1519 to 1520 when 5 million to 8 million people perished. The catastrophic epidemics that began in 1545 and 1576 subsequently killed an additional 7 million to 17 million people in the highlands of Mexico (1–3). Recent epidemiologic research suggests that the events in 1545 and 1576, associated with a high death rate and referred to as cocoliztli (Nahuatl for “pest”), may have been due to indigenous hemorrhagic fevers (4,5). Tree-ring evidence, allowing reconstructions of the levels precipitation, indicate that the worst drought to afflict North America in the past 500 years also occurred in the mid-16th century, when severe drought extended at times from Mexico to the boreal forest and from the Pacific to Atlantic coasts (6). These droughts appear to have interacted with ecologic and sociologic conditions, magnifying the human impact of infectious disease in 16th-century Mexico. The epidemic of cocoliztli from1545 to 1548 killed an estimated 5 million to 15 million people, or up to 80% of the native population of Mexico (Figure 1). In ab

Source: Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico – Volume 8, Number 4—April 2002 – Emerging Infectious Diseases journal – CDC