Category Archives: pandemic

CU-Boulder study reveals evolutionary arms race between Ebola virus, bats

{The complete connection of how bats become more vulnerable or the virus stronger is not addressed. Over-population stress of bats from human destruction of its forest ecology may be a significant factor, as well as cyclical large increases in food supply which can trigger increases in bat population. The change in food supply can also be the result of human intervention – creation of single fruit crop plantations- nh}

 

The Ebola virus and fruit bats have been waging a molecular battle for survival that may have started at least 25 million years ago.

Source: CU-Boulder study reveals evolutionary arms race between Ebola virus, bats

Avian Flu Diary: WHO Zika Updates: Honduras & Cape Verde {Oops! Giving same advice they did at onset of West African Ebola Outbreak!}

WHO does not recommend any travel or trade restriction to Honduras based on the current information available.

Source: Avian Flu Diary: WHO Zika Updates: Honduras & Cape Verde

 

Zika becomes part of your local area when someone who has caught it in another area, comes to your area and is then bitten by a local mosquito and it then passes the newly acquired infection on to the next person it bites and on and on it goes. In short, it is people traveling to and from infected areas who bring it to you.

The potential for birth defects is the chief problem!

Avian Flu Diary: Viral Creep: Zika Spreading In Central & South America

While definitive proof is still lacking, the operating assumption is these profound birth defects are likely due to maternal infection with the Zika Virus during the first or second trimester (see ECDC: Complications Potentially Linked To The Zika Virus Outbreaks In Brazil & French Polynesia).Over the past month more than 2000 excess microcephalic births have been registered in Brazil, and those numbers are expected to rise significantly over the months ahead.  Meanwhile, countries just now seeing the arrival of the virus are girding themselves to deal with similar public health challenges. Much of Central & South America, along with the Caribbean are at risk. Included also are parts of North America where the two primary Aedes mosquito vectors can be found.

Source: Avian Flu Diary: Viral Creep: Zika Spreading In Central & South America

Garbage Human Martin Shkreli Once Again Plans To Massively Raise Cost Of Lifesaving Drug: SFist

Much reviled pharma guy Martin Shkreli has yet again revealed himself to be operating from a place of questionable morality. The 70 percent owner of South San Francisco-based KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. has announced plans to increase the two-month treatment price of a lifesaving drug from $100 to an estimated $80,000.Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals was in the news earlier this year, when the founder announced he would raise the price of a drug used by AIDS patients to treat parasitic infections from $13.50 to $750 per pill.Tech Times notes that the more recently proposed price increase, announced in an investor conference call last week, would target a drug used to treat Chagas disease, a particular parasitic infection that can be fatal.The two-month course of the drug, benznidazole, is currently available at the cost of $50 to $100 in Latin America, notes the Times, but at present is only available in the United States directly from the Centers for Disease Control (the CDC makes the drug available for free).Shkreli’s move, suggests the New York Times, is part of a larger scheme to acquire a FDA voucher for expediting the review process of another drug. By bringing benznidazole to the US commercial market, albeit at an exorbitant rate, Shkreli would be eligible for a voucher originally intended as a reward to encourage pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs for neglected diseases. His company could then sell this voucher (vouchers have sold for as much as $350 million, notes the New York Times) to another pharmaceutical company.“It’s caused a lot of angst in the Chagas community,” says Dr. Sheba Meymandi, the director of a Chagas treatment center. “Everyone’s in an uproar.”It is estimated that 300,000 people in the United States suffer the disease.

Source: Garbage Human Martin Shkreli Once Again Plans To Massively Raise Cost Of Lifesaving Drug: SFist

Zika Virus in Central America – Watch – Level 1, Practice Usual Precautions – Travel Health Notices | Travelers’ Health | CDC

What is the current situation?

In November 2015, the first local transmission of Zika virus infection in Central America was reported in El Salvador. Local transmission means that mosquitoes in the area have been infected with Zika virus and are spreading it to people. Zika virus is now being reported in other countries in Central America.As of December 10, 2015, the following Central American countries have reported cases of Zika virus:

  • El Salvador
  • Guatemala
  • Panama

CDC recommends that travelers to Central America protect themselves from mosquito bites. The Ministry of Health of Brazil is concerned about a possible association between the Zika virus outbreak and increased numbers of babies born with birth defects. For this reason, pregnant women should take extra precautions to avoid mosquito bites.

Source: Zika Virus in Central America – Watch – Level 1, Practice Usual Precautions – Travel Health Notices | Travelers’ Health | CDC

Exposure to toxic chemicals correlates with limited vaccine response | Vaccine News – Big Oops! C#@p!

Scientists from the University of Rochester (UR) Environmental Health Sciences Center recently conducted a study that suggests having toxic chemical exposure in early life can inhibit a baby’s vaccine response.

Source: Exposure to toxic chemicals correlates with limited vaccine response | Vaccine News

Norovirus suspected at Chipotle visited by 80 sick Boston College students | Reuters

In August, Norovirus was blamed for sickening nearly 100 people at a Chipotle restaurant in Simi Valley, California.Norovirus is the most common cause of foodborne-disease outbreaks in the United States. It causes as many as 21 million illnesses annually, often in places such as hospitals, cruise ships and universities where people eat and live in close quarters.Norovirus can persist in an environment for up to six weeks, said Benjamin Chapman, a food safety specialist at North Carolina State University.”Every time you have a vomit event, you’re looking at billions of (virus) particles, and it takes only a few to make you sick,” said Chapman, who said it was too early to say whether the students got norovirus at Chipotle.

Source: Norovirus suspected at Chipotle visited by 80 sick Boston College students | Reuters

Avian Flu Diary: Russia: H5 Avian Influenza In Wild Mallard – {If wild birds were the primary vector, avian influenza would be ever present globally and it is not. Industrialized poultry farming and transport is, I believe, the chief cause and facilitator… NH}

The fall often heralds the spread of avian flu in the Northern Hemisphere, which can often be carried long distances by migratory birds. In recent weeks we’ve seen outbreaks in France and Germany, and so all of Europe is on alert for signs of encroachment.From the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of the Republic of Mordovia and Penza region (Rosselkhoznadzor) we are notified of a recent detection of avian influenza in a wild duck from Zagorsk, in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia.

Source: Avian Flu Diary: Russia: H5 Avian Influenza In Wild Mallard

Anya Groner: The Public Is Us – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics {Fear and Infectious Diseases}

Fear isn’t useless. It’s essential that we maintain the tension between individual liberties and community health, and expressing fears, particularly competing fears, is one way that’s done. Public skepticism helps ensure decision-makers do enough to minimize disease without abusing power or diminishing civil liberties. Still, it’s vital to keep paranoia in check. The theorist Eve Sedgwick posits that, like typhoid and measles, paranoia is communicable. We pass it along to those we interact with. This happened when the media responded to Dr. Spencer’s Ebola infection and it continues to happen in the ongoing debate about childhood vaccinations and measles. Paranoia distorts decision-making, which is part of the reason that a hundred years after Mary Mallon’s isolation began on North Brother Island, we still struggle to conceptualize the relationship between community and individual health. When it comes to disease, whether we acknowledge it or not, we’re part of the public. The public isn’t an abstraction. It’s us.

Source: Anya Groner: The Public Is Us – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

Former President Jimmy Carter Says He Is Free of Cancer – The New York Times

The disease is often accompanied by a poor prognosis, but experts said Mr. Carter appeared to have benefited from early detection. He began an innovative treatment regimen in August that involved a highly targeted form of radiation therapy and pembrolizumab, which has been shown to help some melanoma patients live months or even years longer than expected.In November, Mr. Carter said he was responding well to the treatment and that the cancer was showing no signs of further growth.His announcement on Sunday was reported in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Mr. Carter was said to have told the Sunday school class he was teaching at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown Plains, Ga., according to the newspaper.Jill Stuckey, a close friend of the Carters and a church member, told the newspaper that about 350 people, many of them visitors, were in attendance on Sunday.“The church, everybody here, just erupted in applause,” she said.Mr. Carter is the second-oldest living president, behind George H. W. Bush, the 41st commander-in-chief, who is also 91 but almost three months older than Mr. Carter.

Source: Former President Jimmy Carter Says He Is Free of Cancer – The New York Times