Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases
Rapid Risk Assessment - Multidrug-resistant Tuberculosis in Migrants, Multi-country Cluster --Second Update, 27 March 2017 (
ECDC) A multi-country cluster of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) involving 25 migrants has been delineated by whole genome sequencing. All cases have a recent history of migration from Somalia (22 cases), Eritrea (2 cases) and Ethiopia (1 case). Cases have been reported by Germany (13 cases), Switzerland (8 cases), Austria (2 cases), Finland and Sweden (1 case each). A WGS analysis of the 25 cluster isolates supports the hypothesis that the cases are part of a chain of recent transmission likely to have taken place either in the country of origin or in a place along the migration route to the country of destination. Based on the currently available information, it is not possible as of yet to rule out that transmission occurred in an EU/EFTA country.
Go to article
High-path H7N9 Expands to Poultry in China's Hunan Province (
CIDRAP) China today reported a highly pathogenic H7N9 outbreak at a poultry farm in Hunan province, the first detection of the newly identified more lethal form in poultry outside of Guangdong province, while Japan reported two new H5N6 outbreaks at poultry farms in different prefectures.
Go to article
Nigerian Congress Calls for Investigation into Lassa Outbreak (
Outbreak News Today) A total of 43 deaths have been recorded so far (37 in confirmed cases and 6 in probable cases). The case fatality rate for all cases is 21.5 percent and for all confirmed/probable cases is 54.4 percent, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control. This has prompted the Nigerian House of Representatives to mandate its Committees on Health Institutions and Healthcare Services to investigate the recent resurgence of cases of the viral disease.
Go to article
Government Affairs & National Security
The US Emergency Care Coordination Center (
Annals of Emergency Medicine: Subscription Required) The federal government's role in the delivery of emergency care in the US is complex. Although emergency care is delivered within the Department of Veterans Affairs, Indian Health Service, and Department of Defense, primarily for eligible beneficiaries, the majority of it is delivered in the private sector rather than as part of a federal program.
Go to article
Global Health Security
Saudi Arabia Temporarily Bans Poultry Imports from Tennessee over Bird Flu (
Reuters) Saudi Arabia has temporarily banned imports of live birds, hatching eggs and chicks from Tennessee after a form of bird flu that is highly lethal for poultry was found in the US state, the Saudi ministry of agriculture said on Sunday. The Tennessee Department of Agriculture reported this month that two commercial chicken flocks had been found to have been infected with H7N9 highly pathogenic flu.
Go to article
Antimicrobial Resistance Crisis Demands Global Solution (
American Society for Microbiology) Antimicrobial resistance is an urgent global threat. Recognizing the significance of antimicrobial resistance across the spectrum of microbiology, the American Society for Microbiology established a new initiative to complement existing efforts, and provide a mechanism for moving research projects forward. A summary from the ASM AMR steering committee that took place in August, 2016 outlines the needs and opportunities that the initiative will address to combat the AMR crisis.
Go to article
Living with Zika in Puerto Rico Means Watching, Waiting and Fearing Judgment (
NPR) Since Zika appeared in Puerto Rico more than a year ago, doctors believe as many as a million people on the island have been infected. Some 40,000 cases of those cases have been confirmed, a number that includes some 3,200 pregnant women. Doctors in Puerto Rico are just beginning to assess the long-term consequences for children born to mothers with Zika.
Go to article
Venezuela's Maduro Asks UN to Help Ease Medicine Shortages (
Reuters) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday he has asked the UN to help the South American nation alleviate medicine shortages, which have become increasingly severe as the oil-producing nation's economic crisis accelerates. Triple digit inflation and a decaying socialist economic model have left medications ranging from simple anti-inflammatory drugs to chemotherapy medication out of reach for most Venezuelans.
Go to article
Medicine & Public Health
States with More Planned Parenthood Clinics Have Fewer Teen Births and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (
Washington Post) Republicans in Congress have long aimed to cut Planned Parenthood's federal funding. Despite the failure on Friday of the American Health Care Act, many observers expect Congress to try, try again to ensure that Planned Parenthood cannot receive Medicaid and Title X payments for delivering women's reproductive health-care services such as mammograms, contraception and Pap smears. (The 1976 Hyde Amendment bans using federal funding to underwrite abortions, so what is at stake is money for other health-care services for women.)
Go to article
The Anti-Vaxxer Illness Worse Than Zika (
Daily Beast) The emergence of the Zika virus and the health crisis it has ignited has frightened American citizens traveling abroad--and for good reason. Zika virus can cause birth defects to babies infected in utero, including potentially lifelong damage to the nervous system. What most American travelers don't realize, however, is that there is another virus out there that is far more common, far more contagious, and far more devastating to the unborn child. Most people just thought it was gone.
Go to article
A Deadly Strain of Tuberculosis Was Killing Homeless Men. Here's How One County Fought Back (
STAT) Just three years ago, a tuberculosis outbreak here put Georgia on the verge of a public health emergency. The drug-resistant TB had quietly spread for the better part of a decade among this city's homeless population. Then in 2014, the stubborn strain turned fatal, killing at least three men and infecting dozens. The deadly "Atlanta strain" also cropped up in more than a dozen states nationwide. Alarmed, the CDC intervened with emergency aid.
Go to article
Most Dengue Infections Transmitted in and Around Home (
Science Daily) Transmission of the mosquito-borne dengue virus appears to be largely driven by infections centered in and around the home, with the majority of cases related to one another occurring in people who live less than 200 meters apart, new research suggests.
Go to article
Science & Technology
The Phenotypic Spectrum of Congenital Zika Syndrome (
American Journal of Medical Genetics) In October 2015, Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak the Brazilian Ministry of Health. In response, the Brazilian Society of Medical Genetics established a task force to study the phenotype of infants born with microcephaly due to ZIKV congenital infection and delineate the phenotypic spectrum of this newly recognized teratogen.
Go to article
Researchers Crack Structure of Key Protein in Zika Virus (
Eurek Alert!) In a research paper just published in
Nature Communications, University of California, Riverside scientists report that they have determined the crystal structure of the entire ZIKV NS5 protein and demonstrated that NS5 is functional when purified
in vitro. Knowing the structure of ZIKV NS5 helps the researchers understand how ZIKV replicates itself.
Go to article
Other 21st Century Threats
Drought and War Heighten Threat of Not Just 1 Famine, but 4 (
New York Times) First the trees dried up and cracked apart. Then the goats keeled over. Then the water in the village well began to disappear, turning cloudy, then red, then slime-green, but the villagers kept drinking it. That was all they had. Now on a hot, flat, stony plateau outside Baidoa, thousands of people pack into destitute camps, many clutching their stomachs, some defecating in the open, others already dead from a cholera epidemic.
Go to article
