Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases
Hantavirus - Americas (34): USA (Washington) Confirmed (
ProMed Mail) Health officials announced [Tue 15 May 2018] that they have confirmed a case of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome in a Grant County resident. Grant County Health District officials said the person is believed to have been exposed to contaminated deer mouse dropping while cleaning out their vehicle. The person has been released from the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.
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Government Affairs & National Security
Nearly 200 US Congressmen Push for Taiwan's Inclusion in WHA (
Taiwan News) Nearly 200 US members of the the House of Representatives sent a letter yesterday (May 16) to the head of the WHO calling for him to allow Taiwan to participated in next week's WHA meeting as China seeks to prevent the sovereign, independent country from participating in all such international organizations.
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Global Health Security
Prospective Surveillance for Influenza. Virus in Chinese Swine Farms (
Nature Emerging Microbes & Infections) Pork production in China is rapidly increasing and swine production operations are expanding in size and number. However, the biosecurity measures necessary to prevent swine disease transmission, particularly influenza. viruses that can be zoonotic, are often inadequate. Despite this risk, few studies have attempted to comprehensively study IAV ecology in swine production settings.
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Medicine & Public Health
He Was Dying. Antibiotics Weren't Working. Then Doctors Tried a Forgotten Treatment. (
Mother Jones) The treatment Strathdee had fixed on as a last-ditch hope is almost never used in the US. The FDA has not licensed phage therapy, keeping it out of pharmacies and hospitals. Few physicians have used it even experimentally, and most civilians have never heard of it. But phages are a natural phenomenon, frequently deployed in the former Soviet Union. When used properly, they can save lives.
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Understanding Drug-resistant Gonorrhoea: an ECDC Whole Genome Sequencing Study (
European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control) With more than 75 000 reported cases in 2016, gonorrhoea is the second most commonly notified bacterial sexually transmitted infection in Europe. But over the past decades,
Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium causing gonorrhoea, has been developing resistance to several antimicrobial classes as shown by the European Gonococcal Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme. This programme is co-ordinated by ECDC and annually monitors emerging resistance trends by testing susceptibility of the recommended antimicrobial agents for gonorrhoea treatment.
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Science & Technology
New Smallpox-related Virus Found Lurking in Texas Rodents (
Live Science) A never-before-seen virus that's a relative of the notorious smallpox virus has been found lurking in rodents in Texas, according to a new study. Researchers discovered the new virus in pygmy mice in east-central Texas. A genetic analysis revealed that the virus was a type of poxvirus, a diverse family of viruses that includes the smallpox virus.
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Novel Poxvirus in Proliferative Lesions of Wild Rodents in East Central Texas, USA (
Emerging Infectious Diseases)
Chordopoxvirinae is a diverse subfamily of viruses within Poxviridae. These geographically widespread viruses infect birds, reptiles, and mammals, and many are zoonotic. The increasing use of molecular methods has resulted in the identification of several novel poxviruses from humans and animals, many of which probably represent new genera; often, the reported host range of these viruses is limited to the species of the index case. Novel human poxvirus infections identified in the 21st century have often been presumed to have animal origins; for example, an investigation of a novel poxvirus isolated from 2 men in the country of Georgia revealed serologic evidence of orthopoxvirus exposure in cows in their herd and in captured rodents. We report a novel poxvirus infection characterized by proliferative epidermal lesions in wild northern pygmy mice (
Baiomys taylori) found at 2 localities in east central Texas, USA, and further characterize the virus through genetic analysis.
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Plug-and-Play Diagnostic Devices (
Science Daily) Researchers have developed modular blocks that can be put together in different ways to produce diagnostic devices. These 'plug-and-play' devices can test blood glucose levels in diabetic patients or detect viral infection, among other functions.
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A New Push for a Universal Flu Vaccine (
Scientific American) If all goes according to plan, the annual flu shot protects about 60 percent of vaccinated people. This year's inoculation, of course, fell far short of such expectations, safeguarding only one in four vaccinated people who encountered the dominant H3N2 strain. This shortfall injected further momentum into the push to create a universal vaccine that protects against many flu types over time.
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Novel Triple-reassortant Influenza Viruses in Pigs, Guangxi, China (
Nature Emerging Microbes & Infections) Considered a "mixing vessel" for influenza viruses, pigs can give rise to new influenza virus reassortants that can threaten humans. During our surveillance of pigs in Guangxi, China from 2013 to 2015, we isolated 11 H1N1 and three H3N2 influenza A viruses of swine origin (IAVs-S).
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Other 21st Century Threats
