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Today's Headlines: June 15, 2018

Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases 

Ricin Threat: Cologne Anti-terror Police Search Flats ( BBC) The 29-year-old man, named in German media only as Sief Allah H, is being questioned by police. Police stormed his flat on Tuesday and found a chemical which turned out to be ricin. He is suspected of planning a biological terror attack. Go to article

CDC Investigates Hepatitis A Outbreak in Six States ( The Hill) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning public health officials in six states about an outbreak of Hepatitis A among drug users and the homeless. From January 2017 to April of this year, the CDC has received more than 2,500 reports of infections from California, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Utah and West Virginia. Go to article

Searching for a Change: The Need for Increased Support for Public Health and Research on Fungal Diseases ( PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases) Fungal diseases have been continually neglected over the years despite their alarming impact on human health. Recent estimates suggest a global annual occurrence of approximately 3,000,000 cases of chronic pulmonary aspergillosis, more than 200,000 cases of cryptococcal meningitis, 700,000 cases of invasive candidiasis, 500,000 cases of Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia, 250,000 cases of invasive aspergillosis, 100,000 cases of disseminated histoplasmosis, over 10,000,000 cases of fungal asthma, and 1,000,000 cases of fungal keratitis. It is estimated that fungal infections kill more than 1.5 million people every year. Go to article

A Boy Contracted the First Case of Bubonic Plague Idaho Has Seen in 26 Years ( Time) A boy in Idaho has contracted the first case of bubonic plague the state has seen for 26 years, according to health officials. The child, who remains unidentified, was treated with antibiotics in the hospital and is now recovering at home in a stable condition. Go to article

Liberia: Health Authorities Respond to Lassa Fever Outbreak ( H5N1) The National Public Health Institute of Liberia in collaboration with the Ministry of Health has responded to the Lassa fever outbreak in the country. According to a release issued in Monrovia, cases of Lassa fever are on the increase in the Lassa belt (Bong, Nimba, and Grand Bassa Counties). Go to article


Global Health Security

Do We Keep Waiting for the Next Pandemic or Try to Prevent It? ( STAT) News of the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is an urgent reminder that we need to change the way we fight disease, and we need to do so now. Over the last few decades, the number of disease outbreaks has more than tripled, culminating in three major epidemics in recent years - Ebola, yellow fever, and Zika. Despite this, governments often respond to outbreaks only once they occur, rather than investing in ways to stop them in the first place. Go to article

HIV--No Time for Complacency ( Science) Today, the global HIV epidemic is widely viewed as triumph over tragedy. This stands in stark contrast to the first two decades of the epidemic, when AIDS was synonymous with suffering and death. But have we turned the tide on HIV sufficiently to warrant directing our attention and investments elsewhere? Go to article

DRC Bordering Countries Begin Ebola Preparedness Training ( devex) The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continues more than one month after being confirmed by the World Health Organization. And while health workers and international aid organizations fight to contain the virus, WHO has focused its most recent efforts on Ebola preparedness training in neighboring countries. Go to article

Innovative Health Financing for Refugees ( BMC Medicine) More than 65 million persons are currently forcibly displaced, of whom more than 22 million are refugees. Conflicts are increasing, and existing ones are becoming more protracted; a refugee remains a refugee for more than 10 years. Funding for refugee assistance comes primarily from high-income countries after an emergency has occurred. Go to article

Knowledge and Attitudes of Ebola Among the general Public of Trinidad and Tobago During the 2014-15 West Africa Outbreak ( bioRxiv) Health system resilience and resilience of a country include the capacity of health personnel, institutions, and populations to prepare for and effectively respond to crises. This study investigates the knowledge and attitudes of the public concerning Ebola Virus Disease in Trinidad and Tobago. Go to article

Opening Pandora Box - High Level Resistance to Antibiotics of Last Resort in Gram Negative Bacteria from Nigeria ( bioRxiv) Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem but information about the prevalence and mechanisms of resistance in sub-Saharan Africa are lacking. We determined the percentage of drug resistant isolates and resistance mechanisms in 307 Gram negative isolates randomly collected from south western Nigeria. Susceptibility testing revealed 77.9%, 92.3% and 52.7% of all isolates were resistant to fluoroquinolones, third generation cephalosporins and carbapenems respectively. Go to article


Medicine & Public Health

Challenges of Administering an Ebola Vaccine in Remote Areas of the DRC ( The Conversation) No one said tracking the movements of a patient, suspected to be a carrier of the deadly Ebola virus, through the dense forests of the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo was going to be easy. With no discernible roads, only dense bush, we were forced to travel on three motorbikes to get to our destination, riding through areas where no car could reach. Go to article

How Public Transport Affected the Propagation of Zika and Microcephaly Within Rio de Janeiro Early in 2015 ( bioRxiv) From mid-2015 to the end of January 2016, 47 cases of microcephaly were observed in the city of Rio de Janeiro, that were not due to other viral infections (syphilis, toxoplasmosis, herpes and cytomegalovirus). These children were conceived from Dec 2014 to April 2015, far too early to be explained by the officially recorded cases from October 2015 onward. Zika must have been rampant in the city from late 2014 onward. Go to article

Burden of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae type b Disease in Children in the Era of Conjugate Vaccines: Global, Regional, and National Estimates for 2000-15 ( Lancet) Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine are now used in most countries. To monitor global and regional progress towards improving child health and to inform national policies for disease prevention and treatment, we prepared global, regional, and national disease burden estimates for these pathogens in children from 2000 to 2015. Go to article


Science & Technology

KLRD1-expressing Natural Killer Cells Predict Influenza Susceptibility (Genome Medicine) Influenza infects tens of millions of people every year in the US. Other than notable risk groups, such as children and the elderly, it is difficult to predict what subpopulations are at higher risk of infection. Viral challenge studies, where healthy human volunteers are inoculated with live influenza virus, provide a unique opportunity to study infection susceptibility. Biomarkers predicting influenza susceptibility would be useful for identifying risk groups and designing vaccines. Go to article

CRISPR-Cas Antimicrobials: Challenges and Future Prospects ( PLOS Pathogens) Antimicrobial resistance poses a serious threat to modern medicine and may render common infections untreatable. The discovery of new antibiotics has come to a relative standstill during the last decade, and developing novel approaches to tackle the spread of AMR genes will require significant efforts in the coming years. In 2014, several groups independently demonstrated how CRISPR-Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-CRISPR-associated), a bacterial immune system now widely used for genome editing, can selectively remove AMR genes from bacterial populations.  Go to article


21st Century Threats

Here's What Would Need to Happen to Verify North Korea's Denuclearization ( The Week) "Insulting." That's what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called a reporter's question about why scientific terms, like "verification," a mainstay of arms control treaties, weren't included in the joint letter that President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un signed on Tuesday during their summit in Singapore. In the document, North Korea recommits to denuclearization, but the statement itself gives no mention of how, exactly, the denuclearization process would be tracked and ensured. Go to article

The Military Logic Behind Assad's Use of Chemical Weapons ( War on the Rocks) When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime uses chemical weapons, as it has done on at least four different occasions in the past five years (August 2013, March 2017, April 2017, and April 2018), conspiracy theorists and Russian propaganda outlets immediately kick into gear to begin denying it. They posit that the Syrian regime would never use chemical weapons because, after all, it is already winning the civil war. Instead, these outlets suggest, the anti-Assad opposition (working with external powers) stages "false flag" events to provide excuses for an American military strike aimed at toppling the regime. Go to article


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