A
yellow fever outbreak in Angola has killed 37 people since December,
the country's national director of health Adelaide de Carvalho. Picture:
AFP/ Luis Robayo
February 12, 2016 - ANGOLA - A yellow fever outbreak in Angola has killed 37 people since
December with eight new cases reported in the last 24 hours, the
country's national director of health Adelaide de Carvalho said late on
Wednesday.
The outbreak of yellow fever, which is transmitted by
mosquito bites, began in the Luanda suburb of Viana but has spread to
other areas of the southern African country with 191 people infected so
far.
De Carvalho said health officials were monitoring suburbs
around the capital of Luanda where infections have been worsened by
unsanitary conditions caused by a garbage collection backlog.
“Actions should be developed for the improvement of public sanitary and garbage collection,” de Carvalho said.
Symptoms
of yellow fever include sudden fever, severe headache, nausea, vomiting
and fatigue, according to the Centre for Disease Control and
Prevention. - IOL.
January 22, 2016 - TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO - A 61-year-old man has become the sixth person in Trinidad and Tobago to die after contracting swine flu.
The Ministry of Health announced yesterday that Jewan Maharaj passed away due to complications from a combination of hypertension and H1N1, after 18 days in the Intensive Care Unit of the Sangre Grande District Health Facility.
In addition to the six confirmed deaths, health officials say there are 68 laboratory reports of the virus in the twin-island republic.
The Ministry of Health has reminded citizens that influenza can cause severe illness in some people, including the elderly, infants, young children and pregnant women, as well as those with chronic medical conditions, such as heart, lung, kidney disease, hypertension and diabetes.
It has therefore advised anyone symptoms of the flu, difficulty breathing, chest tightness, the inability to eat or drink, persistent vomiting, or confusion to seek immediate medical attention.
The ministry said vaccination is especially important for people at higher risk of serious complications of influenza and for people who live with or care for high risk individuals.
“Safe and effective vaccines that can prevent influenza or reduce the severity of illness are available at local health centres,” it said, further stressing that after vaccination, people should still take preventative measures to reduce the spread of viruses.
Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Clive Tilluckdharry said yesterday there are approximately 46,000 doses of the H1N1 vaccine available in Trinidad and Tobago.
Influenza can spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes and droplets containing viruses get into the air and are inhaled by persons nearby. They can also become infected by touching surfaces such as doorknobs and desks contaminated with flu viruses and then touching their eyes, mouth or nose.
Tips to avoid spreading infectious diseases like influenza include: covering your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing, or coughing and sneezing into the crook of your elbow; washing hands with soap and water regularly; and avoiding close contact with people who have flu-like symptoms. - Caribbean 360.
January 20, 2016 - DENMARK - Danish authorities have warned hospitals over possible outbreak of
infectious diseases as several cases of diphtheria, tuberculosis and
malaria carried by the refugees have already been registered.
“The infection can be very dangerous if one isn’t vaccinated against it. The dangerous type is very rare and we last saw it in Denmark in 1998,” Kurt Fuursted, spokesperson for the Danish State Serum Institute (SSI) told Metroxpress referring to the potential return of diphtheria. This disease was last diagnosed in Denmark about 20 years ago.
“There is no doubt that infectious diseases are coming in with the refugees that we aren’t used to. There have been discussions on whether all refugees who come to Denmark should be screened," he added.
At present Denmark doesn’t follow the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation to vaccinate incoming migrants, unlike some other European countries.
“Refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants should be vaccinated without unnecessary delay according to the immunization schedule of the country in which they intend to stay for more than a week,” reads a joint WHO-UNHCR-UNICEF guidance on general principles of vaccination of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants in Europe, published on November 23 last year. It urges countries to provide migrants access to the “full vaccination schedule.”
The immigration officials and the Danish Health and Medicines Authority, a supreme healthcare authority in Denmark, are expected to review screening policy, according to Health Minister Sophie Lunde.
In recent months, Denmark has begun to tighten the screws in an effort to curb the refugee influx. On Thursday the Danish Parliament is set to vote on a bill proposing to strip refugees of valuables, including cash and jewelry, to cover the costs the country bears in connection with their stay. It would allow authorities to claim individual items valued at more than 10,000 kroner (US$1,450).
In the Danish cities of Thisted, Sonderborg and Haderslev, local club owners have started to introduce ‘language controls’, turning people away if they don’t speak Danish, English or German.
In 2015, some 18,000 refugees sought asylum in Denmark according to the migration agency, a far cry from almost 163,000 refugees in the neighboring Sweden. - RT.
April 6, 2015 - ARIZONA, UNITED STATES - Coconino County officials are
taking precautions after finding fleas collected in Picture Canyon
northeast of Flagstaff have tested positive for plague.
The Arizona Daily Sun reported Friday that the County Public Health Services District is conducting additional tests and disinfecting prairie dog burrows.
Public health officials collected the fleas around trails in the popular hiking area after noticing some prairie dogs dying off.
The positive test is the first sign of plague activity in the county since last September in Doney Park.
Officials are advising residents to take precautions such as using insect repellent and to avoid handling sick or dead animals.
Symptoms of plague appear within two to six days after initial exposure. They can include fever, chills, swollen lymph glands and muscle pain. - AZ Family.
March 11, 2015 - INDIA
- The swine flu toll in India has swelled to 1,482 while the number of
affected persons crossed the 26,000-mark on Tuesday. A minister in the
Rajasthan government has also tested positive for the disease.
The Union Health Ministry said that, as on March 9, the total number of deaths due to the H1N1 virus stands at 1,482 with as many as 26,455 people having been affected by the disease across the various states, PTI reported.
Rajasthan Food and Civil Supplies Minister Hem Singh Bhadana tested positive for swine flu and is undergoing treatment. His sample was sent from Alwar on Sunday and health officials confirmed that he has been infected with the virus.
Health Ministry data showed that the toll due to the disease was highest in Gujarat where 347 people have died while the number of affected persons was 5,715.
The disease has claimed 343 lives in Rajasthan, whose total of 6,030 patients is the highest so far in the country.
The toll stands at 221 while a total of 2,703 persons have come down with the disease in Maharashtra, where Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the state government to file an affidavit within four weeks on the measures it has taken to tackle the cases of swine flu.
Madhya Pradesh has seen 201 deaths and registered 1,608 cases of the disease.
Meanwhile, Health Ministry officials said that the figure on Tuesday also includes the deaths which occurred in Delhi this year of people belonging to various other states. These figures have been updated in the cumulative total in the ministry's data, officials said. - India Today.
January 9, 2015 - UNITED STATES - Here's the latest round-up of nationally notifiable infectious diseases in the United States.
NYC Health Officials Warn of Increase in Bronx Cases of Severe, Potentially Deadly Outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease
This 2009 colorized 8000X electron micrograph image provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
shows a large grouping of Gram-negative Legionella pneumophila bacteria.
City health officials are warning New Yorkers about an increase in cases of Legionnaire's disease, a potentially deadly form of pneumonia, in the Bronx.
Eleven cases of the disease were reported in the Bronx in December, compared with two in December 2013 and three in December 2012. The 11 cases reported last month represent nearly 20 percent of the total of 61 cases the borough had in all of 2014. Most cases were in the northeast Bronx.
Legionnaire's disease is caused by exposure to the bacteria Legionella, an aquatic organism that grow in warm environments. People are exposed to it by inhaling contaminated aerosols from cooling towers, whirlpool spas, showers and faucets or drinking water contaminated with the bacteria.
The Health Department is looking into whether the cases are due to a common source.
The disease usually sets in two to 10 days after exposure to the bacteria and represents with symptoms similar to pneumonia, including shortness of breath, high fever, chills and chest pains. People with Legionnaire's also experience appetite loss, fatigue and muscle aches.
It cannot be spread person-to-person and those at highest risk for contracting the illness include the elderly, cigarette smokers, people with chronic lung or immune system disease and those receiving immunosuppressive drugs.
Legionnaire's, discovered in 1976, is relatively rare and can have a fatality rate of anywhere from 5 percent to 40 percent, the Health Department says. It can be successfully treated with antibiotics.
The Health Department sent a memo to providers to remind them to test for Legionnaire's when Bronx patients present with pneumonia symptoms. - NBC New York.
Unraveling the Key to a Cold Virus’s Effectiveness
Transmission electron microscopy of a rhinovirus, one cause of the common cold. Credit James Cavallini/Science Source
If there is a champion among contagions, it may well be the lowly rhinovirus, responsible for many of the coughs and sniffles that trouble us this time of year. Rhinoviruses are spectacularly effective at infecting humans. Americans suffer one billion colds a year, and rhinoviruses are the leading cause of these infections.
Scientists have never been sure why they are so effective, but now a team at Yale University may have found a clue. The scientists argue that rhinoviruses have found a blind spot in the human immune system: They take advantage of the cold air in our noses.
In the 1960s, researchers first noticed that if they incubated rhinoviruses a few degrees below body temperature, the viruses multiplied much faster. It was an intriguing finding, since rhinoviruses often infect the lining of the nostrils, which are cooled by incoming air.
In subsequent years, scientists searched for an explanation. “People have taken the virus apart and studied its parts,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunobiologist at Yale. “But none of this really added up to explain why the virus replicated faster at a lower temperature.”
Dr. Iwasaki and her colleagues wondered if scientists had been looking at the wrong side of the cold equation. Perhaps the rhinovirus doesn’t adapt in any special way. Perhaps we do a worse job of fighting it at lower temperatures.
To test this possibility, the researchers designed an experiment in which they disabled genes in cells in a dish , then tested how easily the rhinoviruses infected the cells at various temperatures. They chose cells from the airways of mice, since scientists can easily shut off genes in rodents.
But there was a hitch: Human rhinoviruses don’t breed well in mice. Dr. Iwasaki and her colleagues solved this problem by allowing the viruses to mutate and adapt until they grew quickly in their new hosts.
Dr. Iwasaki and her colleagues were then able to observe what happened to the mouse cells when rhinoviruses attacked. At body temperature, the cells responded with a sophisticated defense, sending out warning signals to uninfected cells around them. Those cells prepared an arsenal of antiviral proteins, which they used to destroy the rhinoviruses.
But at a relatively cool 91.4 degrees Fahrenheit, Dr. Iwasaki and her colleagues found, things changed.
The neighboring cells only managed a weak defense, allowing the rhinoviruses to invade them and multiply. This result pointed to an explanation for why rhinoviruses plague humans at low temperatures: In cool conditions, the immune system somehow falters.
To test this explanation, the scientists looked more closely at the chain of proteins involved in defending cells, from the sensors that grab onto a virus to the proteins that act as warning signals. They found that if they shut down genes responsible for making some of those proteins, the cells could no longer defend themselves at body temperature. Rhinoviruses invaded these impaired cells easily whether they were warm or cool.
By infecting the nose, rhinoviruses may escape the immune system by lurking just beyond its reach. “They have found this niche,” Dr. Iwasaki said.
The team published its study this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“I found the work to be fascinating and convincing,” said Dr. James E. Gern, a pediatrician at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. But he cautioned that rhinoviruses infecting cells in a dish may not behave as they would in, say, a wheezing subway commuter.
“A main problem is that none of the experiments are done in living animals,” said Vincent Racaniello, a virologist at Columbia University who was not involved in the study.
Many other viruses, such as influenza, also infect the respiratory tract. But they specialize in invading cells further down the airway, as far as the lungs, where temperatures are higher than in the nose. Those viruses are known to carry genes that help jam the warning signals that cells use to fight infections.
Scientists also have discovered strains of rhinoviruses that infect the lungs, and they have linked these infections to asthma attacks in children. Dr. Iwasaki suspects that rhinoviruses don’t use a sophisticated signal-jamming strategy to invade these warmer parts of the body. “Perhaps these individuals have impaired immune defenses against the rhinoviruses,” she said.
Dr. Iwasaki is now wondering if other viruses take advantage of cool temperatures to escape the immune system. They may find these refuges not only in the upper airway, but in the testicles, for example, which have to stay cool for sperm to develop normally.
While scientists have long speculated that fevers can be good for us, they haven’t dug into the molecular details explaining exactly why. The new finding suggests that our bodies may trigger fevers to make the immune system fight infections more effectively.
“That’s also one of those questions that there really isn’t a good answer for — why we have fever and how it helps us get rid of pathogens,” said Dr. Iwasaki. “So in both directions, both higher and lower temperatures, we’re excited to explore.” - NY Times.
Harsh Respiratory Virus Slamming Colorado
Colorado
is being hit with a rise in cases of upper respiratory illness this
year, and doctors are warning that without treatment, patients could
suffer for weeks once they’ve contracted the virus.
Dr. John Torres, Medical contributor for KUSA in Denver, says that hospitals in Colorado are seeing a higher than normal number of cases of a virulent flu that starts out like a common cold but lingers for weeks once taking hold.
“After a few weeks, in some people, it can turn into more of a bacterial infection because their immune system has been suppressed a little bit, which is when we will move in with some antibiotics,” Torres told Channel 9 News. “But for the most part, it’s just the common cold virus that floats around this time of year, but it lingers for a long time.”
Doctors say that if the flu continues for longer than a week, sufferers should get to a doctor because a round of antibiotics may be necessary.
To avoid the flu, doctors suggest that people keep their hands clean, avoid touching their faces after being around others, and keep workspaces sanitized.
Colorado isn’t alone. The Centers for Disease Control already reported that this flu season has become “severe” and has exceeded the national baseline, hitting the epidemic threshold of 6.8 percent.
WATCH: Harsh Respiratory Virus Slams Colorado
“Though we cannot predict what will happen the rest of this flu season, it’s possible we may have a season that’s more severe than most,” director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Dr. Tom Frieden said during a press conference in December. - Breitbart.
26 children have died from flu as outbreak widens
Registered nurse Charlene Luxcin gives Gabriella Diaz, 4, a flu shot last January at the Whittier Street Health Center in Boston, Mass. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday, Jan. 5, 2014, reported flu season is getting worse.(Photo: Charles Krupa, AP)
Flu is now widespread in 46 states and has killed 26 children, health officials said today.
"This year is shaping up to be a bad one, particularly for people 65 and older," says Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children younger than 5 are also at high risk of hospitalization, particularly babies under 6 months, who are too young to be vaccinated.
Flu is hitting the USA especially hard this year for two reasons.
First, the dominant flu strain in circulation is H3N2, a type that tends to cause twice as many hospitalizations and deaths as other strains of flu, Frieden says. Hospitalization rates have risen to 92 per 100,000 people, compared with 52 hospitalizations per 100,000 in a typical year.
"H3N2 is a nastier flu virus than other flu viruses," Frieden says. "Hospitalization rates in the over-65 age group are rising."
Second, the H3N2 viruses used to make this year's influenza vaccines aren't a good match to those spreading throughout the country, the CDC says. That's because about two-thirds of the H3N2 viruses in circulation have mutated significantly since vaccine production began last spring. Drugmakers tend to start making flu vaccines in the spring, in order to produce enough for the fall flu season.
"Even in a good year, the flu vaccine is not as effective as our other vaccines," Frieden says, noting that flu efficacy rates are about 60% to 65%.
Frieden says there are several ways for people to protect themselves.
Flu vaccines.
While the flu shot this year may be less effective than usual, Frieden
says it's not too late to get a shot. About one-third of the H3N2
viruses in circulation are a good match for those in the vaccine. And
vaccines protect against three or four strains of flu. So flu shots may
still protect people from other types of flu, such as strains of
influenza B, which often show up later in the flu season.
The CDC recommends flu shots for everyone over the age of 6 months.
Only about half of Americans get flu vaccines, the CDC says. Doctors recommend that pregnant women get vaccinated, to provide immunity to babies in the first few months of life.
Antiviral drugs.
Frieden also urged patients and doctors to make more use of antiviral
drugs, such as Tamiflu and Relenza, which can reduce the risk of
complications, hospitalizations and death. While the drugs are most
effective if given in the first 24 hours after symptoms appear, Frieden
says they may still offer some benefit after that point, especially for
elderly people and others at high risk of complications.
Surveys show most Americans don't know there are prescription medicines to treat the flu, Frieden says.
"They work, but they aren't being used nearly enough," Frieden says. A study found that "fewer than one out of five high-risk outpatients who clearly should have gotten treated with antivirals, actually did."
Frieden encouraged doctors to prescribe antivirals immediately when patients have symptoms of the flu — such as fever, headache and body ache — rather than wait for definitive results from tests, which may unnecessarily delay treatment.
Some pharmacies are running short of the drugs, although manufacturers say the overall supply of antivirals is good, Frieden says.
"You may have to call around" to more than one pharmacy, Frieden says.
Pneumococcal shots. This
fall, the CDC began encouraging people over age 65 to get two different
vaccines against pneumococcus, a bacteria that causes pneumonia. The
flu increases the risk of pneumonia, especially in the elderly.
The flu sickens millions of Americans every year, says the CDC's Joseph Bresee, which leads to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations. Deaths from the flu can range from 5,000 to 50,000 every year, says the CDC.
The USA is about halfway through the flu season now.
Good hygiene. People should wash their hands frequently and cover their coughs, Frieden says. People who are sick should stay home and not go to work or school. - USA Today.
5 New Measles Cases Reported With Ties to Disneyland
Five more people who visited Disney theme parks in California last month have fallen ill with measles, bringing the number of cases in the state to a dozen, local health officials said Friday.
Six patients in Southern California's Orange County have been diagnosed with the illness who visited the local theme parks last month, and only one was fully vaccinated against the disease, said Nicole Stanfield, a spokeswoman for the county's health care agency.
More people may have been exposed when measles patients were treated at two local hospitals and a lab, county officials said. Stanfield urged anyone with measles symptoms to call their doctor before seeking medical attention to avoid exposing others to the highly contagious illness.
"The medical provider may visit them in the car or may have a special room for them to go where they're not contaminating everyone else in the waiting room," she said.
California's health care agency has reported seven people in the state and two people in Utah likely contracted measles on trips to Disneyland or Disney California Adventure between Dec. 15 and Dec. 20. In Colorado, the El Paso County Public Health department said a patient was diagnosed with measles at a Colorado Springs hospital after visiting a California theme park.
Disney officials have said they are working with public health authorities to provide any necessary assistance.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that lives in an infected person's nose and throat mucus and spreads through coughing and sneezing, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms include fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes and a red rash that usually first appears on the face and spreads to the rest of the body.
Health experts say the best prevention against measles is vaccination. While officials declared measles eliminated in the United States in 2000 because of a lack of continuous transmission, the illness is still brought into the country by foreign visitors or unvaccinated Americans. -
ABC News.
October 24, 2014 - UNITED STATES - Ebola can spread by air in cold, dry weather common to the U.S. but not West Africa, presenting a “possible, serious threat” to the public, according to two studies by U.S. Army scientists. After successfully exposing monkeys to airborne Ebola, which “caused a rapidly fatal disease in 4-5 days,” scientists with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) concluded Ebola can spread through air but likely hasn’t in Equatorial Africa because the region is too warm, with temperatures rarely dropping below 65°F.
“We… demonstrated aerosol transmission of Ebola virus at lower temperature and humidity than that normally present in sub-Saharan Africa,” the 1995 study entitled Lethal Experimental Infections of Rhesus Monkeys by Aerosolized Ebola Virus reported. “Ebola virus sensitivity to the high temperatures and humidity in the thatched, mud, and wattle huts shared by infected family members in southern Sudan and northern Zaire may have been a factor limiting aerosol transmission of Ebola virus in the African epidemics.”
“Both elevated temperature and relative humidity have been shown to reduce the aerosol stability of viruses.”
The study also referred to the 1989 Ebola outbreak at a primate
quarantine facility in Reston, Va., in which the virus rapidly spread
between unconnected rooms.
“While infections in adjacent cages may have occurred by droplet
contact, infections in distant cages suggests aerosol transmission, as
evidence of direct physical contact with an infected source could not be
established,” the study added.
It is interesting to note this outbreak occurred in December 1989, when temperatures in Reston were usually below freezing, and it’s unlikely the indoor temperature in the vast quarantine facility was much higher.
The tropical climates of the world, including the Ebola hot zone of West
Africa but obviously excluding the U.S. and Europe,
which have also had
cases of Ebola. Credit: Me ne frego / Wiki
The tropical climates of the world, including the Ebola hot zone of West
Africa but obviously excluding the U.S. and Europe, which have also had
cases of Ebola. Credit: Me ne frego / Wiki[/caption]
A 2012 study also by the USAMRIID, which exposed monkeys to an airborne
filovirus similar to Ebola, reached a similar conclusion to the 1995
study.
“There is no strong evidence of secondary transmission by the aerosol
route in African filovirus outbreaks; however, aerosol transmission is
thought to be possible and may occur in conditions of lower temperature
and humidity which may not have been factors in outbreaks in warmer
climates,” the study entitled A Characterization of Aerosolized Sudan Virus Infection in African Green Monkeys, Cynomologus Macaques and Rhesus Macaques
stated.
The study pointed out that filoviruses, which include Ebola and the
Sudan virus used in this particular study, have stability in aerosol
form comparable to influenza.
“Filoviruses in aerosol form are therefore considered a possible,
serious threat to the health and safety of the public,” it added.
And the Pentagon took this threat of airborne filoviruses so seriously that it organized a Filovirus Medical Countermeasures Workshop with the Department of Health and Human Services in 2013.
“The DoD seeks a trivalent filovirus vaccine that is effective against aerosol exposure and protective against filovirus disease for at least one year,” the executive summary of the workshop stated.
The Pentagon’s concern with airborne Ebola runs contrary to health officials who claim the disease can’t spread through coughing and sneezing, but according to the Army studies, that may only be true in tropical climates.
“How much airborne transmission will occur will be a function of how well Ebola induces coughing and sneezing in its victims in cold weather climates,” the web site potrblog.com suggested. “Coughing and nasal bleeding are both reported symptoms in Africa, so the worst should be expected.” - Info Wars.
November 17, 2013 - ENGLAND - Drug-resistant "superbugs" represent one of the gravest threats in the history of medicine, leading experts have warned.
Doctors issue new warning of devastating effect of over-prescribing antibiotics for trivial ailments
Routine operations could become deadly "in the very near future" as bacteria evolve to resist the drugs we use to combat them. This process could erase a century of medical advances, say government doctors in a special editorial in The Lancet health journal.
Although the looming threat of antibiotic, or anti-microbial, resistance has been known about for years, the new warning reflects growing concern that the NHS and other national health systems, already under pressure from ageing populations, will struggle to cope with the rising cost of caring for people in the "post-antibiotic era".
In a stark reflection of the seriousness of the threat, England's deputy chief medical officer, Professor John Watson, said: "I am concerned that in 20 years, if I go into hospital for a hip replacement, I could get an infection leading to major complications and possible death, simply because antibiotics no longer work as they do now."
About 35 million antibiotics are prescribed by GPs in England every year. The more the drugs circulate, the more bacteria are able to evolve to resist them. In the past, drug development kept pace with evolving microbes, with a constant production line of new classes of antibiotics. But the drugs have ceased to be profitable and a new class has not been created since 1987.
Writing in The Lancet, experts, including England's chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, warn that death rates from bacterial infections "might return to those of the early 20th century". They write: "Rarely has modern medicine faced such a grave threat. Without antibiotics, treatments from minor surgery to major transplants could become impossible, and health-care costs are likely to spiral as we resort to newer, more expensive antibiotics and sustain longer hospital admissions."
Strategies to combat the rise in resistance include cutting the amount of antibiotics prescribed, improving hospital hygiene and incentivising the pharmaceutical industry to work on novel antibiotics and antibiotic alternatives.
However, a leading GP told The Independent on Sunday that the time had come for the general public to take responsibility. "The change needs to come in patient expectation. We need public education: that not every ill needs a pill," said Dr Peter Swinyard, chairman of the Family Doctor Association.
"We try hard not to prescribe, but it's difficult in practice. The patient will be dissatisfied with your consultation, and is likely to vote with their feet, register somewhere else or go to the walk-in centre and get antibiotics from the nurse.
"But if we go into a post-antibiotic phase, we may find that people with pneumonia will not be treatable with an antibiotic, and will die, whereas at the moment they would live.
"People need to realise the link. If you treat little Johnny's ear infection with antibiotics, his mummy may end up dying of pneumonia. It's stark and it's, of course, not direct, but on a population-wide level, that's the kind of link we're talking about."
There are no reliable estimates of what resistance could cost health systems in the future, but the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control believes that €1.5bn (£1.2bn) a year is already being spent on health problems associated with antibiotic resistance in Europe.
Joanna Coast, professor of health economics at the University of Birmingham, said that the problem of resistance had the potential to "affect how entire health systems work".
Professor Coast added: "We don't know how big this is going to be. It's like the problems with planning for global warming. We know what the costs are now but we don't know what the costs will be into the future.
"Much of what we do in modern health system relies on us having antibiotics. We need them for prophylaxis for surgery, for people having chemotherapy for cancer. The worry is that it might make big changes to how we run our health system."
Antibiotics are also used in vast quantities in agriculture, fisheries and by vets, the resulting environmental exposure adding to bacterial resistance, with further consequences for human health.
Experts say that to meet demand without increasing resistance, drug companies will need to find new ways of financing antibiotic development that are not linked to expectations of large volume sales. Global health authorities such as the World Health Organisation have also warned that global drives to reduce antibiotic use must not harm access to life-saving drugs in poorer countries.
Writing in The Lancet, Professor Otto Cars of Uppsala University in Sweden, and one of the world's leading experts on antibiotic resistance, said: "Antibiotic resistance is a complex ecological problem which doesn't just affect people, but is also intimately connected with agriculture and the environment.
"We need to move on from 'blaming and shaming' among the many stakeholders who have all contributed to the problem, towards concrete political action and commitment to address this threat." - Independent.
September 19, 2013 - UNITED STATES - Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, a diarrhea-causing superbug and a
class of fast-growing killer bacteria dubbed a "nightmare" were
classified as urgent public-health threats in the United States on
Monday.
Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, shown here, spreads easily and symptoms are often missed. (CDC)
According to a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), at least 2 million people in the United States
develop serious bacterial infections that are resistant to one or more
types of antibiotics each year, and at least 23,000 die from the
infections.
"For organism after organism, we're seeing this
steady increase in resistance rates," Dr Thomas Frieden, director of the
CDC, said in a telephone interview. "We don't have new drugs about to
come out of the pipeline. If and when we get new drugs, unless we do a
better job of protecting them, we'll lose those, also."
Overprescribing
of antibiotics is a chief cause of antibiotic resistance, affording
pathogens the opportunity to outwit the drugs used to treat them. Only a
handful of new antibiotics have been developed and brought to market in
the past few decades, and only a few companies are working on drugs to
replace them.
In addition to resistant gonorrhea, the others now
seen as urgent threats, according to the first-of-its-kind report
released on Monday, are C. difficile and the killer class known as
carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE.
A petri dish containing the deadly bacteria carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE. (CDC)
The report was conceived to bring together as much information as
possible about drug-resistant superbugs and how to slow their spread,
with a hope of preserving the remaining drugs that still work, Frieden
said.
The United States is not alone in raising the alarm over
antibiotic drug resistance. Last March the chief medical officer for
England said antibiotic resistance poses a "catastrophic health threat".
That followed a report last year from the World Health Organization
that found a "superbug" strain of gonorrhea had spread to several
European countries.
The CDC report ranks the threat of
drug-resistant superbugs into three categories - urgent, severe and
concerning - based on factors such as their health and economic impacts,
the total number of cases, the ease with which they are transmitted and
the availability of effective antibiotics.
Among the top three
threats deemed "urgent" is CRE, which Frieden last March called a
"nightmare bacteria" because even the strongest antibiotics are not
effective against it.
According to the report, CRE accounts for
9,300 healthcare-associated infections. The two most common types of CRE
- carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella spp. and carbapenem-resistant E. coli
- account for some 600 deaths each year.
"For CRE, we're seeing increases from 1 state to 38 states in the last decade," Frieden said.
HOSPITAL THREAT
C.
difficile, the most common hospital-based infection in the United
States, made the list of urgent threats both because it has begun to
resist antibiotics and because it preys on the overuse of antibiotics.
C.
difficile, which causes life-threatening diarrhea, spreads from person
to person on contaminated equipment and on the hands of healthcare
workers and visitors. It is especially stubborn in hospitals because of
the widespread use of antibiotics, which kill protective bacteria in the
gut for months, allowing invaders such as C. difficile to flourish.
According
to the report, C. difficile causes 250,000 infections and kills 14,000
people in the United States each year, adding $1 billion annually in
excess medical costs. Deaths from C. difficile rose 400 percent from
2000 to 2007 due to the emergence of a drug-resistant strain of the
bacteria.
C. difficile, pictured here, is the most common hospital-based infection in the United States. (CDC)
The third "urgent" threat in the report is drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhea, which causes 246,000 U.S. cases of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea each year. Gonorrhea is increasingly becoming resistant to tetracycline, cefixime, ceftriaxone and azithromycin - formerly the most successful treatments for the disease.
Gonorrhea is especially troublesome because it is easily spread, and infections are easily missed. In the United States, there are approximately 300,000 reported cases, but because infected people often have no symptoms the CDC estimates the actual number of cases is closer to 820,000.
If left untreated, gonorrhea can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirths, severe eye infections in babies and infertility in men and women.
"The three organisms that have been chosen as urgent are all increasing at an alarming rate to which therapies are limited," said Dr Edward Septimus, an infectious disease expert at HCA Healthcare System in Houston, Texas, and a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America's Antimicrobial Resistance Workgroup.
Septimus, who was not involved with the CDC report, said the pathogens in the urgent and serious categories - which include Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, and drug-resistant tuberculosis - are "certainly worthy of immediate response. I do believe it's a looming public-health crisis," he said.
WATCH: CDC warns of 'urgent' antibiotic-resistant threats.
In addition to ranking the threat of superbugs, the report outlines a four-point plan to help fight the spread of antibiotic resistance.
Not surprisingly, it underscores the need for new antibiotics, citing ever-slowing development efforts by pharmaceutical companies due to the high cost of such programs and relatively low profit margins of the drugs.
It also stresses the need for hospitals to prevent infections from occurring and to contain the spread of resistant infections; carefully tracking the spread of resistant bacteria; and ensuring that antibiotics are prescribed only to patients who need them.
"It's not too late," Frieden said. "There are things we can do that can stop the spread of drug resistance. We need to scale up the implementation of those strategies." - FOX News.
September 13, 2013 - PACIFIC NORTHWEST - A rare fungus found in soil and trees has sickened hundreds of people
in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest in the last decade -- and
killed dozens -- but scientists now say they’re seeing different
strains of the potentially deadly bug in additional U.S. states.
Most patients infected with the rare Cryptococcus gattii fungus develop
serious brain and lung infections,
like the one shown in this X-ray. CDC.
As of June, 171 cases of infection caused by Cryptococcus gatti, a fungus once confined to tropical climates, had been reported in the U.S. That includes at least 100 cases in Oregon and Washington, where officials have been tracking an outbreak since 2004.
But at least 25 cases have been detected in eight states outside of the Northwest since 2009 -- and six of those patients died, according to a new report in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
No one’s calling it a public health crisis; officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they just want to raise awareness.
“It is really, really rare; very few people get infected by this,” said Dr. Julie Harris, a fungal disease expert with the CDC. “You can still go outside, you can still do your daily activities.”
Of the six patients in the new tally who died, four succumbed to severe lung and brain infections before they were diagnosed. A previously healthy 18-year-old Georgia woman showed up at a community hospital with a headache and fever -- and died within two weeks of getting sick.
Of those who provided travel information, none had been to the Pacific Northwest recently, the study found.
Thirteen of the newest U.S. cases were reported in California, with five more in Georgia, two in New Mexico and one each in Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan and Montana.
The original outbreak was caused by three specific strains of C. gattii, but the new cases, including those in nearby California, were caused by unrelated strains, Harris said.
People are typically infected when they inhale the airborne spores of the fungus that began causing disease and deaths in 1999 in Canada. Since then, 338 cases have been tracked in British Columbia, health officials told NBC News. As of 2010, about 40 people in the U.S. and Canada had died from C. gattii infections, according to latest figures.
The reason the new cases are interesting, and worth documenting, is because they provide evidence that C. gattii isn’t confined to the Northwest and could be an unrecognized source of pneumonia and meningitis across the U.S.
“I think it’s something that has been going on and we haven’t found it because we haven’t looked for it,” said Harris.
Most Cryptococcus infections in the U.S. occur in people with weakened immune systems, such those with HIV or those who’ve recently undergone organ transplants. In many cases, they get C. neoformans, a close cousin to C. gattii, and much more readily recognized. Patients are typically treated with strong anti-fungal medications.
In the newly documented cases, doctors who encountered patients with puzzling fungal infections took their diagnoses a step further and insisted on testing for C. gattii. Because the infections aren't required to be reported outside the Northwest, such sporadic testing provides the only data that scientists have that the fungus is present in an area, Harris said.
Before 1999, C. gatti was mostly found in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. But that year, it showed up on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where it began infecting people and animals. By 2004, it was making people sick in Oregon and Washington and by 2011 it had become a reportable disease in those states.
Scientists don't know why it took hold in the Northwest, though they speculate that climate change may have contributed and that the fungus was then spread by commerce or travel.
C. gattii is alarming because it can strike healthy people and because it has a long incubation period -- from a few days to several months in some cases. Although many people are exposed to it, doctors don’t know why only some are sickened by it.
There’s not really anything hikers and other outdoor-lovers can do to reduce their risk of contracting a C. gatti infection, Harris said. The new information is more of a warning for doctors and health workers to consider the bug when they’re stumped by a puzzling infection.
“We just want them to know that, hey, these infections are not limited to the Pacific Northwest, or to people who travel there,” Harris said. - NBC News.
June 04, 2013 - EARTH - One-third of the world’s population is infected with tuberculosis, an infectious disease that kills more than 1.4 million people each year, according to the World Health Organization.
Most won’t ever get sick from the germ, but if something lowers their immunity (like HIV), the infection can wreak havoc on the lungs, kidneys, spine, brain and other parts of the body.
Although TB rates in the United States have been declining for the past 20 years – they’re now at the lowest level ever recorded – it’s still a hidden health threat for many Americans.
Case in point: The Williams family in Boston, which has three generations of TB-infected individuals, raising alarm among public health officials, according to a report by NPR. The matriarch of the family, Judy, died from the disease in 2011, but not before passing it to her husband, daughter and son, as well as a nephew, four grandchildren, a boyfriend of one of the grandchildren and three great-grandchildren – 15 people in all.
Of the 15, only four have active, contagious TB infections. The rest display no symptoms, but their TB infections can become active if not treated.
Boston public health nurse Michael Malone told NPR that the Williams family's story is a painful reminder of what a challenging disease TB can be to track and treat.
Globally, the World Health Organization considers drug-resistant TB to be a massive health threat because it doesn’t respond to the most effective TB treatments, often spreading the disease further. There are about 630,000 cases of drug-resistant TB in the world at any given time, according to the WHO.
Although less of a concern in the United States, drug-resistant TB still occurs. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded 63 cases of XDR-TB, the most serious form, from 1993 through 2011 (the most recent data available).
In March, a Nepalese man with XDR-TB traveled from Nepal to Texas, passing through 13 countries and possibly infecting hundreds of people along the way. He left a massive public-health puzzle in his wake, leaving health officials to track down how and where he traveled to alert people who were potentially exposed. - TWC.
May 14, 2013 - NORTH KOREA - A new outbreak of the H5N1 strain of the avian influenza virus has been confirmed at a duck production unit in P’yongyang-Si, resulting in the deaths of more than 164,000 ducks.
This is according to the World Organisation for Animal Health who received notification from the Anti-Epizootic Department at the Ministry of Agriculture in Pyongyang yesterday.
Ducks in one of the 20 cages showed clinical signs on 19 April 2013 but recovered 3-4 days later. As mortality increased, samples were sent to the Central Veterinary Station on 2 May 2013.
In total, one adult cage, 12 fattening cages and 7 duckling cages were infected. More than 2,000 adult ducks, 42,000 fattening ducks and 120,000 ducklings younger than 20 days were dead or killed.
Movement controls, quarantining an disinfection are part of a raft of measures put in place to control the outbreak. - The Poultry Site.
May 10, 2013 - UNITED STATES - Florida's citrus industry is grappling with the most serious threat in its history: a bacterial disease with no cure that has infected all 32 of the state's citrus-growing counties.
Although the disease, citrus greening, was first spotted in Florida in 2005, this year's losses from it are by far the most extensive. While the bacteria, which causes fruit to turn bitter and drop from the trees when still unripe, affects all citrus fruits, it has been most devastating to oranges, the largest crop. So many have been affected that the United States Department of Agriculture has downgraded its crop estimates five months in a row, an extraordinary move, analysts said.
Emma Reynolds, principal at the Reynolds Farm, displays a healthy Valencia orange, left, next to a
diseased one at the family groves in Lake Placid, Fla.
Image: Mark Elias, Bloomberg, Getty Images
With the harvest not yet over, orange production has already decreased 10 percent from the initial estimate, a major swing, they said.
''The long and short of it is that the industry that made Florida, that is synonymous with Florida, that is a staple on every American breakfast table, is totally threatened,'' said Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who helped obtain $11 million in federal money for research to fight the disease. ''If we don't find a cure, it will eliminate the citrus industry.''
The relentless migration of the disease from southern to northern Florida—and beyond—has deepened concerns this year among orange juice processors, investors, growers and lawmakers. Florida is the second-largest producer of orange juice in the world, behind Brazil, and the state's $9 billion citrus industry is a major economic force, contributing 76,000 jobs.
The industry, lashed over the years by canker disease, hard freezes and multiple hurricanes, is no stranger to hardship. But citrus greening is by far the most worrisome.
The disease, which can lie dormant for two to five years, is spread by an insect no larger than the head of a pin, the Asian citrus psyllid. It snacks on citrus trees, depositing bacteria that gradually starves trees of nutrients. Psyllids fly from tree to tree, leaving a trail of infection.
Concerted efforts by growers and millions of dollars spent on research to fight the disease have so far failed, growers and scientists said. The situation was worsened this season by an unusual weather pattern, including a dry winter, growers said.
''We have got a real big problem,'' said Vic Story, a lifelong citrus grower and the head of The Story Companies, which owns 2,000 acres of groves in Central Florida and manages an additional 3,000 acres, all of which are affected at varying levels. ''It's definitely the biggest threat in my lifetime, and I'm 68. This is a tree killer.''
Before this year, the losses and increased costs of fighting the disease had already taken a toll on Florida's citrus industry, which has been in decline for 15 years. In a 2012 report, University of Florida agricultural analysts concluded that between 2006 and 2012, citrus greening cost Florida's economy $4.5 billion and 8,000 jobs.
Some orange packers and small and midsize growers have sold their groves, razed them for development, or simply abandoned them. Others have postponed replanting lost trees, which take five years to mature, until they know whether a cure will be found. Many more, including the largest growers, are doing what they can to survive; they say they are optimistic they can hold on long enough for researchers to find a treatment.
''This year was a real kick in the gut,'' said Adam Putnam, Florida's agriculture commissioner and a former United States representative, whose family owns citrus groves. ''It is now everywhere, and it's just as bad as the doomsayers said it would be.''
But there was good news this week, too. Coca-Cola announced it would spend $2 billion to plant 25,000 acres of new orange groves. The company, which owns Minute Maid and the Simply juice brands, will buy fruit from two growers in Florida—one local and the other a Brazilian company that has invested in the state.
''To see such a dominant player in the beverage market double down on the future of orange juice in Florida is a real morale boost to the industry and a sign they have confidence we will find a cure for greening,'' Mr. Putnam said.
Across the Wheeler Farms groves here in Avon Park and beyond, the evidence of greening is obvious on some trees. Leaves turn yellow, then fall off, leaving behind sparse foliage. That is often the beginning of the end.
The psyllids are thought to have arrived through the Port of Miami a decade ago, scientists said. And while the bacteria does not harm humans, it devastates trees, leaving behind bitter, misshapen oranges.
Greening has crippled citrus production around the world, including in Asia and Africa, researchers at the University of Florida said. A decade ago, psyllids were discovered in Brazil, which, with its abundant rural land, has tried to outrun the disease by removing countless trees and planting new acres.
Aware of the potential consequences, Florida's thousands of growers have aggressively moved to curtail its spread. They have spent $60 million over six years, money raised mostly from a self-imposed tax, to create a research foundation seeking to eradicate greening. The federal Department of Agriculture also has dedicated millions of dollars to the effort.
More money is coming. The Florida Legislature this month approved $8 million toward greening research, a record sum. And Mr. Nelson is pushing a bill in Congress to set up a research trust fund using money from a tariff on imported orange juice.
Florida is no longer alone in its battle against greening. The disease has spread to Texas, California and Arizona, where officials are anxiously watching developments in Florida. They are also joining the fight to speed up research.
''It's worrisome that we are still three to five years away, even if we find a silver bullet,'' said Mark Wheeler, a grower and chief financial officer of Wheeler Farms, which owns 2,500 acres. ''We are to the point now that to stay alive in this type of environment you have to be on top of it 24/7.''
As is, he said, some growers can lose 30 to 40 percent of what they pick in a given year.
Researchers are working on several tracks, among them hindering the insect's reproductive cycle or its ability to transmit the disease, and developing resistant trees. But they are also advising growers on short-term options.
''Now there is a real sense of urgency,'' said Michael W. Sparks, the chief executive officer of Florida Citrus Mutual, a trade organization for growers. ''We are not doing research to publish a paper but research we can get on the back of a tractor.''
In Florida, growers have had to transform how they raise orange and grapefruit trees, a shift that has more than doubled their costs over the past decade.
Baby citrus trees must now be raised in greenhouses before they can be transplanted. And most growers douse their groves with a more powerful cocktail of nutrients and spray insecticide more frequently, which has helped slow the disease's progress. At first, they tried removing acres of full-grown, fruit-bearing trees in the hopes of eradicating the disease. That failed because psyllids simply flew over from neighboring groves that were either abandoned or not following the same costly regimen of fertilizer and insecticide.
James Graham, a professor of soil microbiology at the University of Florida who works with the grower-funded Citrus Research and Education Center, said next year's harvest would be crucial. It will show whether this year's statewide early fruit drop was an aberration—a bad combination of quirky weather and greening—or proof that the disease is truly entrenched.
Mr. Story, for one, is not giving up. He is scooping up groves that are for sale and plans on planting 300 new acres.
''We think we can do it; we know we can do it,'' he said. ''We just need somebody to figure out how we can kill this bacteria in these trees.'' - CNBC.
May 10, 2013 - UNITED STATES - Doctors are warning that a drug-resistant strain of gonorrhea could
be more deadly than AIDS, and are urging members of US Congress to spend
$54 million for the development of a drug that would fight it.
AFP Photo.
"This might be a lot worse than AIDS in the short run because
the bacteria is more aggressive and will affect more people
quickly," Alan Christianson, a doctor of naturopathic medicine,
told CNBC.
The new strain of gonorrhea, H041, was first discovered in 2009
after a sex worker fell victim to the superbug in Japan. Medical
officials reported that the medication-resilient ‘sex superbug’ was
discovered in Hawaii in May 2011, and has since spread to
California and Norway, the International Business Times
reports.
Nearly 30 million people die from AIDS-related causes each year,
and the H041 superbug could have similar consequences, according to
Alan Christianson, a doctor of naturopathic medicine. "Getting gonorrhea from this strain might put someone into
septic shock and death in a matter of days," Christianson said.
"This is very dangerous."
The gonorrhea strain has not yet claimed any lives, but the US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have asked
Congress for $54 million to find an antibiotic to treat the
strain.
In a Capitol Hill briefing last week, health officials said an
education and public awareness campaign is crucial in minimizing
the effective of HO41. William Smith, executive director of the
National Coalition for STD Directors, said that if the ‘sex
superbug’ spreads, it could quickly kill many people before a
treatment is discovered. And that risk becomes increasingly more
likely if Congress does not provide the funds to find a cure, he
said. "It's an emergency situation. As time moves on, it's getting
more hazardous," he told members of Congress. "We have to keep beating the drum on this," he added.
"The potential for disaster is great."
In the United States, there are 20 million new STD infections
each year, which results in about $16 billion in medical costs, the
CDC reports. More than 800,000 of these cases gonorrhea infections,
most of which occur in young people ages 15 to 24. Gonorrhea is
sometimes difficult to detect, since it shows no symptoms in about
half of all women. Those who fall ill to the deadly strain may not
notice it until it’s too late. “That’s what’s kind of scary about this,” Smith said.
Although health officials have widely reported that cases of
H041 were discovered in California, Hawaii and Norway, the CDC has
disputed those claims and told CNBC on Monday that the infection
has not been confirmed anywhere outside of Japan. The CDC did,
however, make an announcement in 2011 that it was
noticing greater gonorrhea bacterial resistance to certain types of
antibiotics in Hawaii and California.
CDC officials said that the US and Norwegian cases were treated
effectively with antibiotics not routinely recommended and that
these cases were mistakenly identified as H041. But the agency
continues to urge Congress for research funding, indicating that
the risk of infection is high regardless of where the cases
occurred.
Christianson is urging people to practice safe sex and get STD
tests if they are in a new relationship, since a superbug infection
could be around the corner. "This is a disaster just waiting to happen," he told
CNBC. "It's time to do something about it before it explodes.
These superbugs, including the gonorrhea strain, are a health
threat. We need to move now before it gets out of hand." - RT.
May 10, 2013 - IRELAND - It could take up to two weeks to identify the cause of death of 32 swans found at New Lake, Dunganaghy.
Results from dead swans could take two weeks
The swans were sent to the Department of Agriculture's Regional Veterinary Laboratory in Sligo for analysis.
A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
told Donegal Now that the samples had only arrived on Tuesday. He said
it was still too early to say what had caused the multiple deaths.
"It will probably take about 10 to 14 days to really understand what happened to them," he said.
Meanwhile members of the public are advised not to touch any dead birds they come across. - Donegal Now.
May 10, 2013 - ARGENTINA - Scientists still don't know why hundreds of baby southern right whales
are turning up dead around Patagonia, a decade after observers first saw
signs of the worst die-off on record for the species, according to the
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
With no evidence of infectious diseases or deadly toxins in whale tissue
samples, scientists are scrambling to determine a cause of death. Some
are even pointing a finger at blubber-eating birds.
The whales come to the peaceful Atlantic bays around Peninsula Valdes
along Argentina's Patagonian Coast to give birth and raise their young.
At least 605 dead right whales have been counted in the region since 2003, WCS officials say.
Of those, 538 were newborn calves. Last year, the mortality event was
especially severe, with a record-breaking 116 whale deaths, 113 of them
calves.
Despite extensive investigations, researchers have not been able to pinpoint why so many of those calves have been washing up dead at the region's remote beaches.
"In 2012 we lost nearly one third of all calves born
at the Peninsula," said Mariano Sironi, scientific director of the
Instituto de Conservacion de Ballenas in Argentina. "Southern right
whales have their first calf when they are nine years old on average.
This means that it won't be until a decade from now that we will see a
significant reduction in the number of calves born, as all of the female
calves that died will not be contributing any new offspring to the
population," Sironi, who is also an advisor to the Southern Right Whale
Health Monitoring Program, added in a statement.
Sironi and colleague Vicky Rowntree, who is co-director of the
monitoring program, have studied a strange phenomenon that could be
stressing southern right whales. They say kelp gulls at Peninsula Valdes land on the backs of the cetaceans to eat their skin and blubber.
"The attacks are very painful and cause large, deep lesions,
particularly on the backs of young 2-6 week-old calves," the researchers
said in a statement from WCS. "This harassment can last for hours at a
time. As a result, right whale mothers and their calves are expending
much precious energy during a time-of-year when mothers are fasting and
at a site where little to no food is available to replenish fat
reserves."
The situation is discouraging for a species that had made a significant
comeback since its population was depleted by the whaling industry.
"The southern right-whale population is still only a small fraction of
its original size, and now we have reason to worry about its recovery,"
Rowntree said.
Though the southern right whale is not listed as endangered,
conservationists warn that the species' sister populations could go
extinct if hit with a mysterious die-off on this scale. For instance,
there are thought to be just about 500 North Atlantic right whales
remaining. - Live Science.
March 22, 2013 - SOUTH AFRICA - The City of Cape Town was working with national and provincial authorities to remove 5 tons of fish found in the Milnerton area. The dead mullets [commonly known as harders] were found washed ashore along the shoreline between the Lagoon Beach river mouth and the Milnerton Lighthouse as early as of Friday.
The City’s Disaster Risk Management Centre together with its staff from the Environmental Resource Management; and Water and Sanitation Departments officials, who are responsible for maintaining the shoreline were dispatched to the scene to assess the impact.
The pollution control officers from the Oceans & Coast Branch of the National Department of Environmental Affairs also investigated whether the mortality was caused by any potential oil leak emanating from the Seli 1 shipwreck that is in close proximity in Table View. They found that the cause of death could not be associated with the SA Navy's wreck reduction efforts.
Dr Joy Leaner, the Director: Pollution Management from the Western Cape
Government: Department Environmental Affairs and Development Planning
also inspected the area. The City’s Law Enforcement and Specialised
Services cordoned off the area and prevented the bathers and the general
public from picking up the fish for potential consumption.
At this point it is not yet clear what caused the fish mortality, however it is suspected that it is linked to the high temperatures (high 20 and 30 degrees) that were experienced this past week across the Cape Peninsula. It is suspected that the fish die off can be as a consequence of these conditions resulting in not enough oxygen in the water for the fish outside their realm of tolerance.
Prior to the removal of the dead fish for disposal the City of Cape Town took samples for analyses so that a clear picture can be obtained of what caused the fish mortality.
On Sunday the City’s disaster response teams were assisted by staff from the Solid Waste Management Department removing the dead mullets from the shoreline whereafter it was disposed of at the Vissershok Landfill Site. - News24.
March 22, 2013 - NETHERLANDS - More than 80,000 chickens have been destroyed on a farm in the Netherlands following an outbreak of low pathogenic avian influenza virus.
According to a report from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the outbreak was first reported on 11 March, with 200 birds showing symptoms on a farm in Lochem, Gelderland. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests carried out by national laboratory the Central Veterinary Institute in Lelystad confirmed the presence of the H7N7 strain
All 80,152 chickens on the farm were destroyed as part of control measures by the authorities, which also included the establishment of movement controls and a 1km protection zone around the farm. Three premises will be screened within this protection zone. Hong Kong ban
Hong Kong immediately banned poultry imports from Lochem following news of the outbreak. The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of Hong Kong’s Food and Environmental Health Department said all poultry and poultry products, including eggs, had been banned, and that authorities had contacted veterinary services in the Netherlends for more information.
“We have contacted the Netherlands authorities for more details on the issue and will closely monitor information issued by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) on the avian influenza outbreak in the Netherlands. Appropriate action will be taken in response to the development of the situation,” a CFS spokesman added.
India outbreak
Meanwhile, authorities have confirmed an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 on a farm in Madhubani, Bihar, in India. The OIE said that 338 birds were infected on the farm, and that intensive surveillance had been launched in a 10km radius zone.
- Global Meat News.
March 22, 2013 - AUSTRALIA - South Yunderup residents are urged to avoid touching the dead fish that washed up on the shores of the lake near Wellya Crescent, a Department of Fisheries spokeswoman said.
Some of the dead fish that have washed up in South Yunderup. Authorities to look into the cause.
Hundreds Of Dead Fish Found Washed Up In Yunderup.
She said mass deaths were usually the result of natural events.
However, they can be due to other environmental and human-induced factors.
Wellya Crescent residents were appalled to find hundreds of dead fish washed up on the shores of the lake last week.
The spokeswoman said a fish kill was characterised by a large number of fish dying over a short period in one area.
Shire of Murray officers are also investigating |the kill.
The spokeswoman said natural causes of fish kills included algal blooms and infectious diseases, caused by viruses, bacteria, protozoans and fungi, and gas bubble disease, which is similar to the bends in humans.
She said other natural causes could include bushfire ash, coral spawning, lifecycle events and oxygen depletion. - IMC.
Dozens Of Cattle Dead Due To Anthrax Outbreak In New South Wales
A cow killed by anthrax is disposed of during an outbreak in Tatura, Victoria, in 1997. Photo: ANDREW DE LA RUE
An outbreak of anthrax, the first in NSW in four years, has killed dozens of cattle on two properties near Moree in the state's north.
The Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has confirmed the presence of the deadly disease after testing was completed at its Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute.
The DPI said "around 40 head of cattle have died as a result of the disease" however a DPI email obtained by Fairfax Regional Media puts the number of deaths at 37.
The email said 19 cattle were reported to have been affected on one property, three per cent of the total herd, and 18 on the other, also three per cent of the total.
It also says cattle were from two neighbouring properties in the watercourse district, west of Moree were affected.
A horse died on the second property but it was not tested for anthrax.
The carcasses of the dead cattle had been burnt and other animals at risk had been vaccinated.
A DPI spokesman today said the infected properties have been quarantined and DPI and Livestock Health and Pest Authority officials are working closely with the property owners.
"All remaining cattle have now been vaccinated and there have been no further deaths on either property since March 9, 2013," he said. "Extensive tracing has confirmed that animals have not left the property and that the disease has not spread to other properties.
A Moree veterinary hospital spokesman confirmed it had received phone calls from concerned clients in relation to anthrax but those calls were referred to the DPI.
This is the state's first outbreak of bovine anthrax since 2009.
Outbreaks in NSW tend to be confined to an "anthrax belt" which runs between Bourke and Moree in the north to Albury and Deniliquin in the south.
Moree Plains Shire Council mayor Katrina Humphries said she learnt of the outbreak this afternoon but said she would be making inquiries into how council could assist.
“Anthrax is a dreadful, dreadful disease and it’s extremely scary,” Cr Humphries said. “I will be making inquiries but it sounds like it’s all in hand.
“We’ll be doing anything that's asked of us to make sure this is confined to the smallest space possible.”
Livestock Health and Pest Authority general manager Jane Edwards said the matter has been dealt with along procedural lines.
“In the case of an anthrax incident the LHPA staff conduct an investigation in accordance with the DPI policy and procedures in relation to anthrax," she said.
"In accordance of those policies and procedures upon immediate detection by the LHPA staff, such an incident is reported directly to appropriate authorities at DPI."
According to the Journal of Emerging Infectious Disease of May, 2009, the authors concluded with the following statement: " ... veterinary public health authorities should be on high alert for possible anthrax when unexpected livestock deaths follow flooding in areas where anthrax has historically occurred." - BBW.
