PLAGUES & PESTILENCES: Escalation In Mosquito-Borne Diseases Continue - Yellow Fever Outbreak Kills 37 People In Angola!

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.

PLAGUES & PESTILENCES: Big Island Dengue Fever Outbreak Count Rises To 136 - CDC!

Red pins represent confirmed cases of dengue fever, yellow pind represent potential dengue fever cases under investigation and blue pins
represent cases that turned out to be negative. Hawai'i County Civil Defense map, as of Dec. 4.

December 5, 2015 - BIG ISLAND, HAWAI'I - As the work week closes out, an additional six cases of confirmed dengue fever on the Big Island have been added to the count by the Hawai’i Department of Health.

Count numbers trickled in throughout the week, with an overall increase of 24 cases from 112 to 136 between Monday and Friday.

Throughout the duration of the week, an additional 107 cases of potential dengue were excluded as the result of negative dengue test results and/or the lack of meeting case criteria.

Total numbers include 17 visitors infected by the dengue virus and 30 individuals identified by the DOH as “children” or those who are under the age of 18.

County and State officials wrapped up their final public meeting Thursday in a second wave of community focused events that discussed the current dengue outbreak and prevention tips.

Hawai’i County Civil Defense Administrator and Incident Commander Darryl Oliveira said Thursday that the second group of meetings was intended to provide more thorough coverage of the various communities throughout the island.

Additional meetings may be scheduled in the future, based on community need, resource availability, and developments in the dengue outbreak.

On Friday, the Big Island Visitors Bureau held a panel at their annual meeting in Kona, providing an oppotunity for officials to speak to tourism industry representatives about the current outbreak and mitigation methods.

Civil Defense released an updated map, indicating specific areas of confirmed cases of dengue. The county map provides pinpointed information regarding areas of “concern,” compared to the DOH’s areas map with general areas marked.

The map released Friday (above) includes pin points of confirmed cases (orange), suspected cases (yellow), and negative cases (blue and white) of dengue fever. A high number of confirmed cases can be seen along the west coast of the Big Island, as well as in the Hilo and Puna areas.

Civil Defense notes that the map should not exclude areas on the Big Island from mosquito control measures.

Consistent with operations performed over most of the week, spraying operations were being conducted in the South Kona and Puna areas on Friday as a preventative measure towards eliminating mosquito populations.

Dr. Lyle Peterson, Director of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, has been on-island since Wednesday, per request of the county and state. He will return to the mainland Friday evening.

Ryan Hemme, CDC entomologist, and Albert Felix, CDC entomology assistant, will remain on the Big Island over the next two weeks and they assist in the evaluation of the mosquitoes causing the dengue outbreak, conduct training for government officials in the handling of dengue, and help to assess control efforts.

On Thursday, Dr. Peterson said he was “impressed” with the state and county’s coordination in response.

Symptoms of dengue fever include fever, joint or muscle paints, headache or pain behind the eyes, and rash.

Those interesting in obtaining general information about the current Big Island dengue fever investigation should call 2-1-1 and talk with Aloha United Way.

Anyone who thinks they may have contracted dengue fever on the Big Island should call 933-0912 if they’re located in East Hawai’i or 322-4877 in West Hawai’i. If an individual is currently ill and worried that they may have contracted dengue fever, they should contact their primary care physician.

Mosquito concerns should be reported to 974-6010 in East Hawai’i or 322-1513 in West Hawai’i.

For more information, visit the DOH website.


WATCH: The CDC visits the Big Island.

- BIN.

 

PLAGUES & PESTILENCES: "Super Malaria" - New Drug-Resistant Malaria Strain Could Kill MILLIONS, Says Report; The World Is On The Verge Of A Catastrophic Outbreak!

February 26, 2015 - ASIA - The world could be on the verge of a catastrophic malaria outbreak because of a new drug-resistant strain of the deadly disease that is spreading in parts of Asia.

Almost 40 percent of the malaria in Burma, or Myanmar, has become resistant to the powerful drug artemisinin. Doctors are concerned because the drug-resistant malaria could soon spread to India, where it could then jump to other parts of the world.

It is spread via mosquito bites.

“The pace at which artemisinin resistance is spreading or emerging is alarming,” Phillippe Guerin, the director of the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network told, Reuters.

A new report by the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok says “millions of lives will be at risk” if the disease continues spreading. The study was published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.

“[Burma] is considered the front line in the battle against artemisinin resistance as it forms a gateway for resistance to spread to the rest of the world,” said Charles Woodrow of the Mahidol-Oxford tropical medicine research unit.

Woodrow’s team collected 940 malaria samples at 55 treatment centers across Burma and its borders and discovered that 40 percent were artemisinin-resistant. They know there are drug-mosquitoes 15 miles from the India border.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says 584,000 people died from malaria in 2013 and around 198 million caught the disease. Most of the deaths were among African children. Symptoms include fever, shaking chills, headaches, muscle aches, tiredness, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

It’s not the first time the disease has grown resistant to a drug. During the 1950s, 60s and 70s, millions died when a strain of malaria grew resistant to chloroquine, and when it was replaced by the drug sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP), another strain grew resistant. That drug was replaced by artemisinin.

Malaria is widespread in Cambodia, another Asian country.

“We are really down to the last possibilities in terms of how we treat malaria,” Woodrow told NPR. “We are considering combining three drugs, extending courses from three days up to five days. So I think midterm, this is a major problem.”

How to Prevent the Spread of Malaria

There are a number of steps that you can take to prevent catching malaria during an outbreak, according to the CDC. These steps include:

• If possible, avoid traveling to places where malaria outbreaks are occurring.
• Cover as much of your skin as possible. This means wearing pants, long-sleeved shirts, hats, socks and boots.
• Use mosquito repellant to reduce exposure.
• Stay indoors as much as possible.
• Use bed nets to protect yourself from mosquitoes.

Most cases of malaria occur in Africa, but the disease is not unknown in the United States. There were 63 outbreaks of mosquito-borne malaria in the United States between 1957 and 2011, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There were nearly 2,000 cases of malaria in the US during 2011. Despite those numbers, the CDC considers malaria eradicated in the United States. - OTGN.

GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS: Drought-Hit Malaysian State Rations Water - High Temperatures And Bone Dry Conditions Have Left Reservoirs At "Critical Levels"!

February 27, 2014 - MALAYSIA - Authorities began rationing water to thousands of households in Malaysia's most populous state Tuesday, as a dry spell depletes reservoirs across a country normally known for its steady tropical downpours.

Norlizan, 40, (2nd R) queues to collect water from a tank in Balakong, outside Kuala Lumpur on February 25, 2014.
Authorities began rationing water to thousands of households in Malaysia's most populous state on February 25, as a
dry spell depletes reservoirs across a country normally known for its steady tropical downpours. Photo courtesy AFP.

Much of Malaysia has been under bone-dry conditions for a month and high temperatures have left some reservoirs at "critical" levels, sparking an increase in bushfires and leading to protests in at least one hard-hit community near the capital Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia does tend to experience dry weather early in the year, but the current dry spell has been unusually long.

The lack of significant rainfall has caused increasing alarm, particularly in the state of Selangor, which surrounds Kuala Lumpur, and adjacent areas, as meteorologists have warned the dry patch could last another month.

Selangor is Malaysia's most populous state and its economic and industrial hub.

Water rationing in the state will affect an estimated 60,000 households, according to the Selangor's private water company.

A Selangor local government spokeswoman said the state was reducing the flow to four water treatment plants "until the weather improves".

"The reduction of water will start today," she told AFP. "What we need now is the rain."

Authorities have said planes are on standby to conduct cloud-seeding, but the spokeswoman said the effort has been hampered by inadequate cloud formation.

Residents in the Selangor town of Balakong have complained for weeks about taps running dry and last week about 200 residents staged a protest calling on authorities to provide water, according to reports.

"We spend over 20 ringgit ($6) a week at the dhobi now," said housewife Norizan Nasim, using the local name for someone who washes people's clothes.

"But what can we do, we can't afford to shift from here," added Nasim, who is currently travelling an hour each day to fetch water from a river.

The state of Negeri Sembilan, adjacent to Selangor, last week declared a water crisis, mobilising to supply treated water to thousands of households.

The hot spell has also contributed to more cases of dengue fever as it speeds up the life cycle of the aedes mosquito that carries the virus and enhances replication of the pathogen, experts say.

Deaths from the flu-like illness have risen to 25 this year, compared with just eight in the same period last year, according to the latest Health Ministry figures.

The number of cases has also quadrupled to some 14,000 so far this year. The World Health Organisation calls dengue one of the fastest-growing viral threats globally, especially in the tropics. - Space Daily.

PLAGUES & PESTILENCES: Contagion - Drug-Resistant Malaria In Thailand Threatens Global "Nightmare"!

January 02, 2013 - THAILAND - Clipboard in hand, Dr Francois Nosten worked his way down a ward of malaria patients. He stopped in front of five-year-old Ayemyint Than, who sat to attention and smiled. The smile told Nosten as much as his lines of graphs and figures.

Staff examine a baby who has been brought to the clinic with a fever, suspected to be malaria. 
Ian Williams / NBC News.

"She's doing well," he said, moving to an older man, whose pale face and dull sunken eyes told a very different story. "Day five, and he's still positive?" he asked another of the doctors. "That's not very good. It means he was very slow to clear the parasite, no?" To Nosten, it was further evidence of an alarming rise in resistance to artemisinin, currently the front-line drug in the treatment of malaria. He fears it could be the start of a global "nightmare" in which millions of people could lose their lives. "We have to beat this resistance, win this race and eliminate the parasite before it’s too late. That's our challenge now," he said. He said that artemisinin should take about 24 hours to deal with the parasite, but it was now taking three or four days in some cases. "We are going to see patients that don't respond to the treatment anymore,” he warned. Nosten runs the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit, which is part of the Faculty of Tropical Medicine at Thailand's Mahidol University.  The unit has a string of clinics on both sides of the Moi River, which marks the porous border between Thailand and Myanmar.

Nosten set up the first one in 1986, since when there has been a steady fall in the total number of cases of malaria, but most recently a worrying emergence of drug resistance.  He first sounded the alarm in research published earlier this year, following the emergence of similar drug resistance along the Thai-Cambodia border. Nosten’s not sure whether the resistance he's found has spread from the Cambodia border or is home-grown. Either way, he's worried.  "It means that all the progress of the last 10 to 15 years will be lost," he warned. "Now the resistance is here, we worry that we are running out of time." The malaria parasite -- carried by infected mosquitoes from person to person -- still kills an estimated 655,000 people a year.  That's almost 2,000 a day, mostly in Africa, with children being most at risk.  If the world loses its front-line drug, the impact could be devastating.  "The nightmare scenario is that the resistance will travel," Nosten said.  "We know what will happen in Africa when resistance is bad because we've been there before in the 1990s with chloroquine (another anti-malarial drug) … millions of deaths," he warned.  "We must prevent artemisinin resistance reaching Africa, but we also need to control it for the people in Asia - for their future." - MSNBC.

WATCH: Scientists are battling to stop a drug-resistant malaria that could threaten the lives of millions. "We worry that we are running out of time," one scientist says. NBC News' Ian Williams reports from northwestern Thailand.

EPIDEMIC: DISEASE - 8,228 Case of Malaria in India in Just 14 Days!

There have been rise in the number of malaria and falciparum cases in India. In just two weeks, various district and Taluka health centres in the country recorded as many as 8,228 confirmed malaria cases, while the number of falciparum cases stood at 2,625.

Surat and Ahmedabad topped the chart. The high mosquito density in these cities is proving to be a problem for officials. In just two week, both these cities recorded the highest number of malaria cases with Surat recording as many as 1,274 cases closely followed by Ahmedabad with 1,020 cases. The tribal district of Dahod has now emerged as another troubled zone with 829 malaria cases recorded in the past two weeks. In case of dengue, Ahmedabad has recorded 45 cases in just a week, while Vadodara has recorded six cases and Bhavnagar two. In all, the state has recorded 101 dengue cases. Another concern for health authorities is the rise in the number of typhoid fever cases in the state. Ahmedabad recorded 122 typhoid cases in the past two weeks followed by 74 cases in Surat and 66 cases in Bhavnagar. - Times of India.