Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
South Africa: Poultry industry faces mounting losses amid bird flu outbreaks
Farmer’s Weekly Dr Abongile Balarane, general manager of the Layer Organisation of SA Poultry, told Farmer’s Weekly that initial cases of the H5N1 strain of HPAI occurred among layers in the Western Cape in April. This strain is the same as the one currently affecting the majority of other countries in the world. In June, however, a […]
Sep 5, 2023
Kansas: Multidrug-Resistant TB Outbreak
MedPageToday An outbreak of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) developed in Kansas in November 2021, and included multiple children who were born in the U.S. and became infected in the state, CDC researchers reported. The outbreak involved 13 people across four households in Kansas City and spanned 1 year. While a majority of the seven adults identified […]
Sep 5, 2023
Scientists at Johns Hopkins research malaria transmission following a positive case in Maryland
CBS News A team of scientists at Johns Hopkins Hospital are leading research efforts behind malaria transmission. Maryland health leaders earlier this month reported a resident tested positive for malaria despite not traveling outside of the United States or to another state with recent malaria cases. It’s the first case of malaria of that kind in decades. […]
Aug 29, 2023
Accelerated evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in free-ranging white-tailed deer
Nature The zoonotic origin of the COVID-19 pandemic virus highlights the need to fill the vast gaps in our knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 ecology and evolution in non-human hosts. Here, we detected that SARS-CoV-2 was introduced from humans into white-tailed deer more than 30 times in Ohio, USA during November 2021-March 2022. Subsequently, deer-to-deer transmission persisted […]
Aug 29, 2023
Latest Covid Twist: Coronavirus Is Spreading In Deer, Study Finds—And Many Are Getting It From Humans
Forbes Researchers have discovered dozens of white-tailed deer infected with the virus that causes Covid-19 in Ohio, suggesting that spillover of the virus between humans and animals is less rare than previously believed, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Communications—news that comes as doctors are tracking a new Covid-19 variant in humans. […]
Aug 29, 2023
Scottish professor claims there are “signals” of a new pandemic
National World “Signals” from bird flu suggest that the next global pandemic could arrive sooner than expected. Professor Devi Sridhar of Edinburgh University, who advised the Scottish government during the coronavirus outbreak, said action was needed to avoid a repeat of that, describing it as a “tragedy for lives lost but also the restrictions put in […]
Aug 29, 2023
Five additional cases of Dengue Fever confirmed
Eyewitness News he Ministry of Health and Wellness yesterday reported that the number of confirmed cases of Dengue Fever in the country has increased to 21. Health officials just last week revealed that the Ministry’s National Communicable Disease Surveillance Unit and Department of Public Health teams in New Providence and Abaco were actively monitoring 16 positive […]
Aug 29, 2023
The painful pandemic lessons Mandy Cohen carries to the CDC
NPR As COVID-19 devastated communities across the nation in spring 2020, a group of Black ministers in this racially divided city made an urgent plea for more testing in their neighborhoods. Testing at the time “was outside of communities of color,” says the Rev. Jordan Boyd, pastor of Rockwell AME Zion Church in Charlotte. For […]
Aug 29, 2023
COVID Update by Dr. Lawler
UNMC This week Dr. Lawler provides us with recent COVID trends using wastewater data & discusses the new BA.2.86 COVID-19 variant. On current COVID-19 cases: “We’re relatively close to where we were in the summer of 2021.”
Aug 22, 2023
Where are the mosquitoes that spread malaria in the U.S.? Officials aren’t sure
NBC News The U.S. does not routinely track mosquitoes that spread malaria “because we haven’t been worried about them,” one expert said. Concerns over the insects, however, are growing. A ninth case of malaria diagnosed in a person who had not traveled out of the U.S. has experts on alert — and calling for more […]
Aug 22, 2023