Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
Flu is expected to flare up in U.S. this winter, raising fears of a ‘twindemic’
The flu virtually disappeared for two years as the pandemic raged. But influenza appears poised to stage a come-back this year in the U.S., threatening to cause a long-feared “twindemic.” The strongest indication that the flu could hit the U.S. this winter is what happened during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter. Flu returned to some countries, such […]
Sep 23, 2022
New Tool Guides Clinicians to Identify and Treat Patients at Risk for Monkeypox Virus
Mass General – In the setting of the current global monkeypox outbreak, clinicians are on now alert to identify, isolate, and treat individuals infected with the virus that causes it. Investigators recently developed a clinical decision support system to help with this effort, and they tested its initial performance in a large integrated healthcare system.
Sep 22, 2022
Polio is officially circulating in the US again
Popular Science – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday that polioviruses found recently in Rockland County, New York, meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) criteria for circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV), which means that the pathogen continues to be transmitted in the county and surrounding areas. Vaccine-derived refers to the strain’s relationship to the […]
Sep 22, 2022
Don’t ask when the pandemic will end. Ask how we’re going to live with covid.
Grid – The coronavirus isn’t going anywhere. We need to learn to minimize its impact. “A lot of people think of the pandemic as a hurricane: It has to be completely gone, blue skies,” said Amesh Adalja, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “That’s not the case. This is not […]
Sep 22, 2022
Uganda has confirmed seven Ebola cases so far, one death
Reuters – Uganda has confirmed seven cases of Ebola including in a man who died this week, and seven other deaths are being investigated as suspected cases of a strain for which the authorities do not yet have a vaccine, officials said on Thursday. The 24-year-old man who died had developed a high fever, diarrhoea […]
Sep 22, 2022
Why are so many viruses popping up again?
Washington Post – Several factors help explain why we’re hearing so much about viral outbreaks. Shifts in migration and travel patterns, global eating habits and the effects of climate change have created new opportunities for microbes to spread. Better testing and monitoring methods also mean we’re detecting these outbreaks sooner than in the past.
Sep 22, 2022
Can Long COVID Researchers Learn From ME/CFS?
Med Page Today – There are a dizzying array of case definitions for long COVID that vary in terms of what to name this condition, the duration of symptoms, the types of symptoms, and the medical comorbidities. The field of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) has encountered comparable problems as they developed case definitions over the past 3 decades. […]
Sep 22, 2022
Uganda declares Ebola outbreak after Sudan strain found
Reuters – An outbreak of Ebola has been declared in Uganda after health authorities confirmed a case of the relatively rare Sudan strain, the health ministry and World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. A 24-year-old man in Uganda’s central Mubende district showed symptoms and later died.
Sep 22, 2022
NBC News – Covid was the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020, after heart disease and cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The same was true last year, provisional CDC data shows. Since April, Covid deaths have stayed relatively flat, at a weekly average of around 300 to 500 […]
Sep 22, 2022
H5N1 pathogenesis studies in mammalian models
(Virus Research) H5N1 influenza viruses are capable of causing severe disease and death in humans, and represent a potential pandemic subtype should they acquire a transmissible phenotype. Due to the expanding host and geographic range of this virus subtype, there is an urgent need to better understand the contribution of both virus and host responses […]
Dec 5, 2013