Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
NJ.com – New Jersey hospitals are filling up with kids coughing and struggling to breathe. But it’s not COVID-19. Or even influenza. An outbreak of viral respiratory infections is sending children to emergency rooms throughout the state. The biggest culprits are enterovirus and rhinovirus as well as a few cases of RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), all of which usually […]
Sep 24, 2022
ABC News – Although the daily death rates have ticked down slightly from August, updated federal data shows that the U.S. is still losing hundreds of Americans to COVID-19 every day, and 225,000 people in the U.S. have been lost to the virus since the start of 2022. On average, more than 350 American deaths […]
Sep 23, 2022
New COVID variants may evade current treatments—or render them entirely ineffective, experts say
Fortune – Future COVID variants are expected to be more transmissible and perhaps better at evading the immune system. And they might even render treatments for patients like monoclonal antibodies “less effective,” the World Health Organization’s pandemic lead said Thursday. Van Kerkhove said that the WHO is keeping an eye on Omicron variants BA.5—currently dominant […]
Sep 23, 2022
Major Covid Holdouts in Asia Drop Border Restrictions
NYT – Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan have relaxed their pandemic rules, as they look to bolster their economies and play catch-up with much of the world. Hong Kong said on Friday that it would abandon mandatory hotel quarantine for people coming to the city starting next week, following a similar move by Taiwan. Japan […]
Sep 23, 2022
MSF responds to rare Ebola outbreak
MSF– Following the September 20 declaration of an Ebola outbreak in Uganda in the country’s central Mubende district, the ministry of health has asked the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to support its efforts in the fight against the spread of the disease.
Sep 23, 2022
Reinfections with Different SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Subvariants, France
CDC – We describe 188 patients in France who were successively infected with different SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants, including BA.1, BA.2, and BA.5. Time between 2 infections was <90 days for 50 (26.6%) patients and <60 days for 28 (14.9%) patients. This finding suggests that definitions for SARS-CoV-2 reinfection require revision.
Sep 23, 2022
Uganda’s Ebola death toll rises to 12
Radio Tamazug – The number of people who have died from the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Uganda’s Mubende district has risen to 12, according to health authorities, the Uganda Radio Network reported. As of Tuesday morning, the death toll stood at eight people, but officials say that two more people died on Wednesday morning […]
Sep 23, 2022
LAist – Workers in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s downtown headquarters have failed at least one public health inspection in recent weeks as a COVID-19 outbreak among employees has forced officials to reimpose mask-wearing rules on five floors of the building, according to union representatives and emails obtained by LAist. Data from the L.A. […]
Sep 23, 2022
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