Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
Jamaica declares dengue outbreak
Jamaica Observer The Ministry of Health and Wellness has declared a dengue fever outbreak in Jamaica. In a release Saturday, the ministry said its National Surveillance Unit advised that the island has surpassed the dengue epidemic threshold for July and August and is on a trajectory to do the same for September. “This means, the […]
Sep 26, 2023
South Africa has over 50 confirmed cases of avian influenza
The SouthAfrican The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) reported that South Africa is dealing with a number of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5 and H7 outbreaks, with more than 50 cases reported in various regions of the nation. The department has advised poultry farmers to contact the closest State Veterinarian as soon […]
Sep 26, 2023
Real-world HPAI vaccination trial underway
PoultryWorld The Dutch government, together with Wageningen University & Research, Utrecht University and Royal GD, have started their first real-world avian influenza vaccination trial. Some 1,800 day-old layer chicks received a vaccination against highly pathogenic avian influenza in mid-September and will be monitored for the coming 18 months to establish protection and transmission of the virus. The field trial […]
Sep 20, 2023
Report highlights the skyrocket, peak of highly cited COVID-19 research studies
CIDRAP A new survey of highly cited COVID-19 research papers shows the scientific literature on the novel coronavirus rose at an astronomical pace, from just 14 studies in January and February 2020 to 1,292 studies in November to December 2021. The study is published in JAMA Network Open. The cross-sectional study surveyed global publications from January 2020 […]
Sep 19, 2023
USDA Grant Explores COVID Virus in Wildlife
wildlife.org Researchers will test 58 species to monitor the potential for spillback to humans A new U.S. Agriculture Department grant will fund researchers to test wildlife for the presence of the virus that causes COVID-19. The $4.5 million grant will allow researchers to collect samples from 58 species—chipmunks, squirrels, mice, moose (Alces alces), raccoons (Procyon […]
Sep 19, 2023
Slovenia: Stork at Ljubljana zoo diagnosed with bird flu
STA The country’s veterinary authority has confirmed highly contagious avian influenza of the subtype H5N1 in a white stork at the Ljubljana zoo, after the same subtype was confirmed in two dead swans in the municipality of Ljubljana last week.
Sep 19, 2023
Covid is here to stay. How will we know when it stops being special?
Washington Post New coronavirus variants are making headlines. Photos of positive test results are popping up on social media feeds. Hospitalizations are increasing. Far from the start of a sensational new chapter in the pandemic, experts say this uptick is the new normal in a world with covid as an endemic disease.Now, withsome level of immunity nearly ubiquitous across […]
Sep 19, 2023
Cold virus may set the stage for Long COVID
NIH Many infections with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, resolve within days or weeks. But a significant number of people have symptoms that linger for weeks, months, or even years. This is called postacute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC)—commonly known as “Long COVID.” While several risk factors for PASC have been proposed, we still don’t […]
Sep 19, 2023
The New Yorker Call it the first wave of the endemic, a bona-fide covid bump. The statistics may be hard to parse—the United States stopped systematically collecting data on coronavirus cases months ago—but, almost certainly, growing numbers of Americans are coming down with covid. In recent weeks, Jill Biden went into isolation after testing positive, and John McEnroe […]
Sep 19, 2023
How common long COVID is may depend on how it’s defined
CIDRAP In Open Forum Infectious Diseases, Dutch scientists report that the definition of post-COVID condition (PCC, or long COVID) matters when estimating prevalence in a population. In people who had previously tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the prevalence of long-term symptoms varied from 26.9% to 64.1%, depending on which of six different definitions was used, while in those who […]
Sep 19, 2023