News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Soon after the terrorist attacks of 2001, Congress approved emergency funds to teach hospital staffs how to recognize and respond to bioterrorism attacks, and today the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its first report on those efforts.

(CIDRAP News) – The number of deaths in a Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) outbreak in Turkey has increased to 20, with a total of 242 cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported yesterday.

Since WHO's last update on the outbreak on Jun 30 there have been 92 new cases and 9 new deaths. One of the fatalities involved a healthcare worker who acquired the infection while treating a patient with CCHF.

(CIDRAP News) – Dengue fever in US travelers to tropical regions has registered a sharp upsurge, with as many cases in 2005 as in the previous 5 years combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A report in the Jun 30 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report summarizes the 96 cases that were reported in 2005. An accompanying editorial note says that 98 cases were diagnosed in 1999 through 2004.

Editor's note: A correction was made in this story on Jul 11 (2006) to eliminate errors concerning the numbers of hantavirus cases in Arizona and New Mexico since 1993.

(CIDRAP News) – Nine human cases of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in five states were reported from January through March of 2006, which could signal an above-average risk of the disease this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – An experimental vaccine protected monkeys from the deadly Marburg hemorrhagic fever virus even though they weren't vaccinated until after exposure, according to a report published in the April 29 issue of The Lancet.