CIDRAP newsletters options
US influenza activity continued its season-ending decline, with one flu-related pediatric death reported, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly update.
The percentage of US respiratory specimens that tested positive for flu dropped from 8.7% to 6.5% last week. The percentage of clinic visits for flu fell stayed even at 1.3%, well below the national baseline of 2.2%.
The CDC reports 288 measles cases so far in 2014, a 20-year high for this time of year.
Also today, scientists filled in more details about the first two Dutch MERS cases.
Study finds 87% vaccine effectiveness, as Haiti reports a 75% drop in cases over this time last year.
Both urban and rural residents in China interviewed in late spring and early summer last year—after the spring peak in H7N9 cases—reported fairly high exposure to poultry but fairly low anxiety about the disease, according to a study yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The man did not catch the disease from the first US MERS patient after all.
A serology study found evidence of asymptomatic or mild infections in poultry workers, with levels that rose in the second wave.
Guinea reports 14 new cases and 5 new deaths, and Sierra Leone has 15 new cases and 1 new death.
The World Health Assembly (WHA) again did not decide on when the last laboratory stocks of variola virus, the pathogen that causes smallpox, should be destroyed, Nature reported today on its news blog.
Guinea has had 8 recent Ebola cases, 3 fatal, and Sierra Leone reports 5 cases and 4 deaths.
Iran reported its first 2 MERS cases, while Saudi Arabia has gone 2 days without any.
H7N9 has infected a father and son, as researchers report new clues about the virus.
A multistate outbreak of Salmonella infections linked to Foster Farms chicken products has grown to 574 cases, which is 50 more than previously reported, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an update today. The number of affected states grew from 25 to 27.
Oklahoma health officials today reported the state's first Heartland virus infection, in a Delaware County resident who died from complications from the illness.
In addition to the 6 new cases, the FAO calls for an urgent increase in research on MERS-CoV in animals.
The Caribbean chikungunya outbreak grew by 6,303 cases in the past week to reach 63,489 suspected, probable, or confirmed cases, according to an update today from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The count is up from 57,186 cases a week ago.
With the new cases, details emerge that Filipinos are among the recent MERS deaths.
The debate over experiments that increase avian flu virus transmissibility heats up.
Two new H7N9 influenza infections were reported in China today, both from Anhui province, according to a health department statement translated and posted by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board.
Both patients are men, ages 69 and 58, who are hospitalized in critical condition. The cases are the second and third to be reported in Anhui province this week and lift its overall number of H7N9 cases to 14.
An outbreak of Escherichia coli O121 infections in Washington and Idaho has been linked to raw clover sprouts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state health officials announced.
