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Ebola has struck the northern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but authorities say it is not the same strain as in West Africa.
Ohio last week reported a case of variant H3N2 (H3N2v) influenza in a person who had had close contact with pigs, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Aug 22, marking what appears to be the first such US case this summer.
The infected person was hospitalized but has recovered completely, the CDC said in its weekly FluView surveillance report.
As West Africa's Ebola toll climbed by 142 cases and 77 deaths, the WHO conceded that the size of the epidemic has been underestimated.
Four illnesses in four states have been confirmed in a Salmonella outbreak likely associated with recalled nut butter, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an update yesterday.
Two Palm Beach County, Fla., residents have acquired chikungunya locally, bringing the nation's total number of locally acquired cases to six, the Palm Beach Post reported yesterday.
State and county health officials said that a 43-year-old man and 35-year-old woman contracted the painful mosquito-borne disease without traveling to outbreak areas.
Two medical missionaries are out of the hospital, leaving lessons for clinicians on treating the disease.
It's time to reassess strategies for controlling methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in hospitals, mainly because of poor evidence for the efficacy of screening and isolation, which have been regarded as the gold-standard approach, say three German and Swiss experts writing in The Lancet.
The WHO said service suspensions by shippers are starting to squeeze food and fuel supplies in Ebola-affected countries.
Researchers who sifted data from 12 recent influenza seasons in Finland concluded that about 42% of influenza B cases involved strains that were not targeted by the vaccine, which they say supports the inclusion of both influenza B lineages in seasonal flu vaccines.
The WHO said it saw some signs of improving control efforts and public awareness in Nigeria and Guinea.
In a study designed to simulate how the pandemic 2009 influenza (pH1N1) virus might have evolved, researchers say it took only nine passages in pigs for a virus to gain "greatly enhanced virulence and transmissibility" in pigs, guinea pigs, and ferrets.
Violence in a Monrovia slum was likely fueled by misconceptions about Ebola and suspicions about the actions of government officials and health workers.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Aug 15 that it had approved the administration of bioCSL's Afluria inactivated influenza vaccine for use with ajet-injector device, the PharmaJet Stratis. The approval applies to intramuscular injection only in adults ages 18 through 64 years, the FDA said in its statement.
The number of newly reported chikungunya cases in the Caribbean region was down dramatically last week, but it's not clear if the drop was related to delays in reporting or a downturn in disease transmission. According to an Aug 15 update from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the region reported 9,798 new cases, accounting for an increase of only 1.7%.
The Ebola total in West Africa's outbreak has pushed past 2,000, as the WHO tempered expectations and addressed food supply issues.
In its report on flu sample cross-contamination today, the CDC detailed departures from best practices and reporting delays.
A chikungunya candidate vaccine developed using noninfectious virus-like particles (VLPs) has been shown to provide long-term protection against multiple genotypes of the disease, according to results of the first human trial, conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and published today in The Lancet.
A national investigation is under way in England to look into a number of isolated clusters of Salmonella Enteritidis over the past few months that have been handled locally but that may represent a more widespread outbreak possibly related to catering outlets, says a press release today from Public Health England (PHE).
The WHO voiced concern about Ebola-related bans on flights to outbreak countries and other African nations.
The plan will speed up the hunt for the source when ground beef is tainted with E coli O157:H7.
