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Although influenza in the United States continues to decline, it has now been elevated for 19 consecutive weeks, has caused seven more pediatric deaths, and continues to create record levels of hospitalization in the elderly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today in its weekly update.
A stray donkey that crossed from Mexico into Texas has tested positive for glanders, a highly contagious disease that primarily affects equines, the Southwest Farm Press reported this week.
H5N2 on 2 more commercial farms mark South Dakota's 1st and Minnesota's 4th such outbreaks.
Even hospitals that had done preparedness drills faced challenges, and the threat consumed a lot of resources.
Shigellosis, until recently resistant to first-choice drug ciprofloxacin in only 2% of US cases, has been found resistant nearly 90% of the time in recent outbreaks, according to a study published online today in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
Nearly 600 million cases of foodborne enteric disease, with 351,000 deaths, occurred worldwide in 2010, 40% of them in young children, a World Health Organization (WHO) research group noted today as it released early findings of a broad analysis of the global burden of the diseases. The full report is planned for release in October.
H5N2 and H5N8 continue in US birds, but testing in Minnesota found no further infected poultry.
The first two phase 1 trials of VSV-EBOV vaccine show good immune responses.
Ebola cropped up again in two of Guinea's districts that hadn't reported cases in about 50 days.
A study involving more than 160,000 elderly US military veterans suggests that the high-dose (HD) influenza vaccine didn't lower their risk of hospitalization for flu or pneumonia overall, compared with standard-dose (SD) vaccine, but it did reduce the risk for those 85 and older.
Infection with Clostridium difficile ribotype 027 independently predicts severe disease and mortality, but demographic and clinical factors are stronger predictors of severe disease, according to a study yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
The virus was found in half the acute flaccid myelitis patients studied, and earlier testing may have identified more, say authors.
Funding will be used to continue trials of BCX4430 and prepare for its large-scale manufacture.
The number of chikungunya infections in the Americas has increased to 1,343,372, a rise of 32,504, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said in its latest update. The bump in cases was slightly higher than the 28,768-case increase recorded the week before.
A 39,000-bird turkey farm was hit by H5N2, and H5N1 killed pelicans in Romania.
The WHO reports 114 Saudi MERS cases in January & February, compared with 21 in that time last year.
Liberian officials urged longer sexual abstinence for survivors, and extra response measures are under way in Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Egypt has 10 more cases in the past few days, and both Indonesian cases involved likely poultry exposure.
Filovirus experts who met a year ago say that evidence is lacking for recommending personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers treating patients for diseases like Ebola and Marburg, and they outline several priorities for research, according to a report late last week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
The Obama administration unveils a plan for addressing the threat in the next 5 years.
