News Scan for Dec 13, 2016

News brief

Macao announces its first-ever H7N9 avian flu case

Macao has reported its first human H7N9 avian influenza case, involving a 58-year-old man who owns a poultry market stall, according to a Xinhua report today in Chinese translated and posted by Avian Flu Diary (AFD), an infectious disease news blog. AFD said there are multiple media outlets reporting the finding, which was announced in an early morning media briefing by the local health department.

The announcement of Macao's first human case comes just after local agriculture officials announced that H7 avian influenza was detected in poultry imported from mainland China (see the related news story).

Health officials are testing and monitoring the man's contacts, and the man is reported to be in stable condition, according to Xinhua, China's state news agency.

The new H7N9 case follows the announcement of eight infections from China over the last several weeks, part of a fifth wave of activity for the novel virus that was first detected in humans in 2013 and has often been found Chinese poultry in the past few years.

Macao's case lifts the global total from H7N9 to 816 cases, according to a case list maintained by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board.
Dec 13 AFD post
FluTrackers H7N9 case list

CDC gives $5 million to Texas for Zika preparedness

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Texas $5 million to support Zika preparedness efforts, the state announced yesterday. The Public Health Preparedness and Response (PHPR) grant come a few weeks after the Rio Grande Valley confirmed local transmission of the mosquito-borne virus.

Texas has already dedicated $18 million to fight the Zika virus by implementing the state's Preparedness and Response plan. The CDC's grant is part of the supplemental Zika funding Congress awarded to states this fall.

"Now that Texas has confirmed cases of local transmission of the Zika virus, this money will be crucial in our efforts to contain and combat further transmission of the virus," said Gov. Greg Abbott in a statement.
Dec 12 Texas statement

Saudi Arabia reports new MERS case

The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) announced one new case of MERS-CoV today. The patient had direct contact with camels.

The 72-year-old Saudi man from Taif is in critical condition because of his Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection.

Contact with camels is a known risk factor for contracting the disease. Scientists do not yet understand how camels transmit the respiratory virus to humans, but drinking raw camel milk, raising camels, and eating their meat have all been linked to MERS cases.

The development raises Saudi Arabia's total number of MERS-CoV cases to 1,508 cases, 625 of them fatal. Fourteen people are currently recovering from infections.
Dec 13 MOH report

Northern Hemisphere flu activity picks up in several regions

Flu activity is rising slightly in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, with H3N2 as the dominant strain, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today in its latest global flu update, dated yesterday. In Europe, the flu season has started earlier than usual, with northern countries most affected.

Other areas seeing upticks include North America, though levels are still below seasonal thresholds. Countries in East Asia are also reporting small increases, the WHO said, with some South Asian countries, such as Iran and Sri Lanka, reporting similar rises. Both northern and southern parts of China are reporting higher percentages of hospitalizations for flulike illness compared with previous years.

Flu levels are low in Southeast Asia, except for Vietnam, which is reporting an increase in 2009 H1N1 virus detections. In Africa activity is generally low, though Morocco reported an increase, mainly from H3N2, as did Ghana, mainly from influenza B.

In most Southern Hemisphere regions flu has dropped to inter-seasonal levels.

Globally, of respiratory samples that were positive for flu during the last half of November, 90.7% were influenza A, and of the subtyped samples, 97.1% were H3N2, the WHO said.
Dec 12 WHO global flu update

Stewardship / Resistance Scan for Dec 13, 2016

News brief

Toolkit aims to help messaging around HAIs, antibiotic resistance

The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have collaborated on a toolkit to help public health departments communicate information about healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and antibiotic resistance to the public.

The toolkit includes key messages and talking points that public health departments can use when communicating with other public health professionals, policy makers, the media, and the public. The messages focus on the impact of HAIs, the threat posed by antibiotic resistance, and what healthcare facilities can do to prevent HAIs and the spread of drug-resistant infections.

In addition to specific tips for working with the media, the toolkit contains suggestions for sustaining the public conversation around HAIs, recommendations for engaging the public through social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, and a calendar of HAI-related events that can be used to promote discussion of HAIs and antibiotic resistance.

ASTHO will be hosting a webinar to provide guidance on how to use the tools on Dec 16 from 2:00 to 3:00 pm ET.
ASTHO-CDC HAI and antibiotic resistance communication toolkit
Dec 16 ASTHO-CDC webinar

Paper examines potential of marine products against resistant infections

A paper yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases examines the potential of marine natural products (MNPs) in the treatment of antimicrobial-resistant infections.

With the emergence of antimicrobial resistance imposing a major burden on global health and economics, novel drugs from new sources possessing innovative targets are needed. And since it has already proven to be "a very rich source" of diverse natural products with antimicrobial activities, the marine environment, the authors write, "could serve as a ray of light for the therapy of drug-resistant infections."

In a review of existing literature, the paper examines the potential of MNPs in drug-resistant fungi, viruses (including drug-resistant influenza, HIV, and herpes simplex virus), and drug-resistant malaria. Though equally important, MNPs with activity against drug-resistant bacteria are not part of the review, the authors note, because their use is vast and reviewed extensively elsewhere.

The review examines the origins, activities, and physicochemical properties of several products extracted from marine algae, fungus, coral, and sponges. These include spiromastilactone D, a substance derived from a deep-sea fungus that inhibited a panel of amantadine and oseltamivir-resistant influenza strains; stachybotrin D, which was isolated from a marine sponge-associated fungus and displayed inhibitory effects on replication of drug-resistant HIV-1 strains; and haliclonacyclamine A, a product isolated from a marine sponge that has exhibited antiplasmodial activity in vitro against chloroquine-resistant strains of malaria.

While there are several challenges in turning these products into novel biomedicines—including the time and money required to develop them, insufficient investment, difficulty in isolation and purification procedures, and toxicity—the authors argue that the search for new MNPs should continue.

"Development of resistance-resistant antibiotics could be achieved via the coordinated networking of clinicians, microbiologists, natural product chemists, and pharmacologists together with pharmaceutical venture capitalist companies," the authors write.
Dec 12 Lancet Infect Dis review