A 4-year survey of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) at five medical centers across the United States found that the incidence of community-onset (CO) MRSA cases varied considerably, with trends in New York City and Los Angeles going in opposite directions, according to a report in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
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.
A novel tick-borne phlebovirus related to the recently discovered Heartland virus that has infected at least eight US residents has been discovered in Tasmania state, Australia, according to a report yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Confirmed cases of chikungunya in Haiti have skyrocketed from 14 to 1,529 in recent days, the Associated Press (AP) reported today.
Ronald Singer, a spokesman for Haiti's health ministry, said about 900 cases of the mosquito-borne disease have been in West department, where Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, resides. Another 300 cases were confirmed in the country's northwest.
The health ministry of Pakistan, the country with the most polio cases of late, has committed to setting up mandatory immunization counters for travelers at all its airports, border crossings, and seaports in response to yesterday's World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of a worldwide polio emergency, according to a story in the current issue of Pakistan Today.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan declared polio's spread this year to be a public health emergency, and she spelled out temporary steps for curbing the threat.
Testing of nasal and eye swabs of camels in Oman found 5 of 76 samples positive for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and genetic sequencing showed that they were closely related to human viruses in the region
H5N1 avian flu has struck two chicken factory farms in North Korea's capital of Pyongyang, killing more than 46,000 birds, according to a report posted yesterday by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
In the first outbreak, all 46,217 birds died of the disease in three holding pens for layer hens on a farm at the Hadang chicken factory. The outbreak began Mar 21. Samples from the birds tested positive on Mar 26.
Food from restaurants was associated with almost twice the number of disease outbreaks and more than double the illnesses as food prepared at home, according to data compiled by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a food safety watchdog.
Six more cases of Heartland virus infection have been identified since the world's first two cases were detected in the summer of 2012, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and two states reported today.
