Tularemia

US tularemia cases now top 100

Cases of tularemia in four US states have reached at least 104 for 2015, according to federal and state officials.

Several states reporting high tularemia cases

US health officials are grappling with a surge in human cases of tularemia in several states this year, Reuters reported today.

Colorado has had 41 confirmed cases so far this year, Wyoming 14—including 1 death—and South Dakota at least 19, the story said, and a Nebraska official today told CIDRAP News that that state has had 18, for a total of 92 in the four states.

Five more cases of puzzling polio-like sickness reported

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified five more cases of unexplained polio-like illness in children, raising the total over the past few months to 75.

The CDC has been investigating the cases and their possible causes, which include enterovirus D-68 (EV-D68), the source of a respiratory illness outbreak involving 1,116 cases in recent months, nearly all of them in children.

Plague bacteria, other misplaced pathogens found at NIH, FDA labs

A search of government labs in the wake of a July discovery of old vials of smallpox virus has turned up additional improperly stored pathogens that cause plague, tularemia, melioidosis, botulism, and a certain foodborne disease, as well as the toxin ricin, the Washington Post reported today.

Study finds no decrease in flu hospitalization in vaccinees

The influenza vaccine did not reduce the risk of hospitalization for flu after vaccine failure, according to an analysis of 8 years of data published yesterday in Vaccine.

FSIS head rebuts GAO report on poultry inspections

Alfred Almanza, head of the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), took issue with a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report this week that was critical of some aspects of an FSIS poultry inspection plan, saying the GAO omitted key details.

The GAO report asserted that the USDA took some shortcuts in assessing the plan, called the HACCP-Based Inspection Models Project (HIMP).