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Recent News:
from IRIN: New strains of HIV spreading in Ugandan fishing communities A study of HIV-positive people in fishing communities on the shores of Lake Victoria in central Uganda has found that more than a quarter have "recombinant" viruses that might threaten both treatment and prevention efforts. Of the numerous sub-types of HIV circulating worldwide, A and D are the most common in Uganda and were found in most of the 117 men and women surveyed from five fishing communities in the two districts of Masaka and Wakiso. But the study also found that 29 percent had "recombinant" forms of HIV called A/D and D/A - evidence that re-infection has occurred. Some of the recombinant strains may have been the result of "superinfection" which occurs when an HIV-positive person is re-infected with another strain of HIV and can increase the likelihood of drug resistance to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy if a resistant virus is transmitted and could also speed up disease progression.
from MSN Malaysia: Malaysia mulls landmark trial of GM anti-dengue mosquitoes Malaysia is considering releasing genetically modified mosquitoes designed to combat dengue fever, in a landmark field trial that has come in for criticism from environmentalists. In the first experiment of its kind in Asia, 2,000-3,000 male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes would be released in two Malaysian states in October or November. The insects in the study have been engineered so that their offspring quickly die, curbing the growth of the population in a technique researchers hope could eventually eradicate the dengue mosquito altogether.... But environmentalists are not convinced, and are concerned the genetically modified (GM) mosquito could fail to prevent dengue and could also have unintended consequences. "Once you release these GM mosquitoes into the environment, you have no control and it can create more problems than solving them," said Gurmit Singh, head of the Centre for Environment, Technology and Development. "There are a lot of risks involved," he told AFP.
from PhysOrg: Encephalitis kills 215 in India, toll expected to soar At least 215 people, mostly children, have died in an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis in an impoverished region of northern Indian and the death toll is likely to soar, officials said Saturday. Eastern parts of India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh are ravaged by encephalitis each year as malnourished children succumb to the virus which is transmitted by mosquitoes from pigs to humans but this is one of the worst outbreaks, officials said. The deaths of four more children on Saturday pushed the toll to 215, with hundreds sick, some two to a bed, in hospitals in Gorakhpur, a deeply neglected area of 14 million people, regional health officer U.K. Srivastava told AFP by telephone from Gorakhpur. "A total of 1,324 patients had been admitted in hospitals until Saturday in Gorakhpur," which is the epicentre of the outbreak, and "more encephalitis patients are coming into our hospitals," Srivastava said.
from Agence France-Press via TerraDaily: Cholera epidemic now threatens all of Nigeria: ministry A cholera epidemic that has killed more than 350 people in Nigeria since the start of the year now poses a threat to the entire country, the health ministry said on Wednesday. "Epidemiological evidence indicates that the entire country is at risk," the ministry said in a statement. "Reports received so far from 11 states show we have recorded 6,437 cases with 352 deaths from cholera this year. Most of the outbreaks occurred in the northwest and northeast zones" of the country, it stated. Surveys carried out by the ministry showed that less than 40 percent of the population in the affected states have access to adequate toilet facilities, the statement said.
from MedicalNewsToday: PMO Compounds Show Promise Against Deadly Ebola, Marburg Viruses US scientists have discovered two compounds from a family known as antisense phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers, or PMOs, can protect monkeys infected with Ebola and Marburg viruses from going on to develop lethal hemorrhagic fever, which has a 90 per cent fatality rate in humans; and they are now proceeding with clinical trials. The "proof of concept" study that led to these findings was a collaboration between the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) based at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and AVI BioPharma, a Washington-based biotechnology firm, and was published in the 22 August advanced online issue of Nature Medicine. There are currently no vaccines or effective treatments for the Ebola and Marburg filoviruses, which are commonly transmitted through blood and bodily fluids. However, infection can also occur via the aerosol route, which is why they are a cause of grave concern as potential weapons in biological warfare or terrorism.
from Agence France-Press: New superbugs spreading from South Asia: study Plastic surgery patients have carried a new class of superbugs resistant to almost all antibiotics from South Asia to Britain and they could spread worldwide, researchers reported Wednesday. Many hospital infections that were already difficult to treat have become even more impervious to drugs thanks to a recently discovered gene that can jump across different species of bacteria. This so-called NDM-1 gene was first identified last year by Cardiff University's Timothy Walsh in two types of bacteria -- Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli -- in a Swedish patient admitted to hospital in India. Worryingly, the new NDM-1 bacteria are resistant even to carbapenems, a group of antibiotics often reserved as a last resort for emergency treatment for multi-drug resistant bugs.
from PhysOrg: International travel increasing spread of new drug-resistant bacteria: Is this the end of antibiotics? A new gene [NDM-1] that enables bacteria to be highly resistant to almost all antibiotics is widespread in Enterobacteriaceae taken from patients in India and Pakistan, and has also been found in UK patients who travelled to India for elective surgery.... In some cases, isolates were resistant to all antibiotics. Importantly, the NDM-1 gene was found to be present on plasmids, DNA structures that can be easily copied and transferred between different bacteria, suggesting: "an alarming potential to spread and diversify among bacterial populations".... They go on: "Even more disturbing is that most of the India isolates from Chennai and Haryana were from community-acquired infections, suggesting that NDM-1 is widespread in the environment."... "India also provides cosmetic surgery for other Europeans and Americans, and it is likely NDM-1 will spread worldwide."
from SciDev.net: Sufferers urge progress on sickle cell drug Nicosan "This remedy changed my life," said Tosin Ola, a US-based advocate for sufferers from the disease, who had used the drug since 2007. She has written an open letter, for which she is collecting signatures, to three banks.... "Dust gathers at the Xechem factory that could be our salvation ... equipment to manufacture Nicosan [is] rusting wastefully away while you sit behind your desk ignoring all attempts to put this matter to rest," says the letter. The banks --Bank PHB, Diamond Bank and Nexim -- control Xechem's Nigerian subsidiary following the company's failure to repay loans it obtained from them. Niprisan is based on extracts from West African plants known to a Nigerian family which made a pioneering agreement with NIPRD, widely cited as a case study in "benefit sharing" -- allowing local groups to have a stake in the profits from commercialising indigenous products. The licence to produce the drug was subsequently bought by Xechem International, which held it for six years -- during the last few of which it was dogged by allegations of fraud and mismanagement.
from The Daily Climate: Spread of disease linked to warming climate A deadly infectious disease once thought to be exclusively tropical has gained a toehold in the Pacific Northwest, and health experts suspect climate change is partially to blame. Last week the CDC issued a report warning U.S. doctors to be alert for patients showing signs of a cryptoccocal infection. The infection is spread by a fungus, Cryptococcus gattii, that attacks the nasal cavity and spreads to other body sites, causing pneumonia, meningitis and other lung, brain or muscle ailments. The disease also affects animals. Until 1999 most human cases were limited to Australia and other tropical and sub-tropical regions, including Asia and Africa, along with parts of southern California.
from Columbia University: What's Killing Farmed Salmon? New Virus May Also Pose Risk to Wild Salmon Farmed fish are an increasingly important food source, with a global harvest now at 110 million tons and growing at more than 8 percent a year. But epidemics of infectious disease threaten this vital industry, including one of its most popular products: farmed Atlantic salmon. Perhaps even more worrisome: these infections can spread to wild fish coming in close proximity to marine pens and fish escaping from them....Now, using cutting-edge molecular techniques, an international team led by W. Ian Lipkin, MD, the John Snow Professor of Epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, has found evidence that the disease may be caused by a previously unknown virus. The newly identified virus is related but distinct from previously known reoviruses, which are double-stranded RNA viruses that infect a wide range of vertebrates.
from Washington Post: FDA seeks less use of antibiotics in animals to keep them effective for humans The Food and Drug Administration urged farmers on Monday to stop giving antibiotics to cattle, poultry, hogs and other animals to spur their growth, citing concern that drug overuse is helping to create dangerous bacteria that do not respond to medical treatment and endanger human lives. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the FDA's principal deputy commissioner, said antibiotics should be used only to protect the health of an animal and not to help it grow or improve the way it digests its feed.... The FDA has tried to limit the use of antibiotics in agriculture since 1977, but its efforts have repeatedly collapsed in the face of opposition from the drug industry and farm lobby. But mounting evidence of a global crisis of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has propelled the government to act, said Brad Spellberg, an infectious-diseases specialist and the author of "Rising Plague," a book about antibiotic resistance.
from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Loss of rain forest leads to malaria spike, UW researchers find Chopping down the rain forest can harm animals such as toucans, golden lion tamarind monkeys and poison dart frogs. Now, add another species to the list - humans. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon can lead to malaria epidemics years later, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The findings are some of the most detailed yet to link environmental changes with the spread of disease. The work, published Wednesday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, combined malaria case reports with high-resolution satellite imagery from a remote, sparsely populated region of tropical Brazil about half the size of Rhode Island. For every square kilometer of forest cut down, the number of reported malaria cases spiked by 50 percent, the study found.....In a previous study, the team showed that the population of Anopheles darlingi, the species of mosquito that carries the disease, explodes after deforestation.
from Scientific American: Terror in a Vial When it comes to countering the threat of biological weapons, most governments, including that of the U.S., are still mired in a decades-old nuclear-arms model geared toward preventing hostile nations from acquiring closely guarded weapons-making materials. It is an approach unsuited to the modern reality wherein nonstate actors are more likely than states to use biological warfare agents and the growth of biotechnology is only making those weapons easier to come by. Security experts have long warned that would-be terrorists no longer need to steal deadly pathogens when commonplace genetic engineering techniques could turn a benign microbe into a killer or synthetic biology tools might be used to build a virus from scratch.... Ken Coleman and Raymond A. Zilinskas point to a proliferation of international counterfeiters cashing in on the craze for the wrinkle-smoothing drug Botox, whose active ingredient botulinum neurotoxin is one of the deadliest poisons on earth. Many of the sales take place through Web sites, and most of the counterfeits contain real toxin, meaning that basement brewers may already be cultivating lethal toxin-making bacteria to satisfy avid consumer demand. The authors ask, What is to stop those criminals from simply selling pure toxin to terrorists instead? In fact, what is to stop terrorists themselves from getting into the bootleg Botox business, for profit and easy access to toxin?
from BBC: Sudden oak death spreads across channel to south Wales A deadly tree and plant disease first found in the UK in 2002 has spread to Wales, the Forestry Commission says. Spores of the fungus-like organism referred to as "sudden oak death" have spread across the Bristol Channel to south Wales, said the commission. In 2009 Japanese larch trees in south west England were found to be infected.... The organism, Phytophthora ramorum, gets its common name because it kills many of the trees and plants that it infects, the commission explained. It was first identified eight years ago on a viburnum plant at a garden centre and has since infected shrubs including rhododendrons, viburnums and bilberries. Last year's outbreak made south west England the only place in the world where it has attacked large numbers of commercially grown conifer species.
from CIDRAP: Three countries report growing flu activity Some parts of India and Colombia are reporting increases in pandemic flu activity, along with some deaths, while New Zealand, which is beginning its regular flu season, is reporting a rise in flu-like illnesses, particularly in young children. Yesterday India's health ministry said nine pandemic H1N1 flu fatalities have been reported so far in June, one from Karnataka state and four each from Maharashtra state and the city of Kerala, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported. An official told the news service that the ministry saw a rise in pandemic flu cases following monsoon activity in the area at the end of May. The official said health officials are on alert because they expect more monsoons, but added that the country is more prepared now that a domestically produced pandemic flu vaccine is available, with three more expected to launch soon.... The ministry said the predominant virus is likely to be the pandemic H1N1 strain and advised citizens to take precautions and receive the seasonal flu vaccine, which covers the pandemic virus.
from NPR: New Ebola Drug 100 Percent Effective In Monkeys The Ebola virus first emerged in 1976, striking fear with the uncontrollable bleeding it causes and mortality rates up to 90 percent. Ever since then, scientists have been struggling to find a way to treat the infection or protect against it. There has been progress, but nothing quite like the report in the May 28 issue of the scientific journal The Lancet. A team led by Thomas Geisbert of Boston University has used an experimental drug to protect monkeys from death after injecting them with massive doses of the most lethal strain of Ebola. "We were stunned," Geisbert says. "I've been working with this virus for my whole career -- 23 or 24 years -- and we've had some mild successes where maybe we could go up to 50 percent protection," he said. "But I was really shocked that we got complete protection."... "I think this will most likely also work for other related viral hemorrhagic fevers," Feldmann said, such as Marburg, Lassa and Crimean-Congo fever. All are deadly to one degree or another and cause outbreaks in Africa and elsewhere.
from IRIN: Mutant wheat killer on the prowl Just when scientists thought they had managed to curb a mutant fungus, Ug99, a variation of wheat stem rust, four new forms of the killer pathogen have surfaced in the last three years, posing a significant threat to the world's most consumed cereal. The newest mutation, or race, of Ug99 was discovered in 2009 in South Africa; another was found in the wheat-growing belt of South Africa's Western Cape Province in 2007, said Zak Pretorius, professor of plant pathology at University of the Free State.... The new mutations or "races" have acquired the ability to defeat two of the most important stem rust-resistant genes, used widely in most of the world's wheat breeding programmes. Singh said when the new race of Ug99 surfaced in Kenya, CIMMYT had to delay releasing new lines of wheat that had only one of the stem-rust resistant genes.
from ABC News: Dengue Fever Hits Key West More than two dozen cases of locally-acquired dengue fever have hit the resort town of Key West, Fla., in the past nine months, officials from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Although not the first cases of home-grown dengue in the U.S., or even in Florida, the outbreak highlights the need for physician vigilance regarding this and other formerly exotic tropical diseases, the CDC said in the May 21 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.... Dengue fever is a viral infection transmitted by mosquito bites. It can be debilitating, but is not usually fatal in otherwise healthy people.
from Reuters: Faster, stronger, deadlier: the MRSA superbug When she first described it in 1961, Patricia Jevons, a British bacteriologist, may have had a hard time imagining that the tiny bug she was staring at would soon become a penicillin-mocking juggernaut -- a superbug that kills an estimated 19,000 Americans a year and make millions more sick. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- or MRSA for short -- is the subject of journalist Maryn McKenna's new book Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA (Free Press, March 2010)... But hospitals aren't the only breeding ground for MRSA: A strain known as community-MRSA has been around for years. Although there isn't sufficient surveillance, according to McKenna, one study estimated that seven million Americans make a trip to the doctor every year because of these bacteria.
from New Scientist: Baby vaccine contaminated with pig virus Swine viruses are back - but this time they don't seem to be making anyone sick. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reported that stocks of Merck's Rotateq vaccine against rotavirus are contaminated with the pig viruses PCV1 and PCV2. But the agency has not advised doctors to stop using it as the pig viruses aren't known to cause disease in humans, and rotavirus kills roughly half a million infants worldwide each year. An FDA advisory panel said the vaccine's benefits still outweigh its risks. The FDA plans to monitor recipients for pig virus-related illness. "There will be quite careful monitoring of the people that have received the vaccine and I think that's entirely appropriate," says virologist Stephen Hughes, who advised the FDA on the issue. Rotavirus vaccines are mainly given to infants in the developing world, where the virus is most likely to kill.
from Public Radio International: Outbreak of rare disease in the Netherlands Q-fever, a bacterial infection transmitted by goats, moves from farms to larger population in the Netherlands.... [it] has now infected hundreds of people who have no contact with farms. Most people who contract the illness come down with flu-like symptoms or pneumonia for a few weeks, but some are sick for months and a handful have died.... "It's always been an occupational disease of farmers, slaughter house personnel and veterinarians," said Jos van de Sande, an infectious disease expert at the public health department in the Dutch province of Brabant. But recently, many who have no connection to farms are coming down with Q-fever and the number of patients is growing. Three years ago the Netherlands had fewer than 200 cases. Last year, it had more than 2,000, and at least nine people have died. It's not clear why the disease is spreading. Jos van de Sande says the bacteria may have mutated. "And now Q-fever is spread by the wind, and the whole population can get it."
from University of Montreal, via EurekAlert: Excessive cleanliness to blame for allergy, autoimmune rise Allergies have become a widespread in developed countries: hay fever, eczema, hives and asthma are all increasingly prevalent. The reason? Excessive cleanliness is to blame according to Dr. Guy Delespesse, a professor at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Medicine.... "There is an inverse relationship between the level of hygiene and the incidence of allergies and autoimmune diseases," says Dr. Delespesse. "The more sterile the environment a child lives in, the higher the risk he or she will develop allergies or an immune problem in their lifetime."... Why does this happen? "The bacteria in our digestive system are essential to digestion and also serve to educate our immune system. They teach it how to react to strange substances. This remains a key in the development of a child's immune system." Although hygiene does reduce our exposure to harmful bacteria it also limits our exposure to beneficial microorganisms. As a result, the bacterial flora of our digestive system isn't as rich and diversified as it used to be.
from Wall Street Journal: Bushmeat Presents Latest Food Scare Researchers testing bushmeat smuggled into the U.S. have found strains of a virus in the same family as HIV, according to preliminary findings to be released Wednesday... In 2008, the Wildlife Conservation Society, a nonprofit which runs many of New York City's zoos, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention joined forces to test illegally imported meat entering the New York City area from West Africa for dangerous diseases such as monkey pox, the virus that causes SARS and retroviruses such as HIV... Scientists found two strains of simian foamy virus, commonly found in nonhuman primates, from three species -- two mangabeys and a chimpanzee -- in bushmeat....Bushmeat, often cured or smoked, has entered the U.S. through the mail and in shipping containers. Smugglers also resort to packing smoked monkey or cane rat in personal suitcases.
from Vancouver Sun: Chemical used in everyday products raises concerns The majority of liquid antibacterial soaps contain triclosan as an active ingredient to stop the growth of bacteria and to deodorize. It is also contained in toothpaste, facewash, deodorants and cosmetics. More recently, triclosan is also being added as a bacteria-killer to countertops, kitchenware, toys and clothes. The FDA told Massachusetts congressman Edward Markey the agency shares his "concern" over the potential effects of triclosan in disrupting the body's endocrine system, so the agency is taking another look at the chemical. "It is the FDA's opinion that existing data raise valid concerns about the effects of repetitive daily human exposure to these antiseptic ingredients."... Smith, who banished triclosan from his home years ago after reading studies identifying the antibacterial agent as a possible carcinogen and endocrine disrupter, saw the levels rise in his body by 2,900 times after using, over a two-day period, brand-name deodorant, toothpaste, anti-bacterial soap and shaving cream containing triclosan.
from Society for General Microbiology, via PhysOrg: Possible 'superbug' status for sexually-transmitted infection The rise of multidrug resistance in gonorrhoea-causing bacteria is threatening to make this sexually-transmitted infection extremely difficult to treat. Professor Catherine Ison, speaking at the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting in Edinburgh, highlighted the very real possibility that strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae resistant to all current treatment options could emerge in the near future.... "Choosing an effective antibiotic can be a challenge because the organism that causes gonorrhoea is very versatile and develops resistance to antibiotics very quickly," explained Professor Ison. "Penicillin was used for many years until it was no longer effective and a number of other agents have been used since. The current drugs of choice, ceftriaxone and cefixime, are still very effective but there are signs that resistance particularly to cefixime is emerging and soon these drugs may not be a good choice," she said.
from EurekAlert: Researchers find Clostridium difficile is more common than MRSA in southeast community hospitals Researchers studying epidemiology of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in community hospitals in the southeast U.S. found that rates of Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) surpassed infection rates for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Scientists also discovered that healthcare-associated CDI, which is a bacterium that causes diarrhea and more serious intestinal conditions such as colitis, occurs more often (21 percent) than healthcare-associated infections due to MRSA. In addition, healthcare-associated CDI occurs approximately as often as healthcare-associated bloodstream infections and combined device-related infections.... "In addition, our study likely underestimates the true scope of the problem since we did not include cases of community-onset healthcare-associated CDI."
from The Age: The ticking TB time bomb Widespread misuse of the antibiotics created to combat tuberculosis -- particularly in the former Soviet Union and China -- has led to drug resistant strains that now infect at least half a million people globally each year, less than 3 per cent of whom receive proper treatment. Big cities with high immigration rates such as London and Paris have also had increases in tuberculosis rates. And the United States last year uncovered its first case of XXDR - extremely, extensively drug resistant tuberculosis, a new and virtually untreatable category - in a 19-year-old Peruvian man studying in Florida.... ''Most developing countries don't survey drug resistance. In Indonesia, we think there are nearly half a million new cases [of tuberculosis] a year and we have no clue whatsoever how many of them are MDR [strains resistant to the main first-line drugs] and XDR.''
from Fast Company: Pandemic Architecture: Designers Tackle the Coming Apocalypse We live in terrifying times: Pandemics ranging from bird flu to swine flu regularly threaten to kill millions. Can architecture deal with those problems? Today, New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture is opening a new exhibition, "Landscapes of Quarantine," that explores that question -- It's a delicious exercise in paranoia, blending design and Outbreak-style sci-fi. The show, which runs through April 17, is comprised of 11 projects by artists, architects, and writers. Each was created during a two month studio course led by Geoff Manaugh, the editor of BLDGBLOG, and Nicole Twiley, editor of Edible Geography. One project in particular gives you an idea of the scope and ambition of the exhibition: Architect David Garcia create an illustrated "map" of quarantine possibilities that visitors can take with them.
from IRIN: Pakistan: Wheat rust threat rising Experts say it is only a matter of time before wind carries a deadly wheat stem pathogen into Pakistan, the ninth largest wheat producing nation in the world. Known as Ug99, the disease could potentially decimate the country's highly vulnerable wheat crop and cause a huge food security problem. "There is a real possibility that winds could move the pathogen directly into southern Pakistan from Yemen or even the Horn of Africa. Realistically, I believe it is only a matter of time before Ug99 or variants appear in Pakistan," said David Hodson of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Wheat Rust Disease Global Programme.
from AFP, via PhysOrg: Mexico detects first mutation of swine flu Mexican officials said Wednesday they have confirmed the first mutation of the A(H1N1) flu virus in a girl who survived the infection. Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told Mexican journalists that the case was the first confirmed mutation of the swine flu virus, though there were 423 other suspected cases. He said the girl was treated two months ago at a hospital in Mexico City for a respiratory illness and then returned with a case of severe pneumonia, from which she recovered. Cordova called on anybody with risk factors that could make them more susceptible to the virus to be vaccinated against it, warning that "these viruses can mutate at any time" with serious consequences.
from Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases: Mountain Plover Responses to Plague in Montana We studied the effects of plague and colony spatial characteristics on the occupancy of 81 prairie dog colonies by nesting plovers in Phillips County, Montana, during a 13-year period (1995-2007).... A recent study using many of these same prairie dog colonies (Augustine et al. 2008) found that declines in prairie dog colony area as a result of plague corresponded to rapid (<2 years) declines in mountain plover nesting activity. This is presumably a response to vegetative (Hartley et al. 2009) and possibly other changes that negatively impact the plover.... In this study we further demonstrated negative effects of plague to the plover by examining how they depart and later recolonize colonies affected by plague....
from New York Times: Rising Threat of Infections Unfazed by Antibiotics ...Acinetobacter baumannii...is one of a category of bacteria that by some estimates are already killing tens of thousands of hospital patients each year. While the organisms do not receive as much attention as the one known as MRSA -- for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- some infectious-disease specialists say they could emerge as a bigger threat..."In many respects it's far worse than MRSA," said Dr. Louis B. Rice, an infectious-disease specialist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland V.A. Medical Center and at Case Western Reserve University.
from PhysOrg.com: Antibiotics as active mutagens in the emergence of multidrug resistance It is commonly thought that an incomplete course of antibiotics would lead to resistance to that particular antibiotic by allowing the bacteria to make adaptive changes under less stringent conditions.... However, new research... shows that low doses of antibiotics can produce mutant strains that are sensitive to the applied antibiotic but have cross-resistance to other antibiotics. Their findings shed light on one of multiple mechanisms that may contribute to the emergence of multidrug resistant bacterial strains or so called "superbugs".
from London Daily Telegraph: China threatens world health by unleashing waves of superbugs China's reckless use of antibiotics in the health system and agricultural production is unleashing an explosion of drug resistant superbugs that endanger global health, according to leading scientists. Chinese doctors routinely hand out multiple doses of antibiotics for simple maladies like the sore throats and the country's farmers excessive dependence on the drugs has tainted the food chain. Studies in China show a "frightening" increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus bacteria, also know as MRSA. There are warnings that new strains of antibiotic-resistant bugs will spread quickly through international air travel and internation[al] food sourcing.
from New York Times: U.S.D.A. Plans to Drop Program to Trace Livestock Faced with stiff resistance from ranchers and farmers, the Obama administration has decided to scrap a national program intended to help authorities quickly identify and track livestock in the event of an animal disease outbreak....The system was created by the Bush administration in 2004 after the discovery in late 2003 of a cow infected with mad cow disease. Participation of ranchers and farmers in the identification system was voluntary, but the goal was to give every animal, or in the case of pigs and poultry, groups of animals, a unique identification number that would be entered in a database. The movements of animals would be tracked, and if there was a disease outbreak or a sick animal was found, officials could quickly locate other animals that had been exposed. In abandoning the program, called the National Animal Identification System, officials said they would start over in trying to devise a livestock tracing program that could win widespread support from the industry....
from Detroit Free Press: Fatal fish virus now in all of the Great Lakes A fatal fish virus has been detected in Lake Superior for the first time, meaning it has spread to all the Great Lakes, Cornell University researchers said Wednesday. Scientists said they recently detected the viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS, while testing fish in the largest of the Great Lakes. VHS has been identified in 28 freshwater fish species within the Great Lakes watershed since 2005, including sport and commercial varieties such as walleye, muskellunge and whitefish. It causes bleeding, bloated abdomens and bulging eyes in fish before killing them. Although not dangerous for humans, the virus has caused large fish kills in Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron. It also has turned up in Lake Michigan.
from BioMed Central via ScienceDaily: Polar Bear Droppings Advance Superbug Debate Scientists investigating the spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs have gone the extra mile for their research -- all the way to the Arctic. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Microbiology found little sign of the microbes in the droppings of polar bears that have had limited or no contact with humans, suggesting that the spread of antibiotic resistance genes seen in other animals may be the result of human influence....
from London Independent: Deadly animal diseases poised to infect humans The world is facing a growing threat from new diseases that are jumping the human-animal species barrier as a result of environmental disruption, global warming and the progressive urbanisation of the planet, scientists have warned. At least 45 diseases that have passed from animals to humans have been reported to UN agencies in the last two decades, with the number expected to escalate in the coming years. Dramatic changes to the environment are triggering major alterations to human disease patterns on a scale last seen during the industrial revolution.
from Scripps Research Institute via ScienceDaily: 'Lifeless' Prions Capable of Evolutionary Change and Adaptation Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have determined for the first time that prions, bits of infectious protein devoid of DNA or RNA that can cause fatal neurodegenerative disease, are capable of Darwinian evolution. The study from Scripps Florida in Jupiter shows that prions can develop large numbers of mutations at the protein level and, through natural selection, these mutations can eventually bring about such evolutionary adaptations as drug resistance, a phenomenon previously known to occur only in bacteria and viruses. These breakthrough findings also suggest that the normal prion protein -- which occurs naturally in human cells -- may prove to be a more effective therapeutic target than its abnormal toxic relation.
from Los Angeles Times: Study bolsters concerns that disinfectants create superbugs Disinfectants, be they hand sanitizers or industrial-strength cleaners, present a hospital's first blockade against bacterial infection. But this same weapon may be helping create stronger microbial enemies: superbugs that are resistant to disinfectants and commonly used antibiotics, scientists report in the January issue of the journal Microbiology.... If hospital workers do not use enough disinfectant for a long enough period of time to kill every last bacterium on a surface, they could be providing an ideal breeding ground for new superbugs, [National University of Ireland microbiologist Gerard] Fleming concluded. "Absolutely and certainly you must use disinfectant in hospital environments," he said. "The message, for heaven's sake, is use disinfectants properly."
from Newcastle Journal: Scientists fear life-saving drugs could soon be useless DECADES of man-made pollution of the environment is leaving a legacy which could see disease-fighting drugs rendered increasingly ineffective, North East scientists fear. Soil studies by a Newcastle University team indicate a rising level of bacteria in nature with a gene which is resistant to the antibiotic drugs that have improved health dramatically over the last 50 years or so. A rising "background" level of resistance makes it more likely that pathogenic, or disease-causing bacteria, acquire the resistant gene....ears of pollution had placed pressure on organisms, many of which live naturally in the soil. Antibiotics pass into the environment from waste from humans and farm animals, which has seen organisms evolve to defend themselves.
from Agence France-Presse: Cleaning agents may help superbugs grow Disinfectants commonly used in homes and medical facilities can boost the resistance of some bacteria to life-saving antibiotics, according to a study released on Monday. The findings shed light on how at least one pathogen - Pseudomonas aeruginosa - spreads, and could apply to other hospital superbugs as well, the authors say... In laboratory experiments, researchers showed that the bug can rapidly mutate, building resistance to progressively higher doses of a disinfectant known as BSK, or benzalkonium chloride.
from Associated Press: Malaria and other diseases coming back worldwide in new and more deadly forms ...Malaria is just one of the leading killer infectious diseases battling back in a new and more deadly form, the AP found in a six-month look at the soaring rates of drug resistance worldwide. After decades of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and staph have started to mutate. The result: The drugs are slowly dying. Already, The Associated Press found, resistance to malaria has spread faster and wider than previously documented. Dr. White said virtually every case of malaria he sees in western Cambodia is now resistant to drugs.... People generate drug resistant malaria when they take too little medicine, substandard medicine or -- as is all too often the case around O'treng -- counterfeit medicine with a pinch of the real stuff. Once established, the drug-resistant malaria is spread by mosquitoes. So one person's counterfeit medicine can eventually spawn widespread resistant disease.
from Scientific American: Bugs Inside: What Happens When the Microbes That Keep Us Healthy Disappear? Bacteria, viruses and fungi have been primarily cast as the villains in the battle for better human health. But a growing community of researchers is sounding the warning that many of these microscopic guests are really ancient allies. Having evolved along with the human species, most of the miniscule beasties that live in and on us are actually helping to keep us healthy, just as our well-being promotes theirs... With rapid changes in sanitation, medicine and lifestyle in the past century, some of these indigenous species are facing decline, displacement and possibly even extinction....
from Associated Press: First case of highly drug-resistant TB found in US It started with a cough, an autumn hack that refused to go away. Then came the fevers. They bathed and chilled the skinny frame of Oswaldo Juarez, a 19-year-old Peruvian visiting to study English. His lungs clattered, his chest tightened and he ached with every gasp. During a wheezing fit at 4 a.m., Juarez felt a warm knot rise from his throat. He ran to the bathroom sink and spewed a mouthful of blood.... Doctors say Juarez's incessant hack was a sign of what they have both dreaded and expected for years -- this country's first case of a contagious, aggressive, especially drug-resistant form of tuberculosis. The Associated Press learned of his case, which until now has not been made public, as part of a six-month look at the soaring global challenge of drug resistance. Juarez's strain -- so-called extremely drug-resistant (XXDR) TB -- has never before been seen in the U.S....
from SciDev.net: African killer is a new Salmonella strain A deadly type of Salmonella that is killing one in four infected people in Africa is a new strain, scientists have discovered. Salmonella enterica Typhimurium is a foodborne bug that causes diarrhoea and is usually non-fatal. The strain found in Africa was thought to kill only people with compromised immune systems. But now a collaboration between African and UK scientists to genetically sequence the strain -- called ST313 -- has shown that it has mutated to become resistant to many commonly used drugs.
from Toronto Globe and Mail: As toll mounts, researchers peer into the H1N1 death spiral The lungs were heavy, difficult to deflate, and beefy looking. To the pathologist who held them, they belied their own anatomy, resembling a liver. They belonged to an Ontarian who, until contracting H1N1, had been healthy and in early middle age. Within days, the person was dead, being dissected at Toronto's University Health Network. Pathologists concurred on the likely mechanism of death -- an immune system reaction, most common among the young and people in their prime, called a cytokine storm. "Once the inflammatory cascade gets established, it's like a runaway freight train -- it's just going to keep going," said pathologist David Hwang, who consulted on the samples. "In some of these patients, even if you clear the virus, the cytokine storm has already taken hold and it takes on a life of its own." It's a fatal irony: A robust immune system can be hazardous to your health. In some cases, it's the reaction to the flu -- more so than the virus itself -- that sets off the death spiral. So far, 309 people have died across Canada since the pandemic began in the spring, and roughly one-third had no underlying health conditions.
from CIDRAP: Clusters of resistant H1N1 cases reported in UK, US Health officials in Wales today announced the identification of a cluster of patients in a Cardiff hospital who are infected with oseltamivir-resistant pandemic H1N1 influenza. Also today, Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., reported that oseltamivir-resistant H1N1 viruses were found in four very sick patients hospitalized there over the past 6 weeks. A Duke press release said all four patients had been in the same hospital unit, but it did not specify how many were there at the same time.... "It took some time before seasonal H1N1 became widely Tamiflu-resistant [a fact that became clear last winter], and I suspect the same pattern will apply with 2009 H1N1 virus," he added. "At the moment there is no cause for alarm."
from All Things Considered: Flu Threat Looms As Mecca Readies For Pilgrims Anxious health officials in Saudi Arabia say that for the first time in recorded history, a global pandemic could affect the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The H1N1 virus is a major concern for authorities in Saudi Arabia, who are gearing up to host some 2.5 million Muslim pilgrims from 160 countries later this month.... This proximity is exactly the problem, says Dr. Shahul Ebrahim of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There is no space in between the persons. They stand shoulder to shoulder, touching objects of religious significance," he explains. He adds that when Muslims pray, they prostrate on the ground, touching the carpets or floors -- another way they might come into contact with bodily fluids.
from Henry Ford Health System, via EurekAlert: A MRSA strain linked to high death rates A strain of MRSA that causes bloodstream infections is five times more lethal than other strains and has shown to have some resistance to the potent antibiotic drug vancomycin used to treat MRSA, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study. The study found that 50 percent of the patients infected with the strain died within 30 days compared to 11 percent of patients infected with other MRSA strains. The average 30-day mortality rate for MRSA bloodstream infections ranges from 10 percent to 30 percent.
from Los Angeles Times: FDA urged to ban feeding of chicken feces to cattle A fight is brewing over the practice of feeding chicken feces and other poultry farm waste to cattle. A coalition of food and consumer groups that includes Consumers Union and the Center for Science in the Public Interest has asked the Food and Drug Administration to ban the practice. McDonald's Corp., the nation's largest restaurant user of beef, also wants the FDA to prohibit the feeding of so-called poultry litter to cattle. Members of the coalition are threatening to file a lawsuit or to push for federal legislation establishing such a ban if the FDA doesn't act to do so in the coming months. Farmers feed 1 million to 2 million tons of poultry litter to their cattle annually, according to FDA estimates. Using the litter -- which includes feces, spilled chicken feed, feathers and poultry farm detritus -- increases the risk of cows becoming infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union.
from Washington Post: Back where virus started, new scrutiny of pig farming ...Little is known about the origin of the novel H1N1. But one thing is virtually certain: The bug now infecting the people of more than 190 countries began in a pig....A major concern now is what might happen if the pandemic H1N1 virus spreads widely in pigs, and then out again into the human population....What worries virologists is the mixing of human and swine flu strains -- or, worse, human, swine and bird strains. That can lead to "reassortment," in which strands of genetic material are exchanged to yield a new virus, often with behavior not seen in its parents.
from Bloomberg News: Minnesota Pigs Tested for H1N1, May Be First in U.S. (Update2) Three pigs from the Minnesota state fair have been "tentatively identified" as having swine flu in what may be the first U.S. cases of the H1N1 virus among domestic livestock. The pigs were tested at the fair from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1 and "have probably gone to slaughter," Gene Hugoson, the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, said today on a conference call with reporters. The pigs, which did not exhibit flu symptoms at the fair, were tested as part of a university project.... The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the World Health Organization have said the H1N1 virus is not transmitted through properly handled pork. Concern over the illness has eroded pork demand and U.S. exports of the meat, sending hog futures down 25 percent since April 23, when the outbreak started. China, once the second-largest importer of U.S. pork, has blocked shipments.
from Science News: Excreted Tamiflu found in rivers The premier flu-fighting drug is contaminating rivers downstream of sewage-treatment facilities, researchers in Japan confirm. The source: urinary excretion by people taking oseltamivir phosphate, best known as Tamiflu. Concerns are now building that birds, which are natural influenza carriers, are being exposed to waterborne residues of Tamiflu's active form and might develop and spread drug-resistant strains of seasonal and avian flu.
from TIME: The Desperate Need for New Antibiotics But now global health officials face an approaching crisis: the number of different antibiotics available to treat such infections when they do occur is dwindling because pharmaceutical companies have neglected to invest in the development of new types of drugs. Bacterial and parasitic diseases are the second-leading cause of death worldwide, according to a report on antibiotic research released Sept. 17 by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), with 175,000 deaths attributed to hospital-acquired infections each year in Europe alone. And due to the emergence of drug-resistant "superbugs," such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), traditional antibiotics such as Penicillin and its derivatives are becoming obsolete. New antibiotics are desperately needed, but the amount of money being spent on the research and development of these drugs is woefully inadequate.
from Reuters: Mosquito-Borne African Virus A New Threat To West The United States and Europe face a new health threat from a mosquito-borne disease far more unpleasant than the West Nile virus that swept into North America a decade ago, a U.S. expert said on Friday. Chikungunya virus has spread beyond Africa since 2005, causing outbreaks and scores of fatalities in India and the French island of Reunion. It also has been detected in Italy, where it has begun to spread locally, as well as France. "We're very worried," Dr. James Diaz of the Louisiana University Health Sciences Center told a meeting on airlines, airports and disease transmission sponsored by the independent U.S. National Research Council. "Unlike West Nile virus, where nine out of 10 people are going to be totally asymptomatic, or may have a mild headache or a stiff neck, if you get Chikungunya you're going to be sick," he said. "The disease can be fatal. It's a serious disease," Diaz added. "There is no vaccine."
from USA Today: MRSA 'superbug' found in ocean, public beaches Public beaches may be one source of the surging prevalence of the superbug known as multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, researchers here said Saturday. A study by researchers at the University of Washington has for the first time identified methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA) in marine water and beach sand from seven public beaches on the Puget Sound. The researchers identified Staph bacteria on nine of 10 public beaches that they tested. Seven of 13 Staph aureus samples, found on five beaches, were multidrug resistant, says lead investigator Marilyn Roberts.
from AP, via NYT: Dangerous Staph Germs Found at West Coast Beaches Dangerous staph bacteria have been found in sand and water for the first time at five public beaches along the coast of Washington, and scientists think the state is not the only one with this problem. The germ is MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- a hard-to-treat bug once rarely seen outside of hospitals but that increasingly is spreading in ordinary community settings such as schools, locker rooms and gyms. The germ causes nasty skin infections as well as pneumonia and other life-threatening problems. It spreads mostly through human contact. Little is known about environmental sources that also may harbor the germ.... In the new study, researchers tested 10 beaches in Washington along the West Coast and in Puget Sound from February to September 2008. Staph bacteria were found at nine of them, including five with MRSA. The strains resembled the highly resistant ones usually seen in hospitals, rather than the milder strains acquired in community settings, Roberts said.... "Make sure you get all the sand off," and cover any open cuts or scrapes before playing in the sand, Roberts added.
from Reuters: U.S. campers developed drug-resistant flu: report Two girls given antiviral drugs in an effort to protect children at a summer camp from the new pandemic swine flu developed resistant virus, U.S. health officials reported on Thursday.... Flu viruses are mutation-prone and experts are not surprised that they would evolve resistance, just as bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. But the CDC would like to preserve the benefits of Tamiflu and Relenza for as long as possible. Tamiflu and Relenza not only fight flu. They can prevent infection if given soon enough. And a doctor at a North Carolina summer camp decided to protect 600 campers and staff there with so-called prophylactic doses of Tamiflu. Two girls developed flu anyway. As they were cabin-mates, it is possible one infected the other, the CDC and North Carolina health investigators said. Checks showed they were both infected with viruses that had mutations giving them resistance to Tamiflu.
from OzarksFirst.com: Many Can't Afford Sick Days with Flu Health officials are already bracing for flu season and now doctors worry the tight economy will only make matters worse. "You can't afford to be sick because if you are sick and it doesn't work out to where the company accepts your excuse, you could lose more time off and result in disciplinary action," says Don Marshall of Kansas City, one of the millions of Americans who don't get sick pay. Doctors worry employees who don't get sick pay may go to work despite having the flu. This could mean the virus will spread to more people, faster than expected.
from Environmental Health News: Unprecedented levels of antibiotics pollute India's water. Levels of antibiotics measured in streams, lakes and well water near pharmaceutical factories in India are 100,000 to 1,000,000 times higher than levels measured in waters that receive sewage effluent in the US or China. Much of the world's supply of generic antibiotics is produced in the study area.... These levels of contamination are alarming for two reasons. First, they may adversely affect human health following exposure to contaminated water. The health effects of ongoing exposure to high concentrations of mixtures of pharmaceutical mixtures are largely unknown. This is especially true for a developing fetus, baby or child. Second, they generate conditions that may foster development of antibiotic resistant strains of pathogens.
from Environmental Health Perspectives: Swine CAFOs and Novel H1N1 Flu: Separating Facts from Fears ...one potential source of the original outbreak--swine farming in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)--has received comparatively little attention by public health officials. CAFOs house animals by the thousands in crowded indoor facilities. But the same economy-of-scale efficiencies that allow CAFOs to produce affordable meat for so many consumers also facilitate the mutation of viral pathogens into novel strains that can be passed on to farm workers and veterinarians, according to Gregory Gray, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa College of Public Health.... Gray says workers exposed routinely to livestock can pass these zoonotic infections--which transmit readily among humans and animals--on to the wider public. However, public health agencies that monitor risks from zoonotic infections routinely overlook CAFO workers, according to Ellen Silbergeld, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
from Agence France-Presse: Swine flu spreading at 'unbelievable' rate: WHO chief Swine flu spreads four times faster than other viruses and 40 percent of the fatalities are young adults in good health, the world's top health official warned in an interview appearing Saturday. "This virus travels at an unbelievable, almost unheard of speed," World Health Organisation Director General Margaret Chan told France's Le Monde daily in an interview. "In six weeks it travels the same distance that other viruses take six months to cover," Chan said. "Sixty percent of the deaths cover those who have underlying health problems," Chan said. "This means that 40 percent of the fatalities concern young adults -- in good health -- who die of a viral fever in five to seven days.
from Times of India: Swine flu toll touches 15 in Pune, India's death toll 23 Pune: Five people, including two septuagenarian women and an AIDS patient, today died of swine flu here taking the death toll in the city to 15.... Another senior citizen, Bharati Goyal, who was suffering from fever and breathlessness for the last four days, had been on ventilator when she died today of suspected swine flu, sources said. 37-year-old Archana Kolhe, who was shifted to government-run Sassoon Hospital on August 10 with fever and acute respiratory problems from a private hospital, succumbed to the flu in the afternoon, Pune Municipal Corporation Commissioner Mahesh Zagade told reporters.
from Wall Street Journal: Developing World's Parasites, Disease Hit US Parasitic infections and other diseases usually associated with the developing world are cropping up with alarming frequency among U.S. poor, especially in states along the U.S.-Mexico border, the rural South and in Appalachia, according to researchers...."These are diseases that we know are ten-fold more important than swine flu," said Peter Hotez, a microbiologist at George Washington University and leading researcher in this field. "They're on no one's radar." The insect-borne diseases -- among them, Chagas and dengue fever -- thrive in shanty towns along the Mexican border, where many homes have no window screens and where poor drainage allows standing puddles for bugs to breed. Outbreaks of a bacterial infection transmitted in rat urine have cropped up among the urban poor in Baltimore and Detroit.... These diseases share a common thread. "People who live in the suburbs are at very low risk," Dr. Hotez said.
from The Canadian Press: Soldiers returning from Afghanistan bringing home superbug MONTREAL — Canadian soldiers are bringing home from dusty Afghanistan a powerful, drug-resistant superbug that health officials have been worrying about for several years. Three Canadian soldiers who recently returned from Kandahar carrying so-called "Iraqibacter" are under quarantine at a civilian hospital in Quebec City. Two civilian patients who came in close contact with the soldiers at Hopital de l'Enfant-Jesus have also been isolated for fear they may have contracted the superbug officially named Acinetobacter baumannii. The hospital-acquired germ, commonly found in soil and water, strikes weakened immune systems, especially in those recovering from wounds. It has been known to cause conditions such as pneumonia, meningitis as well as blood, urinary tract and wound infections.
from Miller-McCune: Playing Chicken With Antibiotic Resistance ...Citing concerns that injecting eggs with antibiotics "presents a risk to the public health," the FDA issued a rule in July 2008 that severely limited antibiotic use in hatcheries. The aim, the FDA said in a carefully reasoned statement backed by government studies from the U.S., Canada and Europe, was to restrict use of a class of antibiotics due to fears that misuse on farms reduced the antibiotics' effectiveness for humans — a concern long voiced by the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization and public health agencies in numerous countries. Coming from a federal agency with sweeping legal powers and powerful law-enforcement capabilities, the FDA's rule was tough stuff — or so it seemed at first. But that was before the powerful U.S. chicken lobby — sometimes dubbed "Big Chicken" — stepped in. Within weeks of the FDA's antibiotic prohibition, a barn burner of a fight, pitting scientists against farmers and physicians against veterinarians, ignited across the continent. Then, three weeks before the ban was to go into effect, FDA policymakers — mindful of an earlier ban on antibiotic use in poultry that was won only after years of litigation — suddenly abandoned their own ruling.
from New Scientist: Swine flu: How experts are preparing their families As the swine flu pandemic continues to sweep the world, what do public health officials, epidemiologists and flu researchers think will happen in the coming months? When New Scientist asked 60 of them, it turned out that half are concerned enough about the possibility of a virulent swine flu outbreak to take precautions such as acquiring a supply of Tamiflu for their families. Though most do not think it likely that a nastier strain will emerge, many are worried that if it did, their local hospitals and other parts of the health infrastructure could not cope.... How likely is it that a more virulent strain will emerge? The majority of respondents did not rule it out: two thirds said they thought that higher virulence was "possible". Only a small proportion said it was "likely" (see table). One respondent, Laurence Tiley, a molecular virologist at the University of Cambridge, says there is no reason to expect that the virus will become substantially more virulent. There have been too few pandemics to make any concrete predictions, he explains.
from BBC: Flu drugs 'unhelpful' in children Research has cast doubt on the policy of giving antiviral drugs to children for swine flu. Work in the British Medical Journal shows Tamiflu and Relenza rarely prevent complications in children with seasonal flu, yet carry side effects. Although they did not test this in the current swine flu pandemic, the authors say these drugs are unlikely to help children who catch the H1N1 virus. The government has stuck by its policy of offering them to anyone infected.
from American Thoracic Society, via EurekAlert: Misuse of common antibiotic is creating resistant TB Use of a common antibiotic may be undercutting its utility as a first-line defense against drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Fluoroquinolones are the most commonly prescribed class of antibiotics in the U.S. and are used to fight a number of different infections such as sinusitis and pneumonia. They are also an effective first line of defense against TB infections that show drug resistance. New research shows, however, that widespread general use of fluoroquinolones may be creating a strain of fluoroquinolone-resistant TB.... Overall, patients who had used fluoroquinolones within 12 months of diagnosis were almost five times as likely to have a fluoroquinolone-resistant strain of TB than those who had not used fluoroquinolones, and there was a linear association between length of fluoroquinolone use and fluoroquinolone resistance.
from London Daily Telegraph: A new superbug found in Britain is major concern: Government scientists A new superbug that is resistant to all antibiotics has been brought into Britain by patients having surgery abroad, Government scientists said. Doctors are urged to be vigilent for a new bug that has arriving in Britain with patients who have travelled to India and Pakistan for cosmetic surgery or organ transplants and is now circulating here. So far there have been 22 cases in 17 hospitals Britain and the Health Protection Agency has said its emergence here is a 'major concern'... It is of particular concern because it can jump from one strain of bacteria to another meaning it could attach itself to more dangerous infections that can cause severe illnesses and blood poisoning making them almost impossible to treat.
from Associated Press: China seals off NW town as plague kills 2nd man China locked down a remote farming town after two people died and 10 more were sickened with pneumonic plague, a lung infection that can kill a human in 24 hours if left untreated. Police set up checkpoints around Ziketan in northwestern Qinghai province, where townspeople reached by The Associated Press by phone Monday said the streets were largely deserted and most shops shut. Authorities urged anyone who had visited the town of 10,000 people since mid-July and has developed a cough or fever to seek hospital treatment... According to WHO, pneumonic plague is one of the deadliest infectious diseases, capable of killing humans within 24 hours of infection. It is spread through the air and can be passed from person to person through coughing.
from Reuters: Swine flu striking pregnant women hard: CDC study Pregnant women infected with the new H1N1 swine flu have a much higher risk of severe illness and death and should receive prompt treatment with antiviral drugs, U.S. government researchers said on Wednesday. While pregnant woman have always had a higher risk of severe disease from influenza in general, the new H1N1 virus is taking an exceptionally heavy toll, the researchers said. "We do see a fourfold increase in hospitalization rates among ill pregnant women compared to the general population," Dr. Denise Jamieson of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said
from Los Angeles Times: Swine flu could kill hundreds of thousands in U.S. if vaccine fails, CDC says Hundreds of thousands of Americans could die over the next two years if the vaccine and other control measures for the new H1N1 influenza are not effective, and, at the pandemic's peak, as much as 40 percent of the workforce could be affected, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is admittedly a worst-case scenario that the federal agency says it doesn't expect to occur. Well, there's more stories than this -- but that was 75 of them! You may want to try the PANICloud for more specific topics! |
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