Diseases & Outbreaks News and Discussions

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Malawi Scientists Have a Plan to Fight One of Their Country’s Biggest Killers
by Kelsey Piper
November 3, 2022

Extract:
(Vox) You probably don’t think about tuberculosis much. Growing up, I only read about it in history books, where it was often referred to as consumption and where it shortened the lives of such famous people as the poet John Keats, the playwright Anton Chekhov, and all the Brontë siblings. It’s a bacterial disease that lives mostly in the lungs, though if untreated it can spread throughout the body.

One thing that would make a huge difference for the fight against tuberculosis would be a better infant vaccine — and there are some candidates in the works. Recently, I heard from 1Day Africa, the African division of the nonprofit 1DaySooner, which works toward developing vaccines faster and ensuring everyone in the world can access them, about efforts in Malawi to get a human challenge trial of a promising new TB vaccine underway.

The logic of human challenge trials goes like this: Normally, vaccines are tested by vaccinating lots of people, and then waiting until some of them naturally get exposed to the disease. But that can mean the trials last for years, with millions of people dying in the meantime. For some vaccines, then, it makes more sense to test directly: A few weeks after volunteers are vaccinated, they are exposed to the infectious disease and monitored to see if they get sick (and make sure they get the medical treatments needed to recover if they do).

Challenge trials have been used for diseases like malaria and cholera. But they aren’t usually conducted for tuberculosis, partly because the long latency and long required course of treatment for the disease make such trials tricky. In particular, it’s hard to know for sure that a case of tuberculosis is gone and therefore hard to know that there’s no risk of innocent people being infected.

For years, though, tuberculosis researchers have been arguing that the human challenge model could significantly accelerate research on and development of a better TB vaccine. “The alternatives to a human challenge trial are very very expensive,” Josh Morrison, president of 1Day Sooner, told me. And since the people affected by TB are mostly poor, the unfathomable sums of money needed aren’t likely to be put up by pharmaceutical companies or rich-country governments.
Read more here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/202 ... s-vaccine
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Flu and Colds Are Back With a Vengeance — Why Now?
by Cassandra Willyard
November 10, 2022

Introduction:
(Nature) Restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 markedly blunted the spread of other respiratory illnesses. Influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) — a seasonal virus that usually causes mild cold-like symptoms, but that can be dangerous for young children and older adults — all but disappeared in 2020 and early 2021. Now, in the Northern Hemisphere, RSV is surging, and the hospitalization rate for flu in the United States is higher for this time of year than it has been since 2010. Why exactly are these surges happening now? And what’s in store for future winters?

“These viruses are coming back, and they’re coming back with a vengeance,” says Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “It is possible that this year will be sort of the granddaddy of them all in terms of flu.”

Hensley says that this is because the population “is more immunologically naive than what we would expect in most years”. Normally, children get infected by their second birthday. Now, “you’re going to end up having kids that are three, four years of age right now who have never seen RSV”.

For older children and adults who have been previously infected, the problem is waning immunity. In the absence of exposure to a virus, antibody levels decline. In a typical year, “we might get exposed to a small bit of virus and your body fights it off”, says John Tregoning, an immunologist at Imperial College London. But “that kind of asymptomatic boosting maybe hasn’t happened in the last few years”.
Read more here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03666-9
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Rare Brain-Eating Amoeba Appears to Be Spreading Further Around the U.S.
by James Felton
November 24, 2022

Introduction:
(IFL Science) A rare, brain-eating amoeba appears to be spreading further around the US, infecting people in states where it isn't usually found.

Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba – a single-celled organism that moves via crawling – that lives in freshwater lakes, rivers and hot springs alongside other species of Naegleria. It differs from the other harmless species, however, in that given the chance it will devour your brain.

Fowleri is the only species of naegleria that can infect humans, generally doing so in higher temperatures where it thrives, in bodies of water that are shallow. Infections (though incredibly rare) are picked up typically when people put their heads under the water, with the amoeba traveling up the nose and into the brain, where it causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a disease which is "almost always fatal" at 97 percent, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Once in the brain, it begins to destroy brain tissue, producing similar symptoms – such as headache, fever, stiff neck and confusion – to bacterial meningitis. Lack of attention to surroundings, seizures and coma also occur in patients, and the disease usually causes death within five days of the onset of symptoms. Of the 154 people known to have been infected by the amoeba since 1962, only four have survived.

Infections are, thankfully, incredibly rare, with only 31 reported infections over the last decade. However, the areas where the amoeba has been found (and infected people) have been expanding further around the US as temperatures increase.
Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/rare-brain- ... -us-66372
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Ancient Pathogen Is 'Imminent Threat' in Every Part of The World, WHO Warns
by Michael Head
December 7, 2022

Introduction:
(Science Alert) One consequence of the pandemic was reduced access to routine healthcare and lower uptake of immunisations. As a result, in November 2022, the World Health Organization declared measles to be an "imminent threat in every region of the world".

They described how a record number of nearly 40 million children had missed at least one measles vaccine dose in 2021.

Conclusion:
Misinformation since the start of the COVID pandemic has been extensive. And there is a risk of this misinformation further translating into greater levels of hesitancy and vaccine refusal for routine immunisation.

Measles spreads easily and is a severe infection in the short- and long-term in unvaccinated populations. There is a great need for immunisation campaigns to increasingly protect against vaccine-preventable diseases, across the globe.

The need is particularly urgent in developing countries and among other vulnerable populations such as refugees and areas of conflict.
Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-p ... who-warns
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Race to Control ‘Tripledemic’ as Cases of RSV in Children Sweep U.S. and Europe
by Linda Geddes
December 9, 2022

Introduction:
(The Guardian) Before Covid, few people had heard of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Increasingly, though, this common cause of pneumonia and bronchiolitis (airway inflammation) is filling up hospital beds across Europe and the Americas. Combined with rising admissions for other respiratory infections, including influenza and Covid, it is pushing some healthcare systems close to the brink of collapse.

In its latest report, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said a number of countries had been experiencing unusually early increases in RSV detections, with rising paediatric hospital admissions in France, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and the US.

“With the continued impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the circulation and health impact of other respiratory pathogens, it is challenging to predict how the new winter period will develop,” a joint statement by the ECDC, European Commission and World Health Organization said.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) issued a similar statement last month, as the virus burdens healthcare systems across Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, and the US, with children and infants under the age of one particularly affected. “The rise of a single respiratory infection is a cause for concern. When two or three start impacting a population concurrently, this should put us all on alert,” said the PAHO director, Dr Carissa F Etienne.
Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/science/20 ... ial-virus
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UK Strep A death toll among children rises to 16 after schoolchild, 12, killed by illness

17:09, 9 Dec 2022
A pupil at a school in Sussex who is suspected to have had invasive Strep A infection has died, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said.

The pupil, whose gender was not given, had attended Hove Park School.

Specialists from the UKHSA are working with Brighton and Hove City Council to support the school following the death.

Dr Rachael Hornigold, consultant in health protection at UKHSA South East, said: "We are extremely saddened to hear about the death of a young child and our thoughts are with their family, friends and the local community.

"Infection with Group A Streptococcus bacterium usually causes a sore throat, scarlet fever or skin rash, and is passed by physical contact or through droplets from sneezing or coughing.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/b ... g-28697060
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Glad I got my shot.

-----

Flu hospital admission rates shoot up to overtake Covid

24 minutes ago

Hospital admission rates for flu have risen sharply in the past week and have now overtaken admissions for Covid-19 in England, latest figures show.

Health officials are urging everyone eligible to get a flu vaccine and/or a Covid booster jab.

The under-fives and over-85s are most likely to become ill with flu, but vaccine take-up is low in young children.

Covid is also beginning to increase again, infecting one in 50 people.

As people mix more indoors than in previous years, winter viruses are rising, including flu and Covid, with health officials warning they are expected to continue going up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64002174


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