Diseases & Outbreaks News and Discussions

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caltrek
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Lyme Disease Is Having a Huge Surge in Rural Parts of the U.S.
by Dr. Beccy Corkill
August 3, 2022

Introduction:
(IFL Science) A stroll through a rural area can be tranquil and wonderous, however, what you may not expect is the risk of Lyme disease. This tickborne disease has seen notable growth in the United States over the last 15 years. A newly released private insurance claims report is the latest to show diagnoses are on the rise, particularly in rural areas.

Between 2007 and 2021, private insurance claim lines with Lyme disease diagnoses increased dramatically by 357 percent in rural areas and 65 percent in urban areas. It should be noted that the claim lines are not the same as individual cases, where one patient with Lyme disease may have multiple claim lines.

Lyme disease is transmitted by a tick that is infected with the corkscrew-shaped bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi or less frequently Borrelia mayonii. When the outside-dwelling tick is feasting on its scrumptious host, the bacteria can be transferred from the tick’s salivary glands into host’s body. In humans, the bacteria multiply and evade the host’s immune system leading to Lyme disease.

The most distinctive sign of infection is the Erythema migrans (EM) rash, that occurs in 70 to 80 percent of infected people, and has a "bull’s eye" appearance.

In this study, FAIR Health – a national, independent organization that was formed in 2009 and has one of the largest private insurance claims databases in the United States – conducted the analyses. This company used its database to analyze over 36 billion healthcare claims and analyzed 15 years of data for Lyme disease. The data from the study has been presented in an infographic: https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhe ... Final.pdf . This study built on a previous analysis conducted between 2007 to 2016, which is also showcased in an infographic: https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhe ... sease.pdf
Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/lyme-diseas ... -us-64746
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weatheriscool
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New York polio case is the 'tip of the iceberg,' hundreds of others could be infected
Source: CNBC
Hundreds could have polio after an adult in the New York City metro area caught the virus and suffered paralysis last month, the state’s top health official said this week. New York state Health Commissioner Mary Bassett warned that the confirmed polio case in an unvaccinated adult, coupled with the detection of the virus in sewage outside the nation’s largest city, could indicate a bigger outbreak is underway.

“Based on earlier polio outbreaks, New Yorkers should know that for every one case of paralytic polio observed, there may be hundreds of other people infected,” Bassett said. “Coupled with the latest wastewater findings, the department is treating the single case of polio as just the tip of the iceberg of much greater potential spread.”

Bassett said it is crucial that children are vaccinated by the time they are 2 months old, and all adults — including pregnant women —who have not received their shots should do so immediately. “As we learn more, what we do know is clear: The danger of polio is present in New York today,” Bassett said.

New York state health officials confirmed last month that an unvaccinated adult in Rockland County had caught polio and was hospitalized with paralysis. Health officials subsequently found three positive polio samples in Rockland County wastewater and four positive samples in the sewage of adjacent Orange County. The sewage samples that tested positive for polio are genetically linked to the strain which the unvaccinated adult caught. The findings do not indicate that the individual who caught polio was the source of transmission, but local spread could be underway, health officials said.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/05/new-yor ... ected.html
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caltrek
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How Polio Returned to the United States
by Robin Fields
August 2, 2022

Extract:
(Undark) Only after the case was identified did New York health officials start the sort of surveillance the British did, testing wastewater samples from Rockland County and beyond to help determine if the virus is spreading and where. Like many parts of the U.S., New York already was collecting sewage and analyzing it to track the spread of COVID-19. Health officials say they’re now testing stored samples for signs of polio. They say they’ve detected polio in a few Rockland County samples but need to analyze more to understand what the initial results represent.
For decades, the cost of doing wastewater surveillance for diseases like polio pretty clearly outweighed the benefit.

High U.S. vaccination rates, topping 90 percent, made the risk of such diseases incredibly low, though there have long been pockets of population in which rates are far lower. Rockland County, a suburban area northwest of New York City, is one such place. It suffered an extended outbreak of measles, another vaccine-preventable disease, in 2018 and 2019 that was largely concentrated in its Orthodox Jewish community, where many opt out of vaccines. Several news organizations have reported that the polio patient is a member of that community.

Nationally and globally, there are signs that the pandemic has opened up new vulnerabilities to diseases long in retreat. Routine immunizations have been hindered by a host of obstacles, including COVID-19-related lockdowns and growing vaccine resistance stoked by misinformation and politicization. A recent analysis by UNICEF and the World Health Organization showed that the percentage of children worldwide who received all three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis — a measure of overall immunization — dropped 5 points between 2019 and 2021 and that measles and polio vaccinations fell, too. The organizations say that’s the largest sustained decline in childhood vaccinations in the roughly 30 years they’ve been collecting data.

That could create greater risk of polio, a scourge of the first half of the 20th century in the U.S. Highly contagious and potentially life-threatening, polio historically has victimized mostly young children, attacking their spinal cords, brain stems, or both.
Read more here: https://undark.org/2022/08/02/polio-in-america/

Also, on the same topic: https://www.propublica.org/article/pol ... -new-york
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caltrek
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Study Finds that Spread of Illnesses Can be Exacerbated by Climate Change
by Candace Cheung
August 8, 2022

Introduction:
(Courthouse News) — Amid a seemingly never-ending global pandemic, many people have searched for an answer as to how diseases can persist in our communities for so long. In a study published Monday, scientists at the University of Hawaii link disease to the similarly never-ending effects of climate change.

The study, led by Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii, quantified that 58% of all infectious diseases, including influenza and Covid-19, have at some point been aggravated by climate change. The study does qualify that the spread of disease is obviously complex and can depend upon the relationship between biological and environmental factors, but shows that climate change does have an undeniable connection to the spread and severity of pathogenic disease.

Authors of the study analyzed a matrix of tens of thousands scholarly records and identified 286 unique pathogenic diseases that were associated with climate hazards, over half of which had been affected by the hazards.

“We would parse those articles that would come up and make sure that they weren’t just predicting something that might occur but that they were solid evidence of ‘this disease increased due to a flood that occurred in a certain place at a certain time’. Just making sure we had solid evidence and solid cases of the increased diseases,” explained Renee Setter, a PhD student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa with the Department of Geology and Environment and a co-author of the study.

Authors mapped climate hazards like global warming, storms, or floods and droughts against disease triggers including viruses and bacteria, as well as even plants and animals. Over 1,000 permutations of the interplay between these various climate hazards and disease vectors were documented in a Sankey plot published with the study itself.
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/spread- ... dy-finds/

caltrek’s comment: I recall at least one other earlier study that came to a similar conclusion. Each such study gives us more detail and/or reinforces the initial conclusions of earlier research. Something often needed in this time of great skepticism and denialism. Sadly, there are those who will never be convinced, or will simply be indifferent to the documented negative consequences
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China's Shandong and Henan detect new zoonotic virus, 35 people reportedly infected

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1272556.shtml
A new type of animal-derived Henipavirus (also named Langya henipavirus, LayV) that can infect humans has been found in East China's Shandong Province and Central China's Henan Province, and has so far infected 35 people in the two provinces, according to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) by scientists from China and Singapore.

The new type of Henipavirus was found in throat swab samples from febrile patients in eastern China with a history of contact with animals in recent times, according to media reports.
weatheriscool
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Dozens in China infected with Langya virus found in shrews
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-08- ... virus.html
Dozens of people in China have fallen ill with a new virus that is also found in shrews, a report has said, but there is so far no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

The infections were found in China's eastern Shandong and central Henan provinces, affecting 35 people, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine this month.

The virus is called Langya henipavirus or LayV, and patients reported symptoms that include fever, fatigue, cough, nausea and headaches.

Some people also developed blood cell abnormalities and impaired liver and kidney functions, the report said.

Research findings suggested shrews may be a natural reservoir for the pathogen.

"There was no close contact or common exposure history among the patients, which suggests that the infection in the human population may be sporadic," according to the report.

But it also cautioned that its sample size "was too small to determine the status of human-to-human transmission for LayV".
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caltrek
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SMART Advances in the Detection and Quantification of Viral Pathogens in Wastewater
August 22, 2022


Introduction:
• (EurekAlert) SMART’s (Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology’s) new assay used in a wastewater surveillance study revealed that Omicron displaced Delta as the dominant variant in an Italian population within just 3 weeks

• This displacement of the previously dominant Delta variant by Omicron in such a short period reinforces other reports that the transmission advantage of Omicron may stem from more efficient immune evasion in the vaccinated population

• Two separate SMART studies reviewed the potential of wastewater surveillance in a COVID-19-endemic future, including its potential use to track dengue and other arboviral diseases, and its invaluable role in preparing the world for future viral pandemics
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/962443
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Fauci Says He Will Step Down in December to Pursue His 'Next Chapter'
Source: New York Times
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci in Washington last year. He joined the National Institutes of Health in 1968 and has advised every president since Ronald Reagan.Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times


Dr. Anthony S. Fauci said on Monday that he intended to leave government service in December to "pursue the next chapter" of his career, and that he would step down as President Biden's top medical adviser and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he has led for 38 years. The announcement by Dr. Fauci, 81, was not entirely unexpected. He has hinted for some time that he was thinking of retiring.

In an interview Sunday evening, he said he was "not retiring in the classic sense" but would devote himself to traveling, writing and encouraging young people to enter government service. "So long as I'm healthy, which I am, and I'm energetic, which I am, and I'm passionate, which I am, I want to do some things outside of the realm of the federal government," Dr. Fauci said in the interview, adding that he wanted to use his experience and insight into public health and public service to "hopefully inspire the younger generation." In a statement on Monday,

Mr. Biden thanked Dr. Fauci, whom he called a "dedicated public servant and a steady hand with wisdom and insight." The two had worked closely together during a global outbreak of the Zika virus when Mr. Biden was vice president. "Because of Dr. Fauci's many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world have been saved," the president said. Few scientists have had as large or as long-lasting an impact on public policy. Dr. Fauci joined the National Institutes of Health in 1968, when Lyndon Johnson was president; he was appointed the director of its infectious disease branch in 1984, when the AIDS epidemic demanded attention.

Dr. Fauci has advised every president since Ronald Reagan -- seven in all -- and has been adept at navigating the nexus of science and politics. Among his proudest accomplishments, he said, was his work with President George W. Bush in developing a global program to combat H.I.V./AIDS, known as PEPFAR, which has saved an estimated 21 million lives. Mr. Bush -- whose father, George Bush, called Dr. Fauci "a hero" during a 1988 presidential debate -- awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/p ... etire.html
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Wendy's pulls lettuce from sandwiches amid E. coli outbreak
Source: AP
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The fast-food chain Wendy’s says it is pulling lettuce from sandwiches in its restaurants in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania after people eating them there reported falling ill.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday it is trying to determine whether romaine lettuce is the source of an E. coli outbreak that has sickened at least 37 people and whether romaine used at Wendy’s was also served or sold at other businesses.

The CDC said one person was also sickened in Indiana. A message was left with Wendy’s about lettuce on sandwiches in that state.

The CDC said there is no evidence that romaine sold in grocery stores is linked to the E. coli outbreak. The agency also said it is not advising people to stop eating at Wendy’s or not to eat romaine lettuce.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/health-ohio- ... a29c54042e
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Watch These Viruses Most for the Potential for Spillover to Humans
by Kat Kerlin
August 30, 2022

Introduction:
(Futurity ) In the past decade, scientists have described hundreds of novel viruses with the potential to pass between wildlife and humans. But how can they know which are riskiest for spillover and therefore which to prioritize for further surveillance in people?

The study, published in the journal Communications Biology, provides further evidence that coronaviruses are riskiest for spillover and should continue to be prioritized for enhanced surveillance and research.

Further Extracts:

The models found that novel viruses from the coronavirus family are expected to have a larger number of species as hosts. This is consistent with known viruses, indicating this family of viruses should be most highly prioritized for surveillance.

In additional to coronaviruses, the model also ranked several paramyxoviruses as high priorities for future work. Diseases associated with this family of viruses include measles, mumps, and respiratory tract infections.

“Characterizing hundreds of viruses takes a lot of time and requires prioritization,” Pandit says. “Our network-based approach helps identify the early signals in the ecological and evolutionary trajectories of these viruses. It can also help illuminate missing links between viruses and their hosts.”

Read more of the Futurity article here: https://www.futurity.org/zoonotic-tran ... 791892-2/
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