Diseases & Outbreaks News and Discussions

[Time_Traveller]

This is to differentiate this from the Biology & Medicine and Covid-19 News and Discussions threads, this is mainly for discussing outbreaks of diseases and progress (or lack thereof) controlling and containing said outbreaks, as well as the rising potential existential threat posed by antibiotic resistant superbugs. This is not for discussing the latest in anti-aging research or how a particular experimental drug causes a specific cancer to go into remission in mice.

CDC: All travelers to Pakistan are at risk of getting XDR typhoid fever

May 15, 2021

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated their travel notice for Pakistan and the outbreak of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) typhoid fever this week.

The ongoing outbreak began in 2016 in Sindh province, Pakistan, and spread throughout the country.

Cases of XDR typhoid fever have been reported among people in North America, Europe, East Asian, and the South Pacific who traveled to Pakistan.

All travelers to Pakistan are at risk of getting XDR typhoid fever, they report.

http://outbreaknewstoday.com/cdc-all-tr ... ver-38406/

[Time_Traveller]

Seattle area Shigella outbreak update, Mainly in homeless

May 19, 2021

In a follow-up on the shigellosis outbreak in King County, Washington, Public Health – Seattle & King County report investigating the ongoing outbreak.
shigellosis



Since October 2020, Public Health has identified 117 cases that are considered part of this outbreak. Of the outbreak cases, 84% are among people experiencing homelessness; 62% of cases were hospitalized.

In addition to shigellosis, health officials have also seen an increase in cases of other diarrheal causing infectious diseases among people experiencing homelessness, particularly cryptosporidiosis and different types of E. coli. We have identified at least 25 cases of cryptosporidiosis in people experiencing homelessness, and 10 of these people were infected with both Shigella and Cryptosporidium germs at the same time.

http://outbreaknewstoday.com/seattle-ar ... ess-45224/

[Yuli Ban]

China reports human case of H10N3 bird flu, a possible first

A man in eastern China has contracted what might be the world’s first human case of the H10N3 strain of bird flu, but the risk of large-scale spread is low, the government said Tuesday.

The 41-year-old man in Jiangsu province, northwest of Shanghai, was hospitalized April 28 and is in stable condition, the National Health Commission said on its website.

No human case of H10N3 has been reported elsewhere, the commission said.

“This infection is an accidental cross-species transmission,” its statement said. “The risk of large-scale transmission is low.”

[wjfox]

The Pandemic Might Have Killed Off Some Flu Strains for Good

Yesterday 1:20PM

Scientists say that two common strains of the seasonal flu have seemingly vanished from circulation, likely due to public health measures like mask-wearing meant to slow the covid-19 pandemic. Though it will take time to confirm the disappearing act, the unexpected good news could make developing next season’s flu shot all the easier.

Every year, various types of the flu spread across the world, usually following a seasonal pattern of colder and/or drier weather. These flus are divided into two broad categories, A and B viruses, which are further divided into different groups. Both can mutate relatively quickly in a short amount of time, but influenza A viruses are the more dangerous variety, since they originally crossed over from animals like birds and can mutate enough to become the next source of a pandemic.

Scientists globally monitor the evolution of flu viruses by testing samples of confirmed flu cases from people who visit hospitals and doctors’ offices (the flu is always around, but it usually doesn’t cause major outbreaks until the typical season). This allows them to predict the likely batch of common strains that will circulate in the coming year and to then produce vaccines geared to provide immunity to those strains. This prediction process happens twice a year, accounting for the Northern and Southern hemisphere.

But since March 2020, we haven’t detected traces of two common flu strains: influenza B viruses belonging to the Yamagata lineage and a clade of the influenza A H3N2 virus, known as 3c3. So it’s possible, though not certain, that they may have gone extinct.

https://gizmodo.com/the-pandemic-might- ... 1847033924

[caltrek]

How to Make Biomedical Research (and Biosafety Labs) Less Dangerous and More Ethical, Post-COVID-19


https://thebulletin.org/2021/06/how-to- ... -covid-19/

Conclusion:

(Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) Laboratory-acquired infections need to become notifiable diseases to local and state health departments. If ill, researchers and other laboratory workers must notify health care professionals that they work on bioagents in biomedical clinical or research facilities—and federal regulations should be changed to require such reporting. Healthcare professionals should notify local public health officials who would report to the state and ultimately to the CDC working in concert with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Similar surveillance systems should be established in all countries with biomedical clinical and research facilities.

At the international level, the World Health Organization should work with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Implementation Support Unit to create a laboratory-acquired infection surveillance system based on data collected and reported at the national levels. Biomedical research is inherently dual use; it can provide society great benefits also be used for ill. The collaboration between WHO and the BWC would send the message that the international community takes these issues seriously.

The field of biomedical research ethics needs to be created. As with human subject research, Congress should establish a commission to identify doctrine underlying all biomedical research. The National Academies’ “Seven Experiments of Concern” should serve as a framework for the commission’s work.

We don’t know if if gain-of-function* research caused this pandemic or if it was naturally occurring. But the arguments for gain-of-function research can be countered by two points. First, the mRNA vaccines that were developed so quickly in response to the pandemic took decades of prior research and required the sequence of genetic material from the virus’s spike protein. Gain-of-function research was not needed. Second, investments in public health would improve response capabilities much more than any information that gain-of-function research could provide.

With diminishing public trust in science, biomedical scientists should be incentivized to rebuild society’s willingness to support their research. Hubris and a willingness to push the scientific envelope for fame and glory should be replaced with humility and a respect for nature. We don’t need scientists helping nature to make deadlier pathogens in a misguided effort to improve public health. Transparency, public communication and outreach, laboratory-acquired infection surveillance, public health partnerships, and institutionalized ethics would go a long way toward regaining the public’s trust.

*"Gain of function research" explained:

“Gain-of-function” (GoF) is the euphemism for biological research aimed at increasing the virulence and lethality of pathogens and viruses. GoF research is government funded; its focus is on enhancing the pathogens’ ability to infect different species and to increase their deadly impact as airborne pathogens and viruses. Ostensibly, GoF research is conducted for biodefense purposes.

Source of "gain of function" description: https://ahrp.org/what-is-gain-of-functi ... high-risk/

See also:
https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-ori ... -at-wuhan/

[Time_Traveller]

Mosquito ‘bacteria hack’ nearly eliminates dengue fever and could save millions of lives

Thursday 10 Jun 2021

Mosquitoes infected with a ‘miraculous’ bacteria have been shown to reduce dengue fever cases by 77%, in a groundbreaking new study.

Scientists released mosquitoes infected with ‘Wolbachia’ bacteria into the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta – but only in certain zones.

In the zones where the modified mosquitoes had been released, cases of dengue fell by 77% and hospitalisations dropped by 86%.

The results of the study, carried out by the World Mosquito Programme (WMP), were ‘better than we could have hoped for’, according to researcher Dr. Katie Anders.

https://metro.co.uk/2021/06/10/mosquito ... i=14749830

[caltrek]

Inside the Anti-GMO Movement’s Obsession With Virology Research and Lab Leaks
June 14, 2021

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... lab-leaks/

Inttroduction:

(Mother Jones) The Center for Food Safety is the kind of organization that most progressive foodies can get behind: Its website features photos of graceful monarch butterflies and dairy cows with big, doleful eyes. Its recent campaign slogans implore supporters to “tell EPA to stop this brain-damaging pesticide!” and “protect dolphins and birds from floating factory farms!” It advocates for farmworker rights, humane treatment of animals, and protection of pollinators.

Oh, yes, and there’s one more thing: The 24-person nonprofit, whose revenue in 2019 was about $5.2 million, wants the US government to stop supporting certain kinds of high-level virology research. Last month, the group sued the National Institutes of Health in an attempt to force the agency to reveal information about its funding for what is known as “gain-of-function” research—the term refers to a category of lab work that seeks to understand how viruses create pandemics. Sometimes, but not always, the research involves manipulating viruses to make them more virulent and contagious to study how they evolve.

Virologists say this kind of research is vital and has led to many important medical discoveries, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. But Center for Food Safety argues that gain-of-function research is too dangerous to pursue. A pathogen released from a lab “could result in catastrophic consequences to the human environment,” CFS staff attorney Victoria Yundt warned in a recent press release about the NIH law suit. Andrew Kimbrell, a public interest attorney who founded the Center for Food Safety in 1997, was also quoted in the release saying, “The NIH’s refusal to make public the research it is funding to enhance the transmissibility, infectiousness, and lethality of potential pandemic viruses is grossly irresponsible.”

The article actually concludes with a criticism of what are labeled as "anti-science" groups. After reading the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article (see my post immediately above Time_Traveler's post above) I am not so sure who is anti-science and who is not.

[caltrek]

How to Make Sure the Labs Researching the Most Dangerous Pathogens are Safe and Secure
by Joseph Rodgers, Filippa Lentzos, Gregory D. Koblentz, and Minh Ly
July 2, 2021

https://thebulletin.org/2021/07/how-to- ... nd-secure/

Introduction:

(Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) Since 2001, biological risks—from terror attacks involving anthrax letters to outbreaks of new and re-emerging infectious diseases like SARS, Ebola, H5N1 avian influenza, MERS, and Zika—have been galvanizing a global construction boom of research labs meant for work on the deadliest pathogens. These biosafety level 4 labs (BSL-4) are the kind of facilities where researchers have to work in protective gear resembling spacesuits and decontaminate once they finish. Today, 23 countries have built 59 of these state-of-the-art labs, part of a trend that seems unlikely to stop soon. As scientists seek to better understand viruses like the one that causes COVID-19, they will likely need more labs tailor-made for work with risky germs.

The surging number of BSL-4 labs and a corresponding expansion in the research they’re used for is not without risks. While work in the labs generally aims to further scientific knowledge of pathogens and aid in the development of new vaccines and therapeutics, BSL-4 research could also pose significant risks to safety and security. A lab accident could, for instance, lead to workers getting infected and even spreading a disease in their communities. Advanced labs might also engage in so-called “dual use” research of concern—work that is conducted for peaceful, scientific purposes but that generates knowledge or technology that could be readily misused to cause harm, say in the development of a biological weapon. Yet another risk stemming from the proliferation of labs is that adversarial countries could seek to match one another’s investment in advanced research facilities, viewing such spending as an indication of weapons-related research.

As it stands, there is substantial room for improvement in the policies that safeguard against lab accidents and the misuse of research.

A lab worker works with virus particles in a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) lab.
Credit: James Gathany / US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

[caltrek]

Promising Results for Malaria Vaccine Using Live Parasites Growing in the Liver
By Nana K. Minkah and Stefan H.I. Kappe
June 30, 2021

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01720-6

Introduction:

(Nature) Effective malaria vaccines are urgently needed. Now, clinical evidence indicates that a vaccination approach that uses live parasites growing in the liver can generate high levels of immune protection from infection.

Malaria has long remained among the worst infectious-disease threats to human health. There were 229 million clinical cases of malaria and more than 400,000 deaths from this disease reported during 2019, according to the World Health Organization. Although more than 140 years have passed since Plasmodium parasites were identified as the causative agents of malaria, a vaccine that offers a high level of protection against Plasmodium infection has not yet reached the market. Creation of such a vaccine has been hindered by the genomic complexity of Plasmodium, which has approximately 5,300 genes, and by the parasite’s elaborate life cycle.

Writing in Nature, Mwakingwe-Omari et al. report a vaccination strategy using live, whole Plasmodium falciparum parasites that provides unmatched, high levels of protection against infection. This work represents a major advance in the quest for an effective malaria vaccine.

[Ken_J]

https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/ly ... LcbIpoemmc

there are two options for preventing Lyme in the works: one vaccine that works the same way LYMErix did; and one shot that would be taken annually, in advance of tick season (technically a preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, shot). The vaccine is a collaboration between Valneva (a French biotech company) and Pfizer and has already shown promising results in Phase 2 trials. In March, the companies announced that their candidate was going into an additional Phase 2 study that would include a pediatric population of kids over age 5. (LYMErix was never approved for kids under 15—another factor in the low demand for the shot.) Pfizer and Valneva hope for their vaccine to be available by 2025.

[Time_Traveller]

Norovirus warning as bug spreads in England after lockdown eased

Fri 16 Jul 2021



Public health experts in England are warning of an increase in the number of cases of the vomiting bug norovirus after it reached levels last seen before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Official data shows the highly infectious virus is far more widespread than usual for the summer months. It has been spreading particularly rapidly over the past few weeks among preschool children in nurseries and childcare facilities, who are bringing the virus home, causing it to spread across all age groups.

Official data from Public Health England (PHE) showed that in the last five weeks, 154 outbreaks had been reported, compared with an average of 53 between the comparable five-week period around June in the previous five years. Rates have been especially low during the pandemic due to social distancing rules and people paying more attention to hygiene, but have been rising since restrictions began to ease in early April.
Advertisement

“Norovirus, commonly known as the winter vomiting bug, has been at lower levels than normal throughout the pandemic with less opportunity to spread between people in the community but as restrictions have eased we have seen an increase in cases across all age groups,” said Prof Saheer Gharbia, the deputy director of PHE’s national infection service.

Rates of enteric virus outbreaks, mostly norovirus, doubled from 105 to 236 between 31 May and 4 July, with two-thirds (65%) in nurseries or schools and a third (30%) in care homes.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... down-eased

[weatheriscool]

'Superbug' fungus spread in 2 cities, health officials say
Source: abc

NEW YORK -- U.S. health officials said Thursday they now have evidence of an untreatable fungus spreading in two hospitals and a nursing home.

The “superbug” outbreaks were reported in a Washington, D.C, nursing home and at two Dallas-area hospitals, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. A handful of the patients had invasive fungal infections that were impervious to all three major classes of medications.


“This is really the first time we've started seeing clustering of resistance" in which patients seemed to be getting the infections from each other, said the CDC's Dr. Meghan Lyman.

The fungus, Candida auris, is a harmful form of yeast that is considered dangerous to hospital and nursing home patients with serious medical problems. It is most deadly when it enters the bloodstream, heart or brain. Outbreaks in health care facilities have been spurred when the fungus spread through patient contact or on contaminated surfaces.

............................


Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory ... s-78994818

[wjfox]

Statistics Say Large Pandemics Are More Likely Than We Thought

Published August 23, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic may be the deadliest viral outbreak the world has seen in more than a century. But statistically, such extreme events aren’t as rare as we may think, asserts a new analysis of novel disease outbreaks over the past 400 years.

The study, appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Aug. 23, used a newly assembled record of past outbreaks to estimate the intensity of those events and the yearly probability of them recurring.

It found the probability of a pandemic with similar impact to COVID-19 is about 2% in any year, meaning that someone born in the year 2000 would have about a 38% chance of experiencing one by now. And that probability is only growing, which the authors say highlights the need to adjust perceptions of pandemic risks and expectations for preparedness.

“The most important takeaway is that large pandemics like COVID-19 and the Spanish flu are relatively likely,” said William Pan, Ph.D., associate professor of global environmental health at Duke and one of the paper’s co-authors. Understanding that pandemics aren’t so rare should raise the priority of efforts to prevent and control them in the future, he said.

The study, led by Marco Marani, Ph.D., of the University of Padua in Italy, used new statistical methods to measure the scale and frequency of disease outbreaks for which there was no immediate medical intervention over the past four centuries. Their analysis, which covered a murderer’s row of pathogens including plague, smallpox, cholera, typhus and novel influenza viruses, found considerable variability in the rate at which pandemics have occurred in the past. But they also identified patterns that allowed them to describe the probabilities of similar-scale events happening again.

In the case of the deadliest pandemic in modern history – the Spanish flu, which killed more than 30 million people between 1918 and 1920 -- the probability of a pandemic of similar magnitude occurring ranged from 0.3% to 1.9% per year over the time period studied. Taken another way, those figures mean it is statistically likely that a pandemic of such extreme scale would occur within the next 400 years.

https://globalhealth.duke.edu/news/stat ... we-thought

[weatheriscool]

A Salmonella Outbreak Has Spread To 17 States And It's Linked To Italian-Style Meats

August 26, 202110:44 AM ET
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/26/10312399 ... lian-meats

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating two salmonella outbreaks that are tied to Italian-style meats like salami and prosciutto that are often used for charcuterie boards.
Richard Drew/AP

You might want to wait before making your next charcuterie board.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is investigating two salmonella outbreaks in 17 states that are linked to Italian-style meats like "salami, prosciutto, and other meats that can often be found in antipasto or charcuterie assortments."

There is an active investigation underway, but no recalls have been announced.

As of Tuesday, 36 people had fallen ill and 12 were hospitalized, the CDC said. The numbers could be higher, though, because many who have salmonella symptoms don't seek medical care. It also takes three to four weeks to figure out whether a sick person is part of the outbreak.

[caltrek]

Malaria Vaccine Could Save Millions of Children's Lives
by Jamie Prentis
August 26, 2021

https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/a ... ens-lives/

Introduction:

(The National) Millions of young African lives could be saved after a study suggested the world’s first malaria vaccine cut deaths and serious illness from the disease by up to 70 per cent.

A trial followed about 6,000 children aged 5-17 months in Burkina Faso and Mali, two countries afflicted heavily by the mosquito-borne disease. Normally, they would be given antimalarial drugs four times during the rainy season when malaria occurs predominantly in the region.

While the use of medicines such as sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and amodiaquine “is highly effective” in preventing malaria, the disease is still the main cause of death and serious illness among children under the age of 5 in countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali.

But research into the RTS, S/AS01E vaccine, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and co-ordinated by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine with partners in Mali and Burkina Faso, found the combination of the inoculation and antimalarial drugs could reduce the risk of death substantially.

Prof Brian Greenwood from LSHTM said the “results are very striking and could pave the way for a potential new approach to malaria control”.

[caltrek]

A Deadly Fungal Disease on the Rise in the West Has Experts Worried
by Zoya Teirstein
September 15, 2021

https://grist.org/health/valley-fever-r ... ci-fungus/

Extract:

(Grist) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, estimates that some 150,000 cases of Valley fever go undiagnosed every year, though that’s likely just the tip of the iceberg, doctors and epidemiologists told Grist. The disease is only endemic to certain geographic areas and it’s technically considered an “emerging illness,” even though doctors have been finding it in their patients for more than a century, because cases have been sharply rising in recent years. In some places, astronomically so. According to CDC data, reported Valley Fever cases in the U.S. increased by 32 percent between 2016 and 2018. One study determined that cases in California rose 800 percent between 2000 and 2018.

…some important truths about Valley fever..it is endemic to certain areas of the world, …the fungus that causes the disease lives in soil, …a majority of people infected by it are asymptomatic, and, crucially,…weather patterns and seasonal climate conditions have an effect on the prevalence of Coccidioides.

…There is a massive economic burden associated with the potential expansion of Valley fever into new areas. (Morgan) Gorris (an Earth systems scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico) conducted a separate analysis based on future warming scenarios and found that, by the end of the century, the average total annual cost of Valley fever infections could rise to $18.5 billion per year, up from $3.9 billion today.

…Decades have come and gone since researchers first connected the dots between the Cocci fungus and Valley fever. A growing body of research supports the idea that climate change is now making this disease worse. Yet public awareness of what Valley fever is and how it works, in addition to the medical know-how to tackle this disease, is still lacking, even in states where Valley fever is prevalent. “You’d be surprised by how delayed the diagnosis is,” Galgiani, from the Valley Fever Center for Excellence in Arizona, told Grist. “And that’s the patients who get diagnosed.”

…It may only be a matter of time before we start thinking about fungus more often, Barker (a researcher from Northern Arizona University) said. “I honestly think that the fungal pathogens are going to be a huge problem for us going forward.”

[Xyls]

It Gets Worse In Florida As Republicans Want To Review Vaccine Mandates For Measles And Mumps

https://www.politicususa.com/2021/09/23 ... ndate.html

For f*ck's sakes...

[caltrek]

Although the development of malaria vaccine was reported upon earlier in this thread, the United Nations has taken an important step forward in endorsing use of that vaccine:

WHO Endorses ‘Historic’ Malaria Vaccine for At-risk Children
October 6, 2021

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/10/1102362

Introduction:

(United Nations) The World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending widespread use of the world’s first malaria vaccine, in what the UN health agency’s chief described on Wednesday as “an historic day” for the decades-long battle against the deadly disease.

The vaccine is geared towards children, in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions with moderate to high transmission.

The recommendation to begin using the RTS,S vaccine, is based an ongoing pilot programme set up by WHO and partners in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, that has reached more than 800,000 children since 2019.

“The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control”, said the WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Using this vaccine on top of existing tools to prevent malaria could save tens of thousands of young lives each year.”

Stagnation in progress

Tedros said the world had made “incredible progress” in the fight against malaria in the past two decades.

[caltrek]

How Biological Detective Work Can Reveal Who Engineered a Virus
by Kelsey Piper
October 24, 2021

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2273 ... ctive-work

Introduction:

(Vox) SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, has made our future vulnerability to biological pathogens — and what we can learn to help prevent the next pandemic — a salient concern. We don’t have much evidence one way or the other whether Covid’s emergence into the world was the result of a lab accident or a natural jump from animal to human. And while the US intelligence community’s current best guess is that the virus “probably was not genetically engineered,”* the theory has been the subject of much debate and has not been definitively ruled out.

The many unknowns we confront underscore the need for a much bigger toolkit to deal with pathogenic threats than we currently have — which is why a recent paper about a new advance in tracing genetic editing is particularly exciting.

Bioengineering often leaves traces — characteristic patterns in the RNA or DNA of an engineered organism that are a product of a plethora of design decisions that go into synthetic biology. That fact about bioengineered genomes raises an interesting question: What if those traces that gene editing leaves behind were more like fingerprints? That is, what if it’s possible not just to tell if something was engineered but precisely where it was engineered?

That’s the idea behind genetic engineering attribution: the effort to develop tools that let us look at a genetically engineered sequence and determine which lab developed it. A big international contest among researchers earlier this year demonstrates that the technology is within our reach — though it’ll take lots of refining to move from impressive contest results to tools we can reliably use for bio detective work.

The contest, the Genetic Engineering Attribution Challenge, was sponsored by some of the leading bioresearch labs in the world. The idea was to challenge teams to develop techniques in genetic engineering attribution. The most successful entrants in the competition could predict, using machine-learning algorithms, which lab produced a certain genetic sequence with more than 80 percent accuracy, according to a new preprint summing up the results of the contest.

* See this link: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/document ... rigins.pdf

[wjfox]

‘Very concerned’: UK chief vet confirms two more bird flu outbreaks

Thu 9 Dec 2021 08.42 GMT

The UK’s chief vet has expressed alarm at an unprecedented spread of avian flu that has forced 500,000 captive birds to be culled so far this winter.

Christine Middlemiss said she was “very concerned about what’s happening” as the disease continues to hit more poultry farms and bird sanctuaries.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme after confirming two more outbreaks overnight, she said: “We now have a total of 40 infected premises in the UK – that’s a really high number for the time of year for anything we’ve experienced before.” By comparison, there were 26 outbreaks last winter.

Middlemiss confirmed every bird where an outbreak has been confirmed would be killed. She said: “All the birds on the premises have to be culled, because of the ongoing risk of infection that they pose. The total number is something like half a million will now have been culled.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... -outbreaks