[Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Everything else!

Moderators: Bakhtosh, EvilHomer3k

Post Reply
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Live Science
A fire reportedly broke out yesterday (Sept. 16) after an explosion at a secret lab in Russia, one of only two places in the world where the variola virus that causes smallpox is kept. One person was reported injured and transferred to a nearby burn center.

Researchers at the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology (also called the Vector Institute), located near Novosibirsk in Siberia, study some scary viruses, including Ebola, anthrax and Marburg. Even so, according to the institute, the fire didn't affect the building where such viruses are kept.

In a translated Russian-language statement from Vector, the lab said a gas cylinder exploded on the fifth floor of a six-story reinforced concrete lab during a repair in the so-called sanitary inspection room. "No work with biological material on the body was carried out," the statement said.
...
Though outside scientists can't be certain exactly where the explosion and fire occurred, one expert in the field, David Evans, said, "That doesn't sound like it was near where the variola virus is stored or where the research is conducted."

Evans, a professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Alberta, is one of the world's experts on poxviruses like smallpox.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63532
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Daehawk »

Just wait. A bug will take us out one day.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
em2nought
Posts: 5311
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 5:48 am

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by em2nought »

Daehawk wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2019 4:31 pm Just wait. A bug will take us out one day.
M-O-O-N spells moon. :wink:
Technically, he shouldn't be here.
Jeff V
Posts: 36414
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 7:17 pm
Location: Nowhere you want to be.

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Jeff V »

Isgrimnur wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2019 2:50 pm Evans, a professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Alberta, is one of the world's experts on poxviruses like smallpox.
[/quote]

If smallpox still exists, then why isn't Trump sending Iran and North Korea some comfy new blankets?
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63532
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Daehawk »

Cause he sleeps in the same bed with them.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
LawBeefaroni
Forum Moderator
Posts: 55318
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:08 pm
Location: Urbs in Horto, outrageous taxes on everything

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Daehawk wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2019 9:21 pm Cause he sleeps in the same bed with them.
Enlarge Image
" Hey OP, listen to my advice alright." -Tha General
"No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." -Stigler's Law of Eponymy, discovered by Robert K. Merton

MYT
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Discover Blogs
One particular protein is giving Ebola its punch, and researchers know how to switch it off. The find could lead to new vaccines and may give a huge boost to Ebola research safety.
...
One of the reasons the Ebola pathogen is so virulent is that it has ways of thwarting the body from putting up a normal immune defense. The virus impairs the immune system’s internal communications network, delaying the body’s immune response long enough to do major damage. The body can’t catch up.

For the past few years, researchers have been homing in on a specific protein on the Ebola virus’ outer structure, called a nucleocapsid. Experiments in cells and tests in rodents have confirmed that the protein, called VP35, is a major factor in how Ebola disrupts the immune system. But exactly how VP35 would interact with the whole Ebola system — in a human — was unclear.
...
Chris Basler is a virologist at Georgia State University who studies emerging viruses and how they interact with the immune system. Basler and his team, which included researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch and the University of California, Irvine, created mutated versions of the Ebola virus that had a key function — the one that messes with the immune system — of their VP35 proteins disabled. Then, they exposed the macaques to it.

As the team expected, the monkeys didn’t get sick. The virus didn’t proliferate in the body — and, their bodies were able to put up a normal immune response.
...
More, this immune response to the mutant Ebola had a lasting effect that protected the monkeys against other strains: the wild, lethal Ebola. In essence, they were vaccinated. And the more mutant virus they were exposed to, the more immune they were to the wild Ebola.
...
Basler says the team isn’t promoting VP35-mutants as a new vaccine candidate just yet. Other vaccines in the works are quite effective, he says, and the safety tests and regulatory approval that would be required to get a vaccine with a live Ebola virus in it — mutated or not — would be intense.

The more immediate application of this work is that the VP35 mutant strain opens up avenues for much safer Ebola research.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
hitbyambulance
Posts: 10233
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Map Ref 47.6°N 122.35°W
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by hitbyambulance »

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2019 10:02 pm Discover Blogs
Basler and his team, which included researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch and the University of California, Irvine, created mutated versions of the Ebola virus that had a key function — the one that messes with the immune system — of their VP35 proteins disabled. Then, they exposed the macaques to it.
someday ... possibly .. future humans may look back and wonder how cruel and barbaric they used to be as a species.... but if it is an essential part of our natures, then possibly it's for the best we've wiped ourselves out of existence.
User avatar
hitbyambulance
Posts: 10233
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Map Ref 47.6°N 122.35°W
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by hitbyambulance »

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2019 10:02 pm Discover Blogs
Basler and his team, which included researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch and the University of California, Irvine, created mutated versions of the Ebola virus that had a key function — the one that messes with the immune system — of their VP35 proteins disabled. Then, they exposed the macaques to it.
someday ... possibly .. future humans may look back and wonder how cruel and barbaric they used to be as a species.... but if it is an essential part of our natures, then possibly it's for the best we've wiped ourselves out of existence.
User avatar
LawBeefaroni
Forum Moderator
Posts: 55318
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:08 pm
Location: Urbs in Horto, outrageous taxes on everything

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by LawBeefaroni »

hitbyambulance wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:45 am
Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2019 10:02 pm Discover Blogs
Basler and his team, which included researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch and the University of California, Irvine, created mutated versions of the Ebola virus that had a key function — the one that messes with the immune system — of their VP35 proteins disabled. Then, they exposed the macaques to it.
someday ... possibly .. future humans may look back and wonder how cruel and barbaric they used to be as a species.... but if it is an essential part of our natures, then possibly it's for the best we've wiped ourselves out of existence.
We already look back at past humans that way. And we think we're better than them. I'd guess future humans will be the same and humans after them, if the species is fortunate enough to last that long, will also be the same.
" Hey OP, listen to my advice alright." -Tha General
"No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." -Stigler's Law of Eponymy, discovered by Robert K. Merton

MYT
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Stop hogging all the diseases! Wait...

East Lyme church honors first EEE victim in Connecticut
EAST LYME, CT (WFSB) – An East Lyme church community is remembering a member who passed away from the first case of Eastern Equine Encephalitis with a vigil on Saturday.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
em2nought
Posts: 5311
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 5:48 am

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by em2nought »

Do plants count for this thread?
A breakthrough in the battle against citrus greening
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... us-greeni/
Technically, he shouldn't be here.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Legionnaires'
A Legionnaires' disease outbreak in North Carolina that has sickened more than 100 people and left one person dead may be tied to hot tubs that were on display during a state fair, according to officials.

At least 116 people who visited or worked at the N.C. Mountain State Fair in Fletcher have tested positive for Legionnaires', according to a statement released Thursday by the state's Department of Health and Human Services. Another eight people who were at the fair have confirmed cases of Pontiac fever, a milder form of the infection.

One person has died, and at least 80 have been hospitalized, according to the state health department.

The fair took place between Sept. 6 and 15, and state health officials said the majority of people who got sick walked by hot tubs at an event center during the second half of the fair.
...
Legionella bacteria has so far been found in one water sample taken from the event center that had the hot tub display at the fair, according to the health department statement. Results are pending from other samples taken.
...
The Davis Event Center is closed "while it undergoes an aggressive and comprehensive mitigation plan," the statement said.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Feb 13, 2019 5:55 pm Zombie deer
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told lawmakers recently that chronic wasting disease (CWD) should be treated as a public health issue, the Pioneer Press reported.
CNN
"Zombie" deer roam 24 states in the US, sickened by a neurodegenerative disease that reduces them to stumbling, drooling creatures.

So far, Nevada has evaded the infection this hunting season. State wildlife officials plan to keep it that way.

The Nevada Department of Wildlife is urging hunters to visit their mobile sampling stations and check their carcasses for chronic wasting disease, a fatal illness that affects the brain and spinal cord of deer, elk and moose.

The department set up stations at truck stops near state lines to keep the infection out. The sampling takes about five minutes and doesn't affect the deer's meat or antlers, the department said.

It's the latest measure to protect the state's wildlife. In May, Gov. Steve Sisolak passed legislation banning hunters from bringing deer, elk or moose carcasses into the state to prevent disease transmission.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

ABC News
Eight premature infants were infected with a waterborne bacteria while in a neonatal intensive care unit. Three of the infants have died.

The babies were in the NICU at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania.

Out of "an abundance of caution," the medical center will temporarily direct mothers who are delivering prematurely -- before 32 weeks gestation -- to other area facilities, the center reported.

The infants had contracted a pseudomonas infection caused by pseudomonas bacteria. This waterborne bacteria causes one of the most common hospital-acquired infections and can create severe symptoms in those with compromised immune systems.

The center found no evidence of the bacteria throughout the hospital, said Dr. Mark Shelley, director of infection prevention at Geisinger.

Instead, hospital officials believe that the bacteria was limited to the intensive care unit.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Isgrimnur wrote: Fri Oct 04, 2019 12:56 pm Legionnaires'
A Legionnaires' disease outbreak in North Carolina that has sickened more than 100 people and left one person dead may be tied to hot tubs that were on display during a state fair, according to officials.
People
Four people have now died from a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that has been traced back to a hot tub display at a North Carolina state fair.

As of Oct. 18, there are 141 confirmed cases of Legionnaires’ disease and four deaths that began at the NC Mountain State Fair, which was held between Sept. 6-15 in the western part of the state.
...
While the number of cases had been growing, the NCHHS said Friday that it has since plateaued.

“Continuing surveillance for Legionnaires’ disease cases indicates that the outbreak has ended and the number of new Legionnaires’ disease cases in North Carolina has returned to baseline,” they said.

Of the 141 cases of Legionnaires’ disease from this outbreak, 94 people have been hospitalized. The symptoms are similar to pneumonia — fever, shortness of breath, muscle aches — and is typically successfully treated with antibiotics, but according to the CDC, about 1 in 10 patients will die from the disease.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Isgrimnur wrote: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:01 pm AP News
[There were] 228 confirmed victims in the U.S. last year of acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM, a rare, mysterious and sometimes deadly paralyzing illness that seems to ebb and flow on an every-other-year cycle and is beginning to alarm public health officials because it is striking more and more children.
NBC News
Scientists have found the strongest evidence yet that a virus is to blame for a mysterious illness that can start like the sniffles but quickly paralyze children.

The poliolike syndrome, called acute flaccid myelitis or AFM, is very rare. Since the first reports from California in 2012, the U.S. has experienced an increasingly bigger outbreak every other year, from late summer into fall.
...
They checked patients' spinal fluid for signs the immune system had fought an invading virus. Sure enough, kids who got sick harbored antibodies that target enteroviruses, just the viral family specialists believe is to blame.

"This is circumstantial evidence that this is what's going on, but it's a powerful piece of circumstantial evidence," said Dr. Michael Wilson of the University of California, San Francisco, who helped lead the research. His team reported the findings Monday in Nature Medicine.
...
Antibodies programmed to track specific germs only wind up in spinal fluid if they fought infection there — what Wilson's team set out to find.
...
In tests of spinal fluid from 42 AFM patients and 58 children with unrelated neurologic illnesses, only enterovirus-targeting antibodies emerged as the potential culprit. Nearly three-fourths of patients harbored them, compared to less than 10 percent of other children. Further work is underway to narrow down the specific strains.
Last edited by Isgrimnur on Mon Oct 21, 2019 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Smoove_B
Posts: 54567
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:58 am
Location: Kaer Morhen

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Smoove_B »

Everything old is new again - this actually happened back in 1996, and in 1999 another outbreak occurred in the Netherlands. There was a lawsuit claiming they should have known better and done more to prevent it based on what was published by the CDC after the 1996 event. I will be amazed if there isn't a similar lawsuit over this one for the same reason.
Maybe next year, maybe no go
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Polio
The second of three forms of the polio virus has been eradicated, experts have announced.

There are three types of the wild polio virus, which, while scientifically different, cause the same symptoms, including paralysis or even death,

The world was declared free of type 2 four years ago - and now the World Health Organization has said type 3 has also been eradicated.

But type 1 is still circulating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
...
Cases of wild polio have fallen by 99% since 1988.

The declaration type 2 had been wiped out was made in 2015, a full 16 years after the last case was seen in India.

It has been seven years since the last case of type 3 polio was detected, in northern Nigeria.
...
Type 1 is now circulating in Afghanistan and Pakistan only. The last case detected case in Nigeria, where it was also endemic, was in 2016.
...
There are currently outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio virus in 12 countries: Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Togo and Zambia.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

BBC
A Congolese journalist who had been raising awareness about the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been killed at his home.

The army said unidentified attackers raided Papy Mumbere Mahamba's home in Lwebma, in the north-eastern province of Ituri, killing him, wounding his wife and burning their house down.

DR Congo is experiencing the world's second-worst Ebola epidemic on record.

People working to stop the virus are often targeted.

The BBC World Service's Africa editor Will Ross says over the past year there have been dozens of attacks on health centres and on people working to stop Ebola.

The violence is thought to be fuelled by the belief among many people that the virus is not real, which can lead to mistrust of those working in the sector.

When medics call for people to forgo traditional rites to ensure safe burials, for example, it can create animosity. Some people even feel Ebola is a hoax created by medics to get well-paid jobs.

Mr Mahamba had just hosted an Ebola awareness programme on a community radio station when the attack took place.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

NPR
In a new study in Nature Microbiology, McCall and her co-authors found that the fungal diversity was actually higher in urban homes, and it might be because of peoples' cleaning products and urban lifestyles.
...
Many antibacterial cleaning solutions and sanitizers specifically target bacteria, which could clear space for other kinds of microbes to flourish. Fungi also have thick cell walls, which may make them harder to kill. And urban homes are designed to isolate people from the outside; they block out light and trap CO2, which could be creating hospitable environments for fungus to grow, McCall says.
...
While the study was limited to parts of Brazil and Peru, the findings may apply more broadly.
...
Fungi aren't as well-studied as bacteria, but he points out that the Malassezia genus, which the researchers swabbed in Brazil's urban homes, contains strains that have caused infections in hospitals in other countries, so it could be a common scourge on highly sanitized environments.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

NPR
A new vaccine to prevent dengue may be on the horizon. And health officials say it's desperately needed.

The World Health Organization this year listed dengue as one of the top ten threats to global health.

The mosquito-borne disease is a growing threat for several reasons. First, the sheer number of dengue cases has been increasing dramatically in recent years. The WHO says there's been a 30-fold increase in infections since 1970. Last year nearly 100 million people came down with the disease, also known as "break bone fever."
...
So 100 million people are getting sick with a disease that clinicians have no drugs to fight.
...
[Derek] Wallace and his team at Takeda think they're very close to having a marketable vaccine that could dramatically reduce the number of cases of the mosquito-borne disease.
...
"We're thrilled with the results," Wallace says, about a large scale study of a vaccine they're calling TAK-003. Staring in 2016, Takeda enrolled 20,000 children between the ages of 4 and 16 in a study of TAK-003. The vaccinations occurred at 26 sites in 7 dengue-endemic countries.

In results just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Wallace and his colleagues found TAK-003 to be 80% effective in preventing participants from getting dengue and 95% effective in preventing cases of severe dengue.
...
"Because of the four different viruses involved, you need to package four different viruses into one vaccine," he says. In the past, researchers have had trouble doing that effectively.
...
Wallace says Takeda's new product is fundamentally different from Dengvaxia. TAK-003 is built around a live but weakened dengue virus, while Dengvaxia is based on a strain of the yellow fever virus.
...
Takeda intends to continue to monitor the thousands of kids who were vaccinated with TAK-003 for several more years.

The Takeda dengue vaccine still needs to win regulatory approval before it's made available to the public. Company officials, however, are confident they'll get it. This week Takeda opened a 100 million-euro factory in Germany exclusively to manufacture TAK-003.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

WaPo
Drug-resistant germs and related infections sicken about 3 million people and kill about 48,000 every year in the United States, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new estimates show that previous figures missed about half of the illnesses and deaths.

On average, someone in the United States gets an antibiotic-resistant infection about every 10 seconds, and about every 11 minutes, someone dies.

The long-awaited report, released Wednesday, establishes a new national baseline of infections and deaths from bacteria and fungi that have developed the ability to defeat drugs designed to kill them. Scientists, doctors and public health officials have increasingly warned that antibiotic resistance is one of the gravest public health threats of our time.
...
The report details the toll that 18 pathogens are taking on humans, ranking the threat of each as “urgent,” “serious” or “concerning.”

Five germs account for the most urgent threats. Three are long-recognized dangers: Clostridioides difficile (C. diff.), drug-resistant gonorrhea, and Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), also known as “nightmare bacteria” because they pose a triple threat. They are resistant to all or nearly all antibiotics; they kill up to half of patients who get bloodstream infections from them; and the bacteria can transfer their antibiotic resistance to other related bacteria, potentially making the other bacteria untreatable.

Two new ones were added to the urgent category since the CDC’s first report in 2013: a deadly superbug yeast that has alarmed health officials around the world and a family of bacteria that has developed resistance to nearly all antibiotics.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63532
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Daehawk »

Fun stuff.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

China
Two people have just come down with the plague. Yes, the plague.

In China, two patients diagnosed with the infectious disease are receiving treatment in a Beijing hospital. Public health officials are working to make sure the disease doesn’t spread to others. But the news has reportedly sparked panic among citizens.

The plague comes in three varieties: Pneumonic plague is an infection of the lungs; septicemic plague is a blood infection; and bubonic plague affects the lymphatic system. That last variety is the one we know as the Black Death, the epidemic that wracked Europe in the Middle Ages.

Pneumonic plague may be less famous than the bubonic form, but it’s even more deadly. And it’s pneumonic plague that has now been identified in China.

It’s not clear exactly how the two infected people caught it, but they didn’t catch it in Beijing: They came from Inner Mongolia and traveled to the capital seeking treatment, according to Chinese officials. A bacterium called Yersinia pestis, which is carried by wild rodents and the fleas that feed on them, causes all three types of the plague.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
gilraen
Posts: 4313
Joined: Wed Sep 04, 2013 7:45 pm
Location: Broomfield, CO

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by gilraen »

Bubonic plague is not that uncommon around here, since prairie dogs and other rodents carry it, and there are a few human cases every year. My understanding is that pneumonic plague can develop from bubonic if it's left untreated long enough.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Mother, may I taste danger?
When the immunologist De’Broski Herbert at the University of Pennsylvania looked deep inside the lungs of mice infected with influenza, he thought he was seeing things. He had found a strange-looking cell with a distinctive thatch of projections like dreadlocks atop a pear-shaped body, and it was studded with taste receptors. He recalled that it looked just like a tuft cell — a cell type most often associated with the lining of the intestines.

But what would a cell covered with taste receptors be doing in the lungs? And why did it only appear there in response to a severe bout of influenza?
...
Researchers around the world are tracing the ancient evolutionary roots that olfactory and taste receptors (collectively called chemosensory receptors or nutrient receptors) share with the immune system. A flurry of work in recent years shows that their paths cross far more often than anyone anticipated, and that this chemosensory-immunological network plays a role not just in infection, but in cancer and at least a handful of other diseases.

This system, says Richard Locksley, an immunologist at the University of California, San Francisco, helps direct a systematic response to potential dangers throughout the body. Research focusing on the interactions of the tuft cell could offer a glimpse of how organ systems work together. He describes the prospects of what could come from the studies of these receptors and cells as “exciting,” but cautions that “we’re still in the very early days” of figuring it out.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Bleacher Report
A mumps outbreak will reportedly cause a number of Arkansas Razorbacks football players and coaches to miss Friday's game against the Missouri Tigers.

According to John R. Nabors of ESPN Arkansas, "around 15 or so Razorback players and a few coaches" were expected to be held out due to the illness.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Smoove_B
Posts: 54567
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:58 am
Location: Kaer Morhen

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Smoove_B »

Allegedly a major measles report is coming out later this week with a news embargo until 12/5. Can't say I've seen that before.
Maybe next year, maybe no go
User avatar
Smoove_B
Posts: 54567
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:58 am
Location: Kaer Morhen

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Smoove_B »

Report from the WHO -- WHO decries 'collective failure' as measles kills 140,000:
Measles infected nearly 10 million people in 2018 and killed 140,000, mostly children, as devastating outbreaks of the viral disease hit every region of the world, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

...

“The fact that any child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease like measles is frankly an outrage and a collective failure to protect the world’s most vulnerable children,” said the WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus.

The picture for 2019 is even worse, the WHO said, with provisional data up to November showing a three-fold increase in case numbers compared with the same period in 2018.

The United States has already reported its highest number of measles cases in 25 years in 2019, while four countries in Europe - Albania, the Czech Republic, Greece and Britain – lost their WHO “measles-free” status in 2018 after suffering large outbreaks.
I'm trying to get my mind around 10 million cases and it's astounding. This business will get out of control, to borrow a phrase.
Maybe next year, maybe no go
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Samoa
A massive and deadly measles outbreak in Samoa has forced the government of the South Pacific nation to shut down all public services. The disease has infected more than 4,300 people on the islands.

At least 63 people have died. Most of them were 4 years old or younger.
...
The Samoan government declared a national emergency last month and mandated that all 200,000 people living on the islands get vaccinated. It also closed all schools and banned children from public gatherings, CBS affiliate KGMB correspondent Allyson Blair reports.

Red flags hang outside hundreds of homes across the islands, a sign to health officials that the people who live there need measles vaccines. Medical teams were going door-to-door screening for the disease and giving vaccines in an effort the islands' prime minister called "unprecedented."

Only about 30% of residents were vaccinated when the epidemic exploded last month. That's down from 90% in 2013. The drop may be partly to blame on fears that spread in 2018 when two babies died in Samoa after being immunized. Officials later determined doctors had incorrectly mixed the vaccine with other medicines.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63532
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Daehawk »

--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
AWS260
Posts: 12666
Joined: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:51 pm
Location: Brooklyn

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by AWS260 »

This is a good read. Ebola responders are incredibly brave.
Last April when our colleague Dr. Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung was killed [by gunmen who stormed into a meeting he was leading in the city of Butembo] my team was based in Katwa. It's a locality right next to Butembo. And that same day Katwa was attacked on multiple sides by militias.

So we were hearing all these gunshots. And we had to get on the floor, put on bullet proof vests to protect ourselves.
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82099
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

KSTP
The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control say that 30 people, including six from Minnesota, have contracted an illness that has been linked to contact with puppies.

An outbreak of Campylobacter jejuni, a multidrug-resistant bacterial infection, has been reported in 30 people across 13 states. Minnesota had the most instances out of any state.

Nearly 9 in 10 people who were interviewed reported contact with a puppy, and 7 in 10 of those said reported contact with a puppy from a pet store.

The vast majority of people who said they had contact with a pet store puppy were linked to Petland, a national chain. There aren't any Petland locations in Minnesota, but there are two in Wisconsin and one in Iowa.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Smoove_B
Posts: 54567
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:58 am
Location: Kaer Morhen

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Smoove_B »

More typically seen with poultry (dirty, dirty birds!) but certainly not out of the question for dogs. A good reminder that hygiene is still important around your pets, particularly with children.
Maybe next year, maybe no go
User avatar
gilraen
Posts: 4313
Joined: Wed Sep 04, 2013 7:45 pm
Location: Broomfield, CO

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by gilraen »

Bacon, anyone?
America's food inspectors are warning that "unsafe" pork is likely making it to consumers under a change in rules for meat inspection.

That change is now set to roll out nationwide to plants that process more than 90 percent of the pork Americans eat.
[...]
Under the new system, that number will be reduced to two or three federal inspectors who have more experience but who will have limited hands-on interaction with the carcasses.

Instead, the plant's own employees will be checking and sorting the hog carcasses and letting the federal inspectors, called consumer safety inspectors, check their work from a distance. There is no required federal training for those employees.

Finally, the federal limit on line speed — or the rate at which hog carcasses can be moved for processing and inspection — will be removed.
User avatar
Z-Corn
Posts: 4894
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 4:16 pm

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Z-Corn »

One time a kissed my iguana and I had diarrhea for 45 days straight.
Freyland
Posts: 3042
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 11:03 pm

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Freyland »

Might I suggest altering which part you kiss...
Sims 3 and signature unclear.
User avatar
Smoove_B
Posts: 54567
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:58 am
Location: Kaer Morhen

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Smoove_B »

Tell the truth, you were licking toads and trying to get high.
Maybe next year, maybe no go
User avatar
Z-Corn
Posts: 4894
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 4:16 pm

Re: [Health] The Infectious Diseases Thread

Post by Z-Corn »

I have been known to express a gland now and again. The toads seem to like it too!
Post Reply