Year: 2024
Deadly Marburg virus: scientists race to test vaccines in outbreak
Nature There are no approved treatments for the Ebola-like haemorrhagic fever, which is spreading in Rwanda. Researchers are in a race against time to deploy vaccines and treatments against a deadly virus that has exploded in Rwanda. As of 30 September, the central African country has recorded 27 cases and 9 deaths caused by Marburg virus, […]
Oct 2, 2024
Post-COVID-19 condition symptoms among emergency department patients tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection
Nature Symptoms of the Post-COVID-19 Condition are often non-specific making it a challenge to distinguish them from symptoms due to other medical conditions. In this study, we compare the proportion of emergency department patients who developed symptoms consistent with the World Health Organization’s Post-COVID-19 Condition clinical case definition between those who tested positive for Severe […]
Oct 2, 2024
When Nerve Pain and Numbness Are Linked to Long COVID
Yale Medicine Our nerves help us sense, react to, and change our surroundings. Simply put, our nerves are our connection to the world. This connection is disrupted, however, when peripheral neuropathy strikes. The peripheral nervous system starts when nerves leave the spinal cord and ends when the nerves reach our tissues. Peripheral neuropathy, defined as […]
Oct 2, 2024
Sex workers find themselves at the center of Congo’s mpox outbreak
AP It’s been four months since Sifa Kunguja recovered from mpox, but as a sex worker, she said, she’s still struggling to regain clients, with fear and stigma driving away people who’ve heard she had the virus. “It’s risky work,” Kunguja, 40, said from her small home in eastern Congo. “But if I don’t work, I […]
Oct 2, 2024
The Filoviruses
CEPI Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe was a newly-qualified microbiologist working as a field epidemiologist when he got a call in 1976 to help investigate an outbreak. A pernicious disease had taken hold in the village of Yambuku in central Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. People were dying in large numbers of the infection – one that […]
Oct 2, 2024
MVD: UNICEF Rwanda Flash Update
Relief Web Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) outbreak was declared on 27 September 2024. UNICEF sourced from UNICEF Tanzania 19,200 pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE), including boots, coveralls, face shields and gloves have arrived in-country. Additional procurement is being made including additional PPE as well as Water,Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) supplies to help the Ministry […]
Oct 1, 2024
Marburg virus outbreak in Rwanda draws concern over possibility of international spread
STAT A large outbreak of Marburg virus in Rwanda is drawing international concern about the possibility of spread beyond the country’s borders. The number of cases detected so far, 27, already makes the outbreak one of the biggest involving Marburg on record. Nine of those individuals have died. There are currently no licensed vaccines to combat the disease. Most […]
Oct 1, 2024
Rwanda limits funeral sizes due to Marburg virus outbreak
BBC Rwandan authorities have restricted funeral sizes for victims of Marburg virus in an effort to curb an outbreak of the highly contagious disease. Eight people have died during Rwanda’s first outbreak of the virus, which was confirmed on Friday by the nation’s health ministry. Marburg, with a fatality rate of up to 88%, is […]
Oct 1, 2024
CDC urges covid, flu shots, but public interest is flagging
Washington Post Federal health officials are urging Americans to get vaccinated ahead of the respiratory virus season as new survey data shows tepid interest in getting shots. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency anticipates 800,000 flu, covid and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) hospitalizations in the coming months, on par with […]
Oct 1, 2024
Outbreak of Whooping Cough Hitting Vaccinated Kids and Parents
Bloomberg When Patricia Teklu’s daughter started coughing uncontrollably, her pediatrician said it was a routine asthma flare up. But that didn’t explain the eight nosebleeds she endured in just one day. “She was coughing so much that she literally could not breathe,” said Teklu, a 36-year-old software sales executive from Boston. The spasms were so […]
Oct 1, 2024