Author: Claudinne Miller
The Conversation The last pandemic was bad, but COVID-19 is only one of many infectious diseases that emerged since the turn of this century. Since 2000, the world has experienced 15 novel Ebola epidemics, the global spread of a 1918-like influenza strain and major outbreaks of three new and unusually deadly coronavirus infections: SARS, MERS and, of course, COVID-19. Every year, researchers […]
May 7, 2024
California city declares a public health emergency after tuberculosis sickens 14
NBC News The City Council of Long Beach, California, is poised to authorize a public health emergency in response to a local outbreak of tuberculosis. The city’s health officer, Dr. Anissa Davis, declared the emergency last week, after its health department detected 14 tuberculosis cases at a single-room occupancy hotel. The City Council vote on Tuesday […]
May 7, 2024
Griffith University researchers to trial naltrexone on long COVID patients
ABC.net Jayden Donald went from a fit and healthy teenager who rode his horses almost every day, to being so sick he could hardly sit up after his second bout of COVID-19. A year later, the 19-year-old talented equestrian has only recently returned to university and to the competitive dressage arena after being diagnosed with […]
May 7, 2024
There’s no question H5N1 bird flu has ‘pandemic potential.’ How likely is that worst-case scenario?
CBC News: Unprecedented scale of outbreaks raises new concerns, scientists warn. As early as 1997, just a year after H5N1 was first discovered, there were warning signs this form of avian flu was capable of wreaking havoc far beyond birds. That year, poultry outbreaks in China and Hong Kong were linked to 18 human infections […]
May 7, 2024
A case of Lassa fever detected in France, here is everything you need to know about this disease
Machine translated from French An extremely rare virus in the Northern Hemisphere because it is endemic to West Africa, there are no vaccines yet to counter Lassa fever. On May 2, 2024, because he was suffering from Lassa fever, a man was admitted to the Bégin military hospital in Saint-Mandé in Val-de-Marne (94). If his condition […]
May 7, 2024
Spain health warning issued amid report of serious disease that can be ‘fatal’
Daily Record A Foreign Office backed resource has sounded the alarm after a case Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever was found in a Spanish town. A serious illness has been detected in Spain that is fatal in nearly 30 per cent of cases, sparking a warning from health officials. Those considering visiting and currently in the country are being […]
May 7, 2024
Long COVID May Have Long-Term Impact on Surgery
American College of Surgeons More than 77% of people in the US had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 as of 2022.1 Of these, approximately 30% of survivors report having persistent symptoms classified as long COVID2 and 11% describe persistent symptoms at 6 months.3 Patients frequently complain of brain fog, cognitive difficulties, and other neurologic sequelae as the primary […]
May 7, 2024
STAT Jeremy Farrar, now the World Health Organization’s chief scientist, was working in Vietnam 20 years ago when the H5N1 virus started to spread across Asia — at that point in poultry. He recalls there was a reluctance among farmers to cull their chickens because they weren’t being compensated for them. Movement of infected birds […]
May 7, 2024
White House overhauls rules for risky pathogen studies
Science New policies for gain-of-function and “dual-use” research will cover broader swath of experiments. The White House is tightening federal oversight of so-called gain-of-function (GOF) studies that could enhance risky viruses in ways that increase their ability to cause a pandemic. It is also overhauling rules for a broader category of federally funded research on […]
May 7, 2024
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Virus Infection in a Dairy Farm Worker
NEJM Sporadic human infections with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) virus, with a wide spectrum of clinical severity and a cumulative case fatality of more than 50%, have been reported in 23 countries over more than 20 years.1 HPAI A(H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4b viruses have spread widely among wild birds worldwide since 2020–2021,2,3 resulting in outbreaks in […]
May 7, 2024