Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
Cholera resurfaces in Haiti as gangs imperil water and hospital access
Washington Post – At least one person has died of cholera in Haiti, officials said this week, stoking fears of an outbreak as widespread gang control over several parts of the country worsens access to fuel, clean drinking water and medical care. Two confirmed cases, one resulting in death, of the acute diarrheal illness — […]
Oct 3, 2022
Two thirds of U.S. adults don’t plan on getting COVID boosters soon
Reuters – Around two-thirds of adults in the United States do not plan to get updated COVID-19 booster shots soon, according to a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a health policy nonprofit organization.Only a third of adults polled said they either already received the updated shots or plan to get the booster […]
Oct 3, 2022
Uganda urgently needs help to stop the Ebola outbreak in its tracks
Fortune – As of September 29, there have been 35 confirmed cases and seven confirmed deaths–with many more probable cases and a suspected fatality rate of around 50%. The outbreak has now expanded to two other districts, with 427 contacts listed for follow-up, and it will potentially spread to congested parts of downtown Kampala, the […]
Sep 30, 2022
The Pandemic’s Legacy Is Already Clear
The Atlantic/by Ed Yong – Recently, after a week in which 2,789 Americans died of COVID-19, President Joe Biden proclaimed that “the pandemic is over.” Anthony Fauci described the controversy around the proclamation as a matter of “semantics,” but the facts we are living with can speak for themselves. COVID still kills roughly as many Americans every week as died […]
Sep 30, 2022
Nature – The Omicron variant has been associated with reduced vaccine effectiveness (VE) against mild disease with rapid waning. Meanwhile Omicron has also been associated with milder disease. Protection against severe disease has been substantially higher than protection against infection with previous variants. We used a test-negative case-control design to estimate VE against hospitalisation with […]
Sep 30, 2022
CDC warns of severe illnesses from monkeypox as Ohio reports death of a monkeypox patient
CNN – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new warning to health care providers Thursday about severe illnesses in people with monkeypox. The alert comes as Ohio reported that an individual with monkeypox has died – the third known death of a patient with monkeypox in the United States. Ohio listed […]
Sep 30, 2022
Viral loads in clinical samples of men with monkeypox virus infection: a French case series
The Lancet – Monkeypox virus (MPXV) is currently spreading among men who have sex with men, outside of sub-Saharan Africa, and close contact during sex seems to be one of the key pathways of viral transmission in the current outbreak. Our aim was to describe the distribution of MPXV in the human body, as it […]
Sep 30, 2022
Studies detail monkeypox transmission risks
CIDRAP – A study of almost 400 samples taken from men with monkeypox reveals a high prevalence of the virus on skin, throat, and anus swabs compared to in blood or urine—with detections in semen in the midrange—and high viral loads in skin and anal swabs. Two other new studies detail transmission risk in a […]
Sep 30, 2022
What are the differences in transmissibility between novel and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants?
Medical News – Currently, the majority of reporting of secondary attack rates (SAR) in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have defined secondary infection as recent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positivity in a contact who is displaying symptoms. By only including those who are symptomatic while having detectable viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) during sampling, this method undercounts […]
Sep 30, 2022
Scientists race to test vaccines for Uganda’s Ebola outbreak
Science – A multipronged international effort has begun to pull out all the stops to launch trials of experimental Ebola vaccines in Uganda, which declared an outbreak of the deadly disease on 20 September. According to the most recent World Health Organization (WHO) update, Uganda has had 18 confirmed and 18 suspected cases of Ebola, […]
Sep 30, 2022