A 21-year-old California woman is dead after falling victim to a brain eating amoeba.
Health officials would not release the name of the woman but said she likely contracted the infection while swimming on private property. They do not believe that anyone other than family and friends who used the same body of water could be at risk.
The amoeba, known as Naegleria flowleri, thrive in warm freshwater lakes, ponds and hot springs. The infection can take hold of a human when the amoeba travels through the nasal passages and into the brain. Once in the brain, the amoeba will destroy the brain tissue. The victim usually dies within 3 to 18 days.
The Centers for Disease Control says that of 133 cases in the U.S. in the last 52 years, only three people have survived infection. The victim in this case was admitted to Northern Inyo Hospital in Bishop, California on June 16th and was diagnosed with meningitis. When she didn’t improve, she was flown to Reno, Nevada where the CDC confirmed the deadly amoeba.
The interesting thing about the amoeba is that while it is widespread, it does not seek a human host.
“It is unknown why certain persons become infected with the amoeba while millions of others exposed to warm recreational fresh waters, including those who were swimming with people who became infected, do not,” Richard Johnson, M.D., of Inyo Public Health said in the report.
The CDC recommends that people avoid poorly maintained or unmaintained freshwater sources including pools, hot springs and ponds.
Washington state officials have confirmed a woman’s death from measles, the first person in the U.S. to die of the disease in 12 years.
The Washington State Department of Health said it was likely the woman became exposed during an outbreak in Clallam County, just northwest of Seattle. The disease was reported in six people in the county versus a total of 11 in the state.
The woman visited a medical facility at the same time as a person later diagnosed with measles. She had a variety of health issues that depressed her immune system which caused death via pneumonia from measles.
“This tragic situation illustrates the importance of immunizing as many people as possible to provide a high level of community protection against measles,” the state health department’s statement read. “People with compromised immune systems often cannot be vaccinated against measles.”
The CDC said that measles were effectively eliminated in the United States in 2000 but are making a comeback due to adults who are delaying or avoiding vaccinations for their children.
The CDC said that 178 people have been diagnosed with measles in the United States this year with many connected to an outbreak at Disneyland during the 2014 holiday season.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has reintroduced in the Senate the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act that would ban all abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy except in cases of rape and incest.
The bill passed the House of Representatives 242-184 last month.
“This legislation is groundbreaking yet simple at the same time. What I love most about this piece of legislation is how simple it is,” Graham said. “Do you believe that at 20 weeks in the pregnancy, five months, when medical encyclopedias are encouraging young parents to sing to their child because they can begin to recognize the voice, that this is a stage in development where you should be very excited because your child is well on their way? Does the government have a legitimate and compelling interest to protect that baby? The answer, I believe, is yes.”
The Centers for Disease Control says just 1 percent of abortions take place after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Graham says that information combined with medical proof a baby can feel pain at 20 weeks is compelling evidence to put the measure in place.
The Bill is expected to be a struggle for passage in the Democrat dominated Senate.
The Pentagon says an investigation into an accidental shipment of live anthrax to labs in nine states and South Korea was significantly larger and lasted over a decade.
The anthrax, sent from the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, has been shipped to 51 sites in the United States and overseas in the last 10 year. The samples were all believed to have contained irradiated and inactivated virus.
The officials admitted they are testing 400 additional batches and if they are found to be live, the number of locations with live virus could significantly jump.
Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said that 31 lab workers have ben undergoing post-exposure treatment as a precaution but that the public is safe.
“We know of no risk to the general public from these samples,” Work said.
The admission of the shipments of live anthrax are part of a pattern of accidents involving viruses that have observers questioning the way the military is handling potentially deadly pathogens. A year ago, the CDC admitted a dozen employees may have been exposed to live anthrax and that another lab contaminated a flu virus with the deadly H5N1 bird flu and then shipped it out to another laboratory.
Less than a year ago, live smallpox vials were found in a storage lab at the National Institutes of Health.
The Centers for Disease Control scrambled Wednesday to find where the military accidentally shipped live anthrax virus.
As many as 18 labs around the country have been sent shipments of live anthrax when they should have received inactive or dead virus for research purposes.
And in Korea, officials say that 22 Air Force personnel may have been exposed to anthrax and are now undergoing treatment as a precaution.
Jason McDonald of the Centers for Disease Control said that most of the labs are private but a few are operated by government and public institutions. The shipments were sent from the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah to California, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
One of the samples arrived at Osan Air Base in Korea leading to the possible infections of military personnel.
“There is absolutely no excuse. Not for the shipping institution. Not for receiving institutions that failed to confirm inactivation upon receipt,” Richard Ebright, a biosafety expert at Rutgers in New Jersey said. “Both should lose, irrevocably, authorization for work with active or inactivated select agents.”
The incorrect shipment was discovered by a laboratory in Maryland.
An untreatable tick-borne disease has been found in parts of southern Connecticut.
The Powassan virus is similar to Lyme disease with headache, nausea and fever. Unlike Lyme disease that can be easily treated with antibiotics, Powassan virus can often be fatal.
The virus impacts the central nervous system and causes encephalitis and meningitis.
Dr. Theodore Andreadis of the Connecticut Agriculture Experiment Station, told WCBS that fortunately there has not yet been a human case of the disease in the area. However, the fact ticks in the region carry the disease could be a serious threat to hikers and anyone who is close to a wooded area.
“These ticks will transmit this virus when they feed within a matter of hours, whereas with Lyme disease, for example, ticks generally have to feed up to two days before they’re capable of transmitting it,” Andreadis told WCBS 880.
Twelve cases of the disease were found in the U.S. in 2013, the last year statistics for the disease have been published by the CDC.
A new drug-resistant strain of food poisoning has arrived in the United States via travelers from abroad.
The disease, shigella, is a bacteria that infects intestines. The disease causes cramps and rectal pain, bloody or mucus-laced diarrhea and vomiting. The CDC reported 243 cases in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
About 20 percent of the people infected with the bacteria needed to be hospitalized.
The regular drug-impacted version of the disease, shigellosis, impacts half a million Americans every year.
“If rates of resistance become this high, in more places, we’ll have very few options left for treating Shigella with antibiotics by mouth,” says epidemiologist Anna Bowen, who led the study.
The disease of very infectious. At few at 10 germs can cause an infection.
The drug resistant strain has found in 32 states from May 2014 to February 2015 in people who had connection to international travel.
The Centers for Disease Control is investigating a potentially deadly bacterium that normally is found in hospitals but is appearing in doctor’s offices and medical facilities.
A study released Wednesday shows that the bacteria, C. difficile, has been found in patients who had not visited hospitals but doctors or dentists. The CDC study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, said 150,000 people who had not been in the hospital came down with C. diff in 2011.
The bacteria cause a deadly diarrhea and infected nearly half a million Americans in the last year. The bacteria were the direct cause of 15,000 deaths.
“This is really an important issue. We need to understand better how people are getting C. diff,” said Dr. Cliff McDonald, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC.
The CDC encourages people to wash their hands with soap and water because alcohol based antibiotic jells do not work on C. diff.
Early estimates of the flu vaccine show that it has been just 23 percent effective at preventing doctor visits for all ages.
The flu vaccine is not the worst ever, as one vaccine this decade has been as low at 10 percent effective, but the low totals are enough for the Centers for Disease Control to urge doctors to increase antiviral prescriptions should a patient show signs of flu.
The weakness of the vaccine is blamed on the prevalence of the H3N2 strain of flu that is circulating most among citizens.
“Physicians should be aware that all hospitalized patients and all outpatients at high risk for serious complications should be treated as soon as possible with one of three available influenza antiviral medications if influenza is suspected, regardless of a patient’s vaccination status and without waiting for confirmatory testing,” said Joe Bresee, branch chief in the CDC’s Influenza Division.
The vaccine was showing 26 percent effectiveness in children six months through 17 years but only 14 percent for adults over 50.
The flu season is being called “moderately severe” by the CDC.
A rare virus that causes intense joint pain and fever has struck a Hollywood actress.
Lindsay Lohan was confirmed by doctors to have contracted Chikungunya, a virus transmitted to humans through mosquitoes. The actress contracted the virus during a trip to French Polynesia.
“Being sick is no fun. But happy new year everyone. Be safe. Love all,” the actress said on Twitter after telling her followers to always use bug spray when you are outside to avoid mosquito borne illnesses.
The disease is gaining attention according to the World Health Organization because it is spreading from Asia, Africa and India to the rest of the world. The virus has been found in parts of Florida in recent years and officials are concerned it could spread in the U.S.
There have been over 4,000 cases of the virus in U.S. territories, mostly in Puerto Rico. The only state that is considered to have “locally acquired” cases is Florida. However, travel related cases have been reported in all states except Alaska, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.
The CDC says that most Americans and people in North and South America have no immunity to the virus because it is new to the Western Hemisphere.