One person is dead and over 20 sickened after an outbreak of botulism at a Lancaster, Ohio church’s potluck dinner.
The Ohio Department of Health confirmed that each of the victims of the botulism had attended the potluck.
Fairfield Medical Center identified the first case of botulism on Tuesday morning and had several cases soon follow the initial patient. Most of the sick are middle-aged but there were no details released about the person who died from the illness.
Pastor Bill Pitts of Cross Pointe Free Will Baptist church said the potluck was aimed at building fellowship among members. The church provided meat and drink and everyone in attendance was encouraged to bring a covered side dish.
“Our main emphasis, right now, is for everyone to pray,” he said. “These are people that we love and work with. [I’m] just calling out for a lot of people to pray for them if they would.”
Hospital officials say at least five victims are being treated by intensive care units.
Botulism is caused by a nerve toxin produced by certain bacteria. The disease is rare but very life threatening.
A mysterious disease in Ondo State, Nigeria has left at least 18 people dead since April 13th.
Dr. Dayo Adeyanju, the state commissioner for health, told reporters that 18 people died and 5 others are being treated. Preliminary tests indicate the disease is not contagious according to Dr. Adeyanju.
The symptoms include headaches, blurred vision, blindness and unconsciousness. Victims die within 24 hours of showing symptoms.
Speculation centers on locally brewed alcohol or herbicide.
The World Health Organization (WHO) released numbers that conflicted with Dr. Adeyanju, stating that 13 people were killed in 18 total cases. The WHO said tests in Lagos ruled out viruses and bacteria.
WHO spokesman Dr. Tarik Jasarevic said that they would be conducting toxicological tests on one of the dead to try and determine the source.
Those infected have been quarantined at the General Hospital in Irele and the rest of the hospital has been cleared of patients.
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 horrifically painful and potentially fatal skin disease is reportedly breaking out among the members of the terrorist group ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Leishmaniasis is spread through the bite of female sand fleas. It causes open lesions on the skin that eat away at flesh. Without medical treatment, the disease can be fatal. The final stages of the disease attack the spleen and liver along with destroying red blood cells.
Medical centers in the region have closed because of the terrorists. Doctors Without Borders had clinics in the region to treat the disease that was almost at epidemic levels before their departure but it was deemed unsafe for their staff to continue operations.
However, the London Daily Mirror reported that many of the terrorists are refusing to accept medical help for their infections, contributing to the spread among the terrorists fighting the Iraqi army.
The disease is common in areas where people suffer from extreme poverty, malnutrition and deforestation. The disease gained international exposure in 2008 when a British TV host contracted it on a shoot and was hospitalized for three weeks to fight the disease including rounds of chemotherapy.
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.
A dangerous and deadly bacteria has been released from a high-security laboratory in Louisiana.
The release of Burkholderia pseudomallei from the Tulane National Primate Research Center has been the subject of investigations by multiple federal and state organizations but none has been able to explain the cause of the release or even how much bacteria has contaminated the land in the area.
The lab, 35 miles north of New Orleans, is just the latest safety breach at some of the biggest laboratories in the nation.
“The fact that they can’t identify how this release occurred is very concerning,” Richard Ebright, a biosafety expert from Rutgers University, told USA Today.
The scientists at the lab say that four monkeys that were never used in the experiments have been confirmed to have exposure to the virus. A federal investigator became ill after visiting the facility and tested positive for the virus. The scientist will make a full recovery.
“We’re taking this extraordinarily seriously. It’s very disturbing to us,” said Andrew Lackner, director of the Tulane primate center. “Right from the beginning we’ve spent an enormous amount of time trying to figure out how this could have happened.”
Lackner says there is no public health threat.
A disease that has been feared since Biblical times is on the rise in Florida.
Officials near Daytona Beach say that three people have been diagnosed with leprosy over the last five months. Two of the patients reportedly had been infected after close contact with armadillos.
Three cases are unusually high for a disease that is considered rare.
Brevard County officials say that 18 cases of leprosy have been found in their county in the last five years and most of those cases are patients who had some kind of contact with armadillos.
Health officials say that only 150 to 250 new cases of leprosy are found in the United States each year.
Florida health officials say that the disease is not very contagious to the public at large.
President Obama announced the progress against the Ebola outbreak in West Africa allows U.S. troops to come home.
“We have risen to the challenge,” he said at the White House. “Our focus now is getting to zero.”
Around 1,500 troops have already returned and 2,700 more will return by April 30th. Only 100 military officials will stay in Liberia after that date to provide advice on containment.
The President said the way Ebola has been brought under control shows that calls for travel restrictions and harsh measures were not necessary.
“People were understandably afraid,” Obama said. “Some stoked those fears.”
The President praised charitable groups that took the initiative to go and help the victims of the outbreak.
British scientists say they have found a way to “jam” the genetic code of the common cold and stop the virus from being able to replicate inside the body.
If true, it could mean almost immediate cures to the common cold.
Scientists with the Universities of Leeds and York say they used a computer model to identify the viral genome that causes rhinoviruses. The molecules can be blocked at the genetic level and essentially stop the disease before it starts.
The breakthrough’s news was tempered by the fact the scientists would have to conduct animal testing before they can develop the drug that could deliver the necessary items to block the genetic code.
“We have understood for decades that the RNA carries the genetic messages that create viral proteins, but we didn’t know that, hidden within the stream of letters we use to denote the genetic information, is a second code governing virus assembly,” Dr Roman Tuma, Reader in Biophysics at the University of Leeds, told the London Daily Telegraph.
“It is like finding a secret message within an ordinary news report and then being able to crack the whole coding system behind it.”
An outbreak of measles that started at Disneyland is causing massive problems throughout California according to the LA Times.
Thirty babies are now in home isolation in Alameda County because of possible exposure to measles. Sherri Willis of the Alameda County Public Health Deaprtment told the LA Times that the children were not infected but had contact with measles patients.
“It is our job to try to determine who has been exposed,” Willis said.
There have been 87 confirmed cases of measles connected to the Disneyland strain. Officials say that most of the people who have contracted the disease were not vaccinated against it and urged all people to get vaccinations if they did not as a child.
Measles is spread through the air by coughing or sneezing. The U.S. had a record number of cases last year, with 644 infections in 27 states.
Other precautions being taken include over two dozen high school students from Huntington Beach High School being sent home because they were unvaccinated and one student was confirmed to have measles.
“Unimmunized students are excluded from school for 21 days past the date of exposure, during which they need to monitor themselves for signs of measles,” Deanne Thompson, Orange County health care agency spokeswoman said. “This is to avoid spreading the disease.”