Tag Archives: Epidemic

Puerto Rico declares Zika outbreak over, CDC maintains travel warning

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen at the Laboratory of Entomology and Ecology of the Dengue Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 6, 2016. REUTERS/Alvin Baez/File Photo

By Julie Steenhuysen

(Reuters) – Puerto Rico on Monday declared that the 2016 Zika epidemic is over, saying transmission of the virus that can cause birth defects when pregnant women are exposed has fallen significantly.

About 10 cases of the mosquito-borne disease have been reported in each four-week period since April 2017, down from more than 8,000 cases reported in a four-week period at the peak of the epidemic in August 2016, the Puerto Rico Health Department said in a statement.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, has not changed its travel advice, noting that pregnant women should not travel to Puerto Rico.

The CDC said its travel notice for Puerto Rico remains in place and that it expects the virus will continue to “circulate indefinitely” in most regions where it has been introduced.

The Department of Health and Human Services declaration of a public health emergency in Puerto Rico relating to pregnant women and children born to women with the virus remains in effect, the CDC said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

On its website, the CDC cites public health reports saying that “mosquitoes in Puerto Rico are infected with Zika virus and are spreading it to people.”

CDC acting Director Dr. Anne Schuchat said in a statement that she is “pleased that the peak of the Zika outbreak in Puerto Rico has come to a close.” However, she said, “We cannot let our guard down.”

Schuchat said CDC will continue to focus on protecting pregnant women and work closely with the Puerto Rican health department to support Zika surveillance and prevention efforts on the island, which is a U.S. territory.

A major outbreak of Zika began in Brazil in 2015 and spread rapidly to dozens of countries. There is no treatment for Zika, but private companies and governments are working on a vaccine.

In addition to Puerto Rico, the CDC has warned of a risk of Zika infection for travelers going to Mexico, Cuba, most of the Caribbean and South America, as well as parts of Africa and Southeast Asia. http://bit.ly/2m50Lf7

Locally transmitted Zika cases have also been reported in Texas and Florida.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Jonathan Oatis)

Congo almost runs out of yellow fever vaccine amid epidemic

Residents read newspapers with reports on Yellow Fever

By Aaron Ross

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo has almost run out of yellow fever vaccine in Kinshasa, in the same week that the government declared an epidemic of the disease in the packed capital and two other provinces.

Some local people have complained they were denied immunization due to the shortage, despite queueing for a shot. More supplies have been promised, but health officials in the impoverished country say they have to choose between the high cost of flying them in, or a long wait for shipment by sea.

The mosquito-borne hemorrhagic virus is a major concern in Kinshasa, a city of about 12 million people which has poor health services, a humid climate beloved of the insects and much stagnant water where they can breed owing to pour drainage.

Health minister Felix Kabange said on Monday that 67 cases had been confirmed in Kinshasa, Kongo Central and Kwango provinces and that over 1,000 more suspected cases are being monitored. Five people have died from the disease.

The government and international health organizations vaccinated more than 2 million people, about half of them in Kinshasa, between May 26 and June 4.

But there is no more vaccine left, aside from a small number of doses left in reserve in Kongo Central and some being administered by a government agency at Kinshasa’s central hospital, airport and river crossing with neighboring Congo Republic, health officials said.

The agency is charging $35 for the doses it administers, a hefty sum in a country whose gross national income per person is estimated by the World Bank at $380 a year.

Eugene Kabambi, the World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman in Congo, said that the International Coordinating Group on vaccine provision has promised Congo more than a million more doses.

“That requires either a cargo flight, in which case it would come very quickly but cost a lot, or if it’s by boat, it could take a few weeks,” he told Reuters.

The Coordinating Group brings together the WHO and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies plus the medical charity Médecins sans Frontières.

The global stockpile of yellow fever vaccine has already been depleted twice this year to immunize people in Angola, Uganda and Congo. It stands at 6 million doses, but this may not be enough if there are simultaneous outbreaks in a number of highly-populated areas, experts warn.

Almost 18 million doses have been distributed for emergency vaccination campaigns so far in the three African countries.

QUEUES FOR VACCINES

Congo has extensive experience of dealing with outbreaks of tropical diseases and the Ebola virus was first identified in the central African country.

It earned plaudits in 2014 for quickly containing a local Ebola outbreak that killed 49 people in the country. By contrast an Ebola epidemic killed more than 11,300 as it swept through West Africa from 2013.

Of the cases confirmed in the latest yellow fever outbreak, seven were locally transmitted in Congo. Another 58 were imported from Angola, where it began, and two came from remote forested areas not linked to the current outbreak.

Symptoms of the disease include fever, body aches and nausea, although most people recover.

In Kinshasa’s Ndjili commune, a maze of narrow alleys and one of the health zones in the city targeted for vaccination in late May, many residents were unable to receive an injection before stocks ran out.

“Everyone started coming, even from other districts. Near the end we realized that the vaccine was insufficient,” said Murphy Nzuzi, a doctor at a dimly-lit health center in Ndjili with only a few small treatment rooms. He added that fights had broken out among people waiting in line.

In a nearby market where trash collected in a small stream, residents said that some people had received vaccination papers while waiting in line but never got a shot.

“When you present yourself, they give you the card that gives you access to the vaccine, but then there wasn’t enough vaccine for everyone,” said local resident Mama Mavungu.

The current method for making vaccines, using chicken eggs, takes a year. Health authorities are considering using a fifth of the standard dose of vaccine – enough to immunize temporarily but not to give lifelong immunity – to maximize its availability, but no final decision has been made.

(Editing by Tim Cocks and David Stamp)

Heroin use at 20-year high in U.S. drug ‘epidemic’, U.N. says

Heroin Pile

By Shadia Nasralla

VIENNA (Reuters) – A heroin “epidemic” is gripping the United States, where cheap supply has helped push the number of users to a 20-year high, increasing drug-related deaths, the United Nations said on Thursday.

According to the U.N.’s World Drug Report 2016, the number of heroin users in the United States reached around one million in 2014, almost three times as many as in 2003. Heroin-related deaths there have increased five-fold since 2000.

“There is really a huge epidemic (of) heroin in the U.S.,” said Angela Me, the chief researcher for the report which was released on Thursday.

“It is the highest definitely in the last 20 years,” Me said, adding that the trend was continuing.

The rise could be linked to U.S. legislation introduced in recent years which makes it harder to abuse prescription opioids such as oxicodone, a powerful painkiller that can have similar effects to heroin, Me said.

The law meant the texture of the pills was changed to make it more difficult to crush them and inject them into the blood stream, Me said.

“This has caused a partial shift from the misuse of these prescription opioids to heroin.”

Another reason for the increase in the use of heroin, which in the United States mainly comes from Mexico and Colombia, is greater supply that has depressed prices in recent years, Me said.

The United States has also seen a spike in deaths related to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more so than morphine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fentanyl has been named as the drug that killed pop singer Prince this year.

At least 207,000 deaths globally were drug-related in 2014, with heroin use and overdose-related deaths increasing sharply also over the last two years, according to the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“Heroin continues to be the drug that kills the most people and this resurgence must be addressed urgently,” Yury Fedotov, the executive director of the UNODC, said.

U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this year asked Congress for $1.1 billion in new funding over two years to expand treatment for users of heroin and prescription painkillers.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

drcolbert.monthly

Congo declares yellow fever epidemic, 1,000 suspected cases

residents reading reports of yellow fever

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday declared a yellow fever epidemic in three provinces, including the capital Kinshasa, after confirming 67 cases of the disease, with another 1,000 suspected cases being monitored.

Health Minister Felix Kabange said only seven of the proven cases were indigenous to the Central African country, while 58 were imported from Angola, where the outbreak began. A further two cases came from remote forested areas not linked to the current outbreak. Five people in total have died, Kabange added.

“I declare today a localized epidemic of yellow fever in the provinces of Kinshasa, Kongo Central and Kwango,” Kabange told a news conference.

Kinshasa is the primary concern for global health officials since it has a densely-packed population of more than 12 million and poor healthcare infrastructure.

Yellow fever is transmitted by the same mosquitoes that spread the Zika and dengue viruses, although it is a much more serious disease. The “yellow” in the name refers to the jaundice that affects some infected patients.

The global stockpile of vaccines has already been depleted twice this year to immunize people in Angola, Uganda and Congo. It stands at 6 million doses, but this may not be enough if there are simultaneous outbreaks in multiple highly-populated areas, experts warn.

Almost 18 million doses have been distributed for emergency vaccination campaigns so far in the three African countries.

The current method for making vaccines, using chicken eggs, takes a year.

World Health Organisation (WHO) advisers have recommended using a fifth of the standard dose of vaccine in the event of a global shortage – enough to immunize temporarily but not to give lifelong immunity.

“An epidemic in such a large city (as Kinshasa) is always difficult to handle,” said WHO’s Congo representative Yokouide Allarangar.

A vaccination campaign has been staged in two of the city’s health zones deemed as high risk because the virus is circulating but is not linked to imported cases, he said.

“We need to quickly try to contain these zones where the virus circulates to prevent the disease from spreading to other zones,” he said, adding that a million of the city’s residents have been vaccinated so far.

Manufacturers of the vaccine include the Institut Pasteur, government factories in Brazil and Russia as well as French drugmaker Sanofi.

Congo’s outbreak, since January, comes at a time when political tensions linked to an upcoming presidential election and an economic crisis stoked by a slump in global commodity prices is already putting a huge strain on the country’s stability.

President Joseph Kabila is facing opposition, which has sometimes turned violent, amid concerns that he will try to cling to power beyond the expiry of his mandate at year-end.

(Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and G Crosse)

Liberia declared Ebola-free, though threat of flare-ups remain

MONROVIA (Reuters) – Liberia was declared free of the Ebola virus by global health experts on Thursday, a milestone that signaled an end to an epidemic in West Africa that has killed more than 11,300 people.

But the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned there could still be flare-ups of the disease in the region, which has suffered the world’s deadliest outbreak over the past two years, as survivors can carry the virus for many months and could pass it on.

Health specialists cautioned against complacency, saying the world was still underprepared for any future outbreaks of the disease.

Liberia was the last affected country to get the all-clear, with no cases of Ebola for 42 days, twice the length of the virus’s “incubation period” – the time elapsed between transmission of the disease and the appearance of symptoms.

“All known chains of transmission have been stopped in West Africa,” the WHO, a U.N. agency, said on Thursday.

The other affected countries, Guinea and Sierra Leone, were declared Ebola-free late last year. There were cases in seven other countries including Nigeria, the United States and Spain, but almost all the deaths were in the West African nations.

“It is the first time since the start of the … epidemic in West Africa two years ago that the three hardest-hit countries had zero cases for at least 42 days,” said WHO’s Liberia representative Alex Gasasira.

The WHO announcement on Thursday is a major step in the fight against a disease that began in the forests of eastern Guinea in December 2013 before spreading to Liberia and Sierra Leone. It overwhelmed medical infrastructure in the region which was ill-equipped to deal with the outbreak, and at its height in late 2014 sparked global fears among the general public.

However the agency urged caution – Liberia had previously twice been declared virus-free, in May and September of 2015, but each time a fresh cluster of cases unexpectedly emerged.

Its capital Monrovia was badly hit during the worst of the epidemic. Inadequate care meant patients lay strewn on the streets or pavements waiting hours for tests and treatment; medical holding pens became growth centers for the disease.

With those memories still fresh, and society and the economy still reeling from the outbreak, the reaction to Thursday’s announcement was muted. There was no signs of celebration such as the “Ebola free” T-shirts that people wore after previous WHO announcements.

“After the first declaration, people were dancing in the street,” said Vivian Lymas Tegli, child protection officer for UNICEF in Monrovia. “But I don’t think there will be any celebrations today. People are tired of Ebola. They feel it is here to stay.”

‘WORLD UNDERPREPARED’

Experts said progress had been made in the region’s response to Ebola, with new cases having dwindled due to public health campaigns, efforts to trace and isolate potential sufferers and the safe treatment and burial of patients and victims.

But it said the countries would still struggle to deal with any future large outbreak of Ebola, which is passed on through blood and bodily fluids and killed around 40 percent of those who contracted the virus.

Hundreds of healthcare workers in both urban and rural communities were among those killed by the disease, a major blow to medical systems in countries which already had among the lowest numbers of doctors per head of population in the world.

“Today’s WHO announcement is welcome news but we must learn from Ebola’s devastating impact and ensure we are better prepared for infectious disease outbreaks,” said Dr Seth Berkley, head of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, an organization that aims to increase access to vaccines in poor countries.

“The world is still worryingly underprepared for potential future health threats and a change of mind-set is required to ensure we invest in research and development today to protect ourselves in years to come.”

Experts also warned other tropical diseases posed future threats, including the previously little known mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has been linked to head-related birth defects and is spreading in South America.

Hilde de Clerck, a doctor with Medecins Sans Frontieres who has assisted with five Ebola outbreaks including in Congo, Uganda and the latest epidemic in West Africa, said vigilance was crucial to prevent the re-emergence of the disease, for which there is no proven drug treatment, although researchers have developed a vaccine.

“I think we should not forget about the risk of other outbreaks,” she said. “I am most concerned about some of the basics: hygiene, equipment and training.”

While WHO and other health specialists say another outbreak of this magnitude is unlikely, and much has been learned in terms of monitoring patients and responding to outbreaks, problems remain, including with simple hygiene, such as not washing hands.

“I do really believe that there is a much better understanding, an acceptance that this is a real disease, and what the cause is of this disease, and that is much more embedded in society than before,” said Peter Graaff, head of Ebola operations at the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva.

Mohammed Kamara, who lives in Monrovia, lost two relatives and a friend to Ebola in 2014. “I know exactly what it means to have the disease in the country,” he said.

“We must be grateful to God and then to the government and its partners for the country to be declared free of Ebola. I only hope that it is the last time that we experience Ebola.”

(Additional reporting by Keiran Guilbert, Stephanie Nebehay, Tom Miles, Emma Farge, Matt Mpoke Bigg, Kate Kelland and Ben Hirschler; Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Pravin Char)

CDC Declares National Flu Epidemic

The Centers for Disease Control has officially declared a flu epidemic.

The number of states reporting high levels of flu jumped from 13 to 22 last week and the CDC says there are now flu outbreaks in every region of the country.

The CDC also said that 15 children have died as a result of this year’s flu outbreak, 6 of them in Tennessee alone.  East Tennessee Children’s Hospital has reported 442 children with flu already this year.

ABC Chief Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser said on Good Morning America that about a hundred children a year die from the flu.  He said that children, the elderly and anyone with a compromised immune system are at highest danger for death.

The CDC says the H3N2 subtype is the strain in 90 percent of confirmed flu cases.

Dr. Besser said that the flu season has been striking earlier during the last few years and he called it a “worrying trend.”

He advised anyone in a high risk category to get a flu shot.

Deadly Pig Virus Hits 20th U.S. State

A deadly pig virus has been discovered in Nebraska, making it the 20th state to be hit by Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.

The disease had not been seen in North America until May when it was first discovered in the U.S. The disease has a high mortality rate among young piglets, with a 50 percent death rate on a farm infected with the virus common. However, USDA officials said in some cases the virus killed all the piglets on a farm.

Older pigs can be impacted by the disease but have a much lower mortality rate.

The National Pork Board has issued biosecurity guidelines to pork producers in an attempt to stop the epidemic. The spread of the virus is believed to be connected in some way with the trucking industry as most pigs are transferred via truck.

The deaths of piglets is leading market experts to see a steep decline in hog supplies through summer 2014.

Dementia Epidemic Looming By 2050

Health experts are warning that the world could be facing a dementia epidemic by 2050.

Estimates from the group Alzheimer’s Disease International showed a 17 percent increase in the number of people with dementia in 2010 and warned that by 2050 as much as 70 percent of dementia patients could be in third world nations.

“If we look into the future the numbers of elderly people will rise dramatically. It’s vital that the World Health Organization makes dementia a priority, so the world is ready to face this condition,” ADI Executive Director Marc Wortmann told Reuters.

Leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized countries are due to meet in London next week for a special summit on dementia. The condition is so prominent in Britain that it costs the country 23 billion pounds a year, more than cancer, stroke or heart disease combined.

ADI officials said the number of cases by 2050 could triple from 44 million today to 135 million. They said more funds dedicated to research for a cure are necessary and the research needs to begin immediately.

FOX News: New China H7N9 bird flu cases ‘signal potential winter epidemic’

Fresh human cases in eastern China of a deadly new strain of bird flu signal the potential for “a new epidemic wave” of the disease in coming winter months, scientists said on Thursday.

The strain, known as H7N9, emerged for the first time in humans earlier this year and killed around 45 of the some 135 people it infected before appearing to peter out in China During the summer.

But a new case in October in a 35-year-old man from China’s eastern Zhejiang province shows that the virus “has re-emerged in winter 2013” and “indicates a possible risk of a larger outbreak of H7N9 this winter,” according to Chinese researchers writing in the online journal Euro surveillance.

Source: FOX News – FOX News: New China H7N9 bird flu cases ‘signal potential winter epidemic’

West Nile Virus Cases Continue To Set Records

The outbreak of West Nile Virus in the United States continues to set records as infections reported to the CDC skyrocket.

Arkansas health officials have reported that 5 people have died from the virus this year. In addition, officials confirm that 43 people have been infected by the virus this year in the state. By comparison, there was only one case of West Nile Virus in Arkansas last year and no deaths. Continue reading →