Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
West Nile Outbreak Shaping Up as Worst Ever in U.S., Authorities Say
The following is
an excerpt from an article in
The New York Times
Thursday, August 23, 2012
West Nile Outbreak Shaping Up as Worst Ever in U.S., Authorities Say
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
The nation is heading toward the worst outbreak of West Nile disease in the 13 years that the virus has been on this continent, federal health authorities said Wednesday.
But it is still unclear where and how far cases will spread. Dallas declared an emergency last week, and West Nile deaths have been concentrated in Texas and a few nearby states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma, as well as South Dakota.
So far this year, there have been 1,118 cases and 41 deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Lyle R. Petersen, director of the agency’s division of vector-borne diseases, said Wednesday in a telephone news conference.
“That’s the highest number of cases ever reported to the C.D.C. by the third week of August,” he added. “And cases are trending upward.”
For more, visit www.nytimes.com.
Genome Detectives Solve Mystery of Hospital’s K. Pneumoniae Outbreak
The following is
an excerpt from an article in
The New York Times
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Genome Detectives Solve Mystery of Hospital’s K. Pneumoniae Outbreak
By GINA KOLATA
The ambulance sped up to the red brick federal research hospital on June 13, 2011, and paramedics rushed a gravely ill 43-year-old woman straight to intensive care. She had a rare lung disease and was gasping for breath. And, just hours before, the hospital learned she had been infected with a deadly strain of bacteria resistant to nearly all antibiotics.
The hospital employed the most stringent and severe form of isolation, but soon the bacterium, Klebsiella pneumoniae, was spreading through the hospital. Seventeen patients got it, and six of them died. Had they been infected by the woman? And, if so, how did the bacteria escape strict controls in one of the nation’s most sophisticated hospitals, the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.?
What followed was a medical detective story that involved the rare use of rapid genetic sequencing to map the entire genome of a bacterium as it spread and to use that information to detect its origins and trace its route.
“We had never done this type of research in real time,” said Julie Segre, the researcher who led the effort.
The results, published online Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, revealed a totally unexpected chain of transmission and an organism that can lurk undetected for much longer than anyone had known. The method used may eventually revolutionize how hospitals deal with hospital-acquired infections, which contribute to more than 99,000 deaths a year.
For more, visit www.nytimes.com.
Cholera Sweeps West African Slums
The following is
an excerpt from an article in
The New York Times
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Cholera Sweeps West African Slums
By ADAM NOSSITER
DAKAR, Senegal — A fierce cholera epidemic is spreading through the coastal slums of West Africa, killing hundreds and sickening many more in one of the worst regional outbreaks in years, health experts said.
Cholera, transmitted through contact with contaminated feces, was made worse this year by an exceptionally heavy rainy season that flooded the sprawling shantytowns in Freetown and Conakry, the capitals of Sierra Leone and neighboring Guinea.
In both countries, about two-thirds of the population lack toilets, a potentially lethal threat in the rainy season because of the contamination of the water supply. Doctors Without Borders said there had been nearly twice as many cholera cases so far this year as there were in the same period in 2007 in Sierra Leone and Guinea, when it said the area experienced its last major outbreak.
Already, more than 13,000 people suffering from the disease’s often fatal symptoms — diarrhea, vomiting and severe dehydration — have been admitted to hospitals in the two nations’ capitals, and 250 to 300 have died, Doctors Without Borders said.
For more, visit www.nytimes.com.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
West Nile Hits Hard Around Dallas, With Fear of Its Spread
The following is
an excerpt from an article in
The New York Times
Friday, August 17, 2012
West Nile Hits Hard Around Dallas, With Fear of Its Spread
By MANNY FERNANDEZ and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
DALLAS — An outbreak of West Nile virus has engulfed Dallas County, with nearly 200 cases of human infection and 10 deaths, leading the mayor of Dallas to declare a state of emergency and to authorize the first aerial spraying of a pesticide in the city since 1966.
The high number of infections and deaths from the mosquito-borne disease marks the nation’s worst outbreak of West Nile in a year that has already logged a record number of cases across the country. The virus has become endemic in the United States since the first outbreak in 1999.
An official with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the Dallas-area outbreak was probably a harbinger of a larger spread of the virus into other parts of the country. In Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, human cases of infection rose steadily this week, from 5 on Monday to 8 on Wednesday to 10 on Thursday, though no deaths had been reported, the authorities said.
Texas officials say the statewide death toll so far is 17, the most West Nile-related fatalities of any state.
In a report, the C.D.C. said that as of Tuesday, 693 cases of infection had been reported nationwide. Louisiana had six deaths, according to the report, and no other state had more than one.
“With this huge outbreak in Texas, the jury is still out on what’s going to happen with the rest of the country,” said the official, Dr. Lyle R. Petersen, director of the C.D.C.’s Division of Vector-borne Infectious Diseases. “But in Chicago, we’ve already observed high numbers of West Nile virus-infected mosquitoes. This is looking like a large regional event. We don’t know if the number of cases is going to drastically increase, but we do expect more cases.”
And yet, as local and state officials have stepped up their efforts to fight West Nile in the Dallas area, there has been a kind of backlash, with many residents growing more concerned about the aerial spraying than the virus itself.
For more, visit www.nytimes.com.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Killer Bacteria in the Hospital
Dr. William Schaffner, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, offers insight on a so-called super bacteria that is killing thousands of Americans in hospitals each year.
Video from CNBC (2:40).
Killer Bacteria in the Hospital
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
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