Alarming number of epidemics worldwide

I was shocked when I took a look at the Rsoe Havaria maps tonight. The board was lighting up like a Christmas tree!!  I have never seen so many epidemic or disease hazards at one time before.  Each of the following, by itself, might not be too significant, but together, they present a picture of diseases taking hold and spreding where they have been before, and others attacking regions which had not seen them previously.  There aree several diseases here which have symptoms almost identical to H5N1, and some H5N1 has been misdiagnosed as dengue, malaria, etc. 

XDR-TB

A young Johannesburg woman carrying a deadly, incurable strain of TB is walking the streets and possibly infecting scores of unsuspecting people.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7569&lang=eng

The extremely virulent form of tuberculosis that killed 52 out of 53 people at a hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, is just the "tip of the iceberg" in southern Africa, scientists have warned. What makes this strain of TB so lethal is that unlike normal TB, XDR TB can infect even the healthiest of people
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7537&lang=eng

ANTHRAX

The Directorate of Veterinary Services in the Caprivi Region is investigating the possible outbreak of anthrax in the Kasikili area.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7492&lang=eng

Dozens of elephants and buffaloes in Botswana, especially the Chobe National Park, have also died from the anthrax disease.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7493&lang=eng

INDIA:  A wild elephant which died at Nilambur in Malappuram district on Sunday is suspected to have been afflicted with the anthrax disease, sources at the regional laboratory here said.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7549&lang=eng

The Voronezh regional office of the Russian federal food quality watchdog Rospotrebnadzor reported Monday a case of anthrax in the central-Russia region of Voronezh. An anthrax-infected cow was found on a private holding in the village of Turovo.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7640&lang=eng

A 70-year-old Bulgarian woman has died of anthrax after contact with an infected sheep but there is no danger of a wider outbreak among people, a state health official said on Thursday
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7503&lang=eng

WATERY DIARRHEA

  Ethiopia:  At least 100 people died from acute watery diarrhea affecting 10,000 people in several towns in the Oromia and the Southern Nation and Nationalities people Regional states (SNNPR), the Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MoH) said on Thursday.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7480&lang=eng

CHOLERA

Angola:  Twenty seven new cases of cholera were registered in four provinces of the country, from 2 to 3 September, informed the Ministry of Health's daily bulletin.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7511&lang=eng

The deputy director of primary health care in Nigeria says more than 30 people have died of cholera, following an outbreak of the disease in the country.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7639&lang=eng

AVIAN FLU

There is a confirmed outbreak of bird flu (Avian Influenza) in Juba, Southern Sudan, the Ministry of Health has announced
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7550&lang=eng

Indonesia:   several outbreaks on map

BLACK FEVER

Visceral Leishmaniasis, or black fever, has hit 36 of the total 38 districts in north India's Bihar, one of its least developed states, a health report said here Thursday.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7510&lang=eng

MALARIA

Even after three deaths, there is no let-up in the malaria cases in trans-Yamuna region of India.   (This one is worth reading the whole piece; lots of possibilities for ABBF (anything but bird flu).
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7519&lang=eng

DENGUE

India:  Dengue has returned in Delhi with a vengeance and more than 81 residents are admitted to hospitals down with the deadly fever. The sudden return of the disease has forced the state government to form 12 special task forces to combat what could turn out to be an epidemic.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7582&lang=eng

  Phillipines:   Reports of dengue outbreak in the country. The President expressed concern over the growing number of dengue cases in Metro Manila and elsewhere in the country.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7524&lang=eng

ASSORTED DISEASES, including viral influenza

Nepal:  More than 1000 people are suffering from various diseases including malaria, typhoid and viral influenza. "Above 1000 people are suffering from these diseases at a dozen areas including Sadani, Bhaurkunda, Karali, Tatapani, Lamigada and Jamerani of the village, some 700 km west of Kathmandu," The condition of most of the patients is upsetting," ...  "As many as eight people of single family are suffering from the diseases," ... nobody remained there to help the patients in some cases when the entire family members turned sick. People also failed to go to neighboring Indian cities including Tanakpur, Poligunj and Pilbhit for treatment due to rising water level in the Mahakali river that separate the two countries. District Health Office of Dadeldhura said that it had already sent additional medical team to the village with medicines.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7585&lang=eng

Hungary:  I can't get a good translation but there are outbreaks of dysentery and infectious hepatitis.

TYPHOID FEVER   (not confirmed as such yet)

21 suspected cases of typhoid fever at the Samar Provincial Hospital is manageable. "It does not necessarily mean that the symptoms could mean typhoid fever." .
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7409&lang=eng

CHIKUNGUNYA

Cases of the mosquito-borne Chikungunya virus in people returning to Britain from islands in the Indian Ocean have risen dramatically, public health experts said on Wednesday.  Symptoms: a high fever, headache, nausea, vomiting and muscle and joint pain,
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=7568&lang=eng

Thanks for all the work Muriel...

Great post

 

The Potential Pandemic You've Never Heard Of

How the connections between pigs, bats, and people could threaten your health.

By Mary Pearl, Ph.D.
September 2006

The mystery began when pigs on large farms in Malaysia hacking so loudly that their owners called it a "one-mile cough." Nerve damage was also cropping up in some of the animals. No one knew why. Up to 5 percent of pigs in affected herds were dying, and the illness was spreading like wildfire.L ocals named it Nipah, after the place where it was first identified.

More alarming news followed. People, most of them pig handlers, started falling ill. Nipah caused fevers so high that some victims suffered brain inflammation and seizures. Nearly half of those sickened - 105 out of 265 cases - died. Through the sale of pigs, the illness continued to spread for several months throughout Malaysia and Singapore.

The history of this disease, which first struck Malaysia in 1999, offers a cautionary tale of how a potential pandemic was averted. Before SARS, before worries about widespread avian flu, the Nipah virus infected humans with surprising ease. Swift action by Malaysian and international public-health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control, kept the Nipah outbreak under control for several years. But the disease is having a disturbing second act in Bangladesh. Untangling the reasons for Nipah's resurgence exposes the complex threat of new animal-borne diseases and raises difficult questions about our ability to control them.

The Nipah illness is just one of over 40 new diseases that have emerged since the 1970s. Others are Ebola in Africa, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in North America, Venezuelan equine encephalitis in South America, Hendra disease in Australia, and lethal avian flu in Asia. Why are these diseases appearing now? Three-quarters of new human diseases actually originate in animals. As people move into formerly wild areas, local pathogens increasingly come into contact with new domesticated animal hosts - freshly arrived pigs, chickens, horses - and, eventually, humans.

http://www.wildlifetrust.org/news/2006/0901_1_discover.shtml    cont'd  

South Africa: Global Effort to Fight Deadly TB Strain

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UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

September 28, 2006
Posted to the web September 28, 2006

Johannesburg

The World Health Organisation (WHO) will convene a "global task force" in Geneva in October to thrash out a battle plan against extremely drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), a deadly, drug-resistant disease that has already killed 60 people in South Africa and is threatening to spread across the region.

Experts fear that South Africa's high rates of HIV/AIDS - about one in nine of the country's 45 million people are HIV positive, making them acutely susceptible to tuberculosis - could fast-track XDR-TB into a global epidemic. HIV infection rates are similarly high in the neighbouring countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe, which have yet to report any XDR-TB cases.

The particularly virulent strain, resistant to drugs used to treat both tuberculosis and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), has already surfaced in two South African provinces and is suspected in a third, with Gauteng province, the country's economic hub, recently reporting a batch of new cases.

"Following rigorous testing of multi-drug resistance TB patients, the Gauteng Health Department has confirmed six cases of XDR-TB in the province," the department said in a statement.

"Three of these patients are already receiving medical care at (Johannesburg's) Sizwe Tropical Disease Hospital. The department is in the process of tracing the other three patients," it said.

South Africa's health minister, attacked by critics for her slow and confusing response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, which includes promoting nutrition as an effective HIV treatment, has been faster to respond to the threat posed by XDR-TB.

Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has called for an "urgent meeting" with the WHO and has promised to deliver more drugs to fight the disease.

"I have been in touch with the WHO as well as ministers of health in the region. I have requested an urgent meeting with experts from the WHO so that we can get assistance to develop a national as well as a regional strategy to deal with XDR-TB," Tshabalala-Msimang said in a statement.

"I held a consultative meeting with TB researchers, clinicians as well as laboratory scientists and we agreed that they will keep me briefed on a continuous basis with regard to the extent of the problem and what can and is being done to contain the problem," she said.

Health ministers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) put XDR-TB at the top of their agenda at a meeting in Maputo, Mozambique last week.

In a statement, the ministers said they agreed to strengthen tuberculosis programmes in their respective countries, to enhance surveillance systems and to develop a "preparedness plan" to deal with the XDR-TB challenge in the region.

SPREADS LIKE COMMON COLD

Tuberculosis, especially the XDR-TB strain, poses an acute threat in Africa and other less-developed regions because the disease is easy to contract, but problematic and expensive to treat.

An airborne disease that killed millions in Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries, TB spreads much like the common cold through the coughs and sneezes of infected people.

The first symptoms of the illness include weight loss, fever and night sweats. In the advanced stages victims cough up blood. If untreated, TB can kill a patient by gradually boring holes through the lungs.

The numbers the disease infects today makes for sober reading. Globally, about 8 to 10 million people contract TB each year and about 1.7 million of those die, according to the WHO. While most strains of drug-resistant TB are treatable, fighting them requires prolonged and expensive doses of medication. The required time to treat TB can vary from six months through to two years, putting huge pressure on the health infrastructure of developing countries.

Experts say XDR-TB has been detected in other countries, including the United States, the Republic of Korea and the former Soviet republic of Latvia, but that the situation in South Africa is particularly worrying because of the extremely high mortality rates.

Relevant Links Southern Africa South Africa Tuberculosis Health and Medicine International Organizations and Africa

Of the 60 reported deaths in South Africa all have been in KwaZulu-Natal province, where doctors first detected XDR-TB last year. Of the 60 deaths, 44 were HIV positive, meaning the disease is also killing patients with relatively healthy immune systems. Doctors are also carrying out tests on two deceased miners in the Free State province to determine whether they died from XDR-TB.

Health officials in South Africa have stressed to tuberculosis sufferers the importance of completing a full course of treatment. Doctors have even raised the threat of legal action against patients who refuse treatment after a woman suffering from XDR-TB walked out of a Johannesburg hospital and returned home, possibly infecting many more people.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United