| March 9, 2009
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Pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth
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Revelation 6:8
I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth. | |
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Revelation 2:20-23
`But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. `I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. `Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. `And I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.
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Psalms 91:1-3
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress,
My God, in whom I trust!"
For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper
And from the deadly pestilence.
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Luke 21:11
and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
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| Shalom in Christ Jesus, |
Pestilence and plagues are
another one of the birth pangs or signs to watch for mentioned by Jesus in the
Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24-25, Mark 13 and Luke 21) given to His disciples
concerning the question "... when will these things be, [referring to Jesus'
statement regarding the destruction of the Second Temple] and what will be the
sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"
Revelation 6:8 also ties in
the wild beasts of the earth, and whether by directly overrunning or attacking
people as in Ezekiel 14:15 or in the sense of contributing to the pestilence,
we see that these prophesies are fully set to be fulfilled if not already being
fulfilled depending on your dispensational slant.
Whatever the case, know that
Jesus return gets nearer every day.
BE/\LERT!
Scott
Brisk
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Deadly bacteria defy drugs, alarming doctors
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LOS ANGELES TIMES [Tribune Company] - By Mary Engel - February 17, 2009
... Acinetobacter doesn't garner as many headlines as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the dangerous superbug better known as MRSA. But a January report by the Infectious Diseases Society of America warned that drug-resistant strains of Acinetobacter baumannii and two other microbes -- Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae -- could soon produce a toll to rival MRSA's.
The three bugs belong to a large category of bacteria called "gram-negative" that are especially hard to fight because they are wrapped in a double membrane and harbor enzymes that chew up many antibiotics. As dangerous as MRSA is, some antibiotics can still treat it, and more are in development, experts say.
But the drugs once used to treat gram-negative bacteria are becoming ineffective, and finding effective new ones is especially challenging.
"We're literally running out of drugs to treat gram-negatives," said Dr. Brad Spellberg, an infectious disease specialist at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. "And there is nothing in the pipeline right now."
Exact numbers are hard to come by, because infections by these three bacteria are not reportable by law. But using 2002 data voluntarily reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from about 300 large, mostly urban hospitals, the Infectious Diseases Society of America identified about 104,000 gram-negative infections that were resistant to at least some antibiotics, roughly the same as the 102,000 MRSA infections found that year.
A class of broad-spectrum antibiotics known as carbapenems have been the drug of last resort for gram-negative bugs.
"The carbapenems are . . . the best gram-negative drugs we have," said Dr. Helen Boucher of Tufts University, an infectious disease specialist. "These bugs have found a way to make an enzyme that dissolves these drugs. That means our best gun is ineffective."
As the drugs fail, doctors find themselves as a last resort turning to older, more toxic ones such as colistin, largely abandoned because of the severe side effects: kidney damage and deafness. At one East Coast hospital, the number of orders doctors made for colistin went from one in 2001 to 68 in 2007, Boucher said. ...
For the most part, gram-negative bacteria are hospital scourges -- harmless to healthy people but ready to infect already-damaged tissue. The bacteria steal into the body via ventilator tubes, catheters, open wounds and burns, causing pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and bone, joint and bloodstream infections.
Pseudomonas is widely found in soil and water, and rarely causes problems except in hospitals. ...
Acinetobacter generally causes wound and bloodstream infections. It has become notorious among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are believed to have contracted it in field hospitals and carried it to veterans hospitals in the U.S. ...
Similarly resistant strains of Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter also are on the rise, as are resistant strains of Escherichia coli, another gram-negative bacterium.
These four microbes are among the six leading causes of infections in hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare settings, the Infectious Diseases Society of America reported. ...
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Also:
Antibacterial wipes can spread superbugs: study
REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - By Michael Kahn - June 3, 2008
LONDON - Disinfectant wipes routinely used in hospitals may actually spread drug-resistant bacteria rather than kill the dangerous infections, British researchers said on Tuesday.
While the wipes killed some bacteria, a study of two hospitals showed they did not get them all and could transfer the so-called superbugs to other surfaces, Gareth Williams, a microbiologist at Cardiff University, said.
The findings presented at the American Society of Microbiology's General Meeting in Boston focused on bacteria that included methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. ...
Experts have been saying for years that poor hospital practices spread dangerous bacteria, and yet many studies have shown that health care workers, including doctors and nurses, often fail to even wash their hands as directed. ...
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Live Teaching Engagements
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Cellphones may spread superbugs in hospitals
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AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - March 5, 2009
Cell phones belonging to hospital staff were found to be tainted with bacteria -- including the drug-resistant MRSA superbug -- and may be a source of hospital-acquired infections, according to study released Friday.
Researchers from the Ondokuz Mayis University in Turkey led by Fatma Ulger tested the phones and dominant hands of 200 doctors and nurses working in hospital operating rooms and intensive care units.
Ninety-five percent of the mobile phones were contaminated with at least one type of bacteria, with the potential to cause illness ranging from minor skin irritations to deadly disease.
Nearly 35 percent carried two types of bacteria, and more than 11 percent carried three or more different species of bugs, the study found.
Most worring, one in eight of the handsets showed methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a virulent strain that has emerged as a major health threat in hospitals around the world.
Only 10 percent of staff regularly cleaned their phones, even if most followed hygiene guidelines for hand washing, the study noted.
"These mobile phones could act as a reservoir of infection which may facilitate patient-to-patient transmission of bacteria in a hospital setting," the authors warned.
Several strains of drug-resistant bacteria are generally harmless to healthy people but can become lethal to hospital patients in weakened conditions. The bacteria slip into open wounds and through catheters or ventilator tubes, typically causing pneumonia or bloodstream infections. ...
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Related:
Blue Light Destroys Antibiotic-Resistant Staph Infection
SCIENCE DAILY - January 31, 2009
New Rochelle NY -- Two common strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA, were virtually eradicated in the laboratory by exposing them to a wavelength of blue light, in a process called photo-irradiation that is described in a paper published online ahead of print in Photomedicine and Laser Surgery.
The article will appear in the April 2009 issue (Volume 27, Number 2) of the peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert.
Antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections represent an important and increasing public health threat. At present, fewer than 5% of staphylococcal strains are susceptible to penicillin, while approximately 40%-50% of Staph aureus isolated have developed resistance to newer semisynthetic antibiotics such as methicillin as well. ...
Read Full Report
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Food Problems Elude Private Inspectors
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NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Michael Moss and Andrew Martin - March 5, 2009
When food industry giants like Kellogg want to ensure that American consumers are being protected from contaminated products, they rely on private inspectors like Eugene A. Hatfield. So last spring Mr. Hatfield headed to the Peanut Corporation of America plant in southwest Georgia to make sure its chopped nuts, paste and peanut butter were safe to use in things as diverse as granola bars and ice cream.
The peanut company, though, knew in advance that Mr. Hatfield was coming. He had less than a day to check the entire plant, which processed several million pounds of peanuts a month.
Mr. Hatfield, 66, an expert in fresh produce, was not aware that peanuts were readily susceptible to salmonella - which he was not required to test for anyway. And while Mr. Hatfield was inspecting the plant to reassure Kellogg and other food companies of its suitability as a supplier, the Peanut Corporation was paying for his efforts.
"The overall food safety level of this facility was considered to be: SUPERIOR," he concluded in his March 27, 2008, report for his employer, the American Institute of Baking, which performs audits for major food companies. A copy of the audit was obtained by The New York Times.
Federal investigators later discovered that the dilapidated plant was ravaged by salmonella and had been shipping tainted peanuts and paste for at least nine months. But they were too late to prevent what has become one of the nation's worst known outbreaks of food-borne disease in recent years, in which nine are believed to have died and an estimated 22,500 were sickened.
With government inspectors overwhelmed by the task of guarding the nation's food supply, the job of monitoring food plants has in large part fallen to an army of private auditors like Mr. Hatfield. And the problems go well beyond peanuts.
An examination of the largest food poisoning outbreaks in recent years - in products as varied as spinach, pet food, and a children's snack, Veggie Booty - show that auditors failed to detect problems at plants whose contaminated products later sickened consumers. ...
Read Full Report
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Zimbabwe: Mugabe splashes out on birthday bash as cholera spirals out of control
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Guardian film exposes horrors of man-made epidemic claiming thousands of lives
THE GUARDIAN [Guardian Media Group, UK] - By Chris McGreal, Africa correspondent, and James Gilchrist in Zimbabwe - February 26, 2009
Cholera is one of the most visible signs of Zimbabwe's collapse. It has claimed thousands of lives, infected tens of thousands of other people and left millions of impoverished, half-starved Zimbabweans living in fear of their own drinking water.
But Robert Mugabe has tried to make cholera an invisible disease, hiding the dying in hastily erected treatment centres, behind barbed wire and police guards, and burying the victims away from prying foreign eyes. The president declared the epidemic over even as the numbers of dead were growing ever more rapidly, and claimed the spread of the disease was all a British plot.
Now a new Guardian film, smuggled out of the country, reveals what Zimbabwe's autocratic leader does not want seen: the stark reality of life, and death, in the midst of a cholera outbreak that Médecins Sans Frontières only last week called part of a "massive medical emergency that is spiralling out of control".
Voices from the sewage-lined streets of Zimbabwe's townships, where infected water pollutes the drinking supply, speak of the insidious fear of a disease that could snatch anyone at any time. Mothers describe how their children play around contaminated water. Others say it is their only source of something to drink. One interviewee said there had been no water from taps since April. Another pointed out the sewage flowing on to the veranda where her children played.
A woman tells of what it is to catch cholera. "I got a headache first. Then after the headache got a bit better I started vomiting and having diarrhoea. The vomit was very bitter," she says.
One of the more than 3,700 dead - a man in brown trousers and a blue shirt - is seen delivered on the back of a small lorry, sprayed with disinfectant and then carried off for burial. Those who reach one of the hastily constructed cholera centres at least have a chance of survival, but many die at home, suggesting that the real toll may be very much higher.
The disease burst out last summer as broken sewer pipes contaminated drinking water, amid the collapse of the infrastructure through economic mismanagement and plunder, since then it has infected close to 80,000 people as the money to pay for public works repairs of burst sewers has dried up or been stolen. For weeks there were even no chemicals to treat the water supply.
In some places the water supply it was cut off altogether, forcing people to use stagnant ponds and open streams for drinking and cooking. The Guardian film shows a local councillor turning on a tap. Nothing comes out. "There's no water," he says. "With the problems of cholera, we are sitting on a time bomb."
Many more deaths are likely before the disease is brought under control, particularly with floods after weeks of rain spreading the bacteria along streams and rivers.
Worm-ridden sewage
The stinking sewage is a constant reminder of official neglect. With schools no longer functioning, children in Harare's crowded townships play all day on roads literally flowing with sewage. Keeping children at home is no immunity from the the disease. Angela, a Harare resident, says when it rains, sewage "with worms" flows on to her veranda where her children play. "They say wash your hands, but what is the point when we breathe this stench?"
MSF, which has handled about 45,000 cases, last week warned that the spread of the epidemic showed no sign of slowing, and that new cholera patients were being registered at a rate of one a minute. "The reasons for the [cholera] outbreak are clear: lack of access to clean water, burst and blocked sewage systems and uncollected refuse overflowing in the streets, all clear symptoms of the breakdown in infrastructure resulting from Zimbabwe's political and economic meltdown," the aid group said. Other factors have contributed to the climbing death toll in one of the most serious outbreaks of the disease in Africa in recent times.
Hunger and malnutrition are widespread in a country where about 7 million people - two-thirds of the population still in Zimbabwe - are on food aid. Even those receiving maize and bean rations rarely get enough to eat, and many people are reduced to one meal a day, or even every other day. That has left many with weakened immune systems and greatly more susceptible to disease. In these circumstances, cholera is not the only killer. While around 20 people die daily from the disease, hundreds die from Aids.
But cholera has created a great deal more fear, because if one person in a village or street contracts it, their neighbours hare all at risk.
In the week when Mugabe is expected to spend £350,000 on his 85th birthday celebrations, the public health system has effectively collapsed for lack of funding. There is little money for medical supplies. Major hospitals in Harare closed for months because health workers were not paid.
"There has been a devastating implosion of Zimbabwe's once-lauded health system, which doesn't just affect cholera patients," said the head of MSF in Zimbabwe, Manuel López. "We know that public hospitals are turning people away, health centres are running out of supplies and equipment, there is an acute lack of medical staff, patients can't afford to travel to pick up their HIV medication or to receive treatment and many of our own clinics are overflowing. From what we see each day it couldn't be clearer - this is a massive medical emergency, spiralling out of control."
No cash for medicines
Even in those hospitals still functioning, patients are often forced to pay for medicines and medical supplies before they are treated. With 94% unemployment, a worthless national currency and millions living hand to mouth, few have the cash to pay.
In the film, a man with grey hair, a moustache and a tattered shirt, speaks of being infected with parasitic worms from drinking contaminated water. "We are getting worms from the well. We need to get the well fumigated," he says.
He shows where one of the worms has worked its way through the flesh on his chest. Two weeks after the filming, he was dead from cholera. His wife says it was for the want of money to pay for treatment. "There is no medication at the hospital and no money for us to get treatment," she said. "He was supposed to be on the drip. They were charging for drips, but I had no money. He died because there was no money."
Terrible toll
According to the World Health Organisation's most recent update, 79,613 suspected cases of cholera have been reported by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare of Zimbabwe since the epidemic broke out in August 2008. Health experts had previously estimated that, in a worst-case scenario, the number could reach 60,000. Of the reported cases, 3,731 led to death, an overall fatality rate of 4.7%
All 10 provinces of Zimbabwe are affected by the outbreak. Roughly 365 cholera treatment centres and units are now in operation across the country. However, about half of all cholera deaths are still occurring within the community, rather than in health facilities.
Original Report
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WHO: Zimbabwe cholera death toll 3,975
Zimbabwe: Cholera Outbreak Fact Sheet #11 (FY 2009)
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U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (USAID) - March 6, 2009
See Full Report in PDF
NUMBERS AT A GLANCE SOURCE
- Total Reported Cholera Cases in Zimbabwe 87,998 WHO - March 5, 2009
- Total Reported Cholera Deaths in Zimbabwe 3,975 WHO - March 5, 2009
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
- Since the cholera outbreak began in August 2008, the disease has spread to all of Zimbabwe's 10 provinces and 56 of Zimbabwe's 62 districts. As of March 5, nearly 88,000 reported cases of cholera had caused nearly 4,000 deaths, according to the U.N. World Health Organization (WHO). If current daily cholera rates continue, the total caseload could exceed WHO's assessment of the outbreak's likeliest overall scope, currently estimated at 92,000 cases, in the coming weeks.
- On March 5, WHO reported an overall case fatality rate (CFR) of 4.5 percent. Since the CFR peaked at 5.7 percent on January 21, WHO has recorded a continuing decline in the CFR. WHO attributes the decline to improved case management and to social mobilization programs emphasizing early treatment, funded in part by USAID/OFDA.
- Following a visit to Zimbabwe from February 21 to 25, U.N. Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Catherine Bragg and other senior U.N. officials reported that Zimbabwe's humanitarian situation remained grave. The delegation noted the importance of further expanding cholera treatment to rural areas and intensifying social mobilization and hygiene promotion programs.
- On March 5, the Government of Zimbabwe (GOZ) prime minister noted in an address to health officials and representatives of international aid donors that the number of cholera cases and deaths recorded to date potentially underestimates the actual scope of the outbreak. ...
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Zimbabwe: Cholera on the move
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CHICAGO TRIBUNE [Tribune Company] - Editorial - March 7, 2009
The World Health Organization recently announced that more than 80,000 people have been infected with cholera in Zimbabwe. The 6-month-old outbreak there has claimed some 3,700 lives.
People in the African nation don't have clean water, medical care or food. "We have seen people so desperate for food they are actually disappointed when they find out they are not HIV-positive because they are not eligible for food aid," said Christophe Fournier, International Council President for Doctors Without Borders.
The government of Zimbabwe continues to resist aid efforts-one reason 3 million people have fled their homeland in the past three years. More will follow, and most of them will head to neighboring South Africa.
As they flee Zimbabwe, they increase the chances that a national cholera emergency will turn into a regional disaster.
Instead of providing refuge to Zimbabweans, South Africa has aggressively deported them to their home country. It classifies the arriving Zimbabweans not as refugees, but as "voluntary economic migrants." Some 17,000 Zimbabweans are deported each month by South African authorities.
Despite all the difficulties they face, Zimbabwean refugees keep streaming to South Africa. Once they get there, many go underground to avoid deportation. That creates a grave risk of silently, but quickly, spreading cholera.
South Africa's efforts to prop up Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe has been disgraceful enough. It's treatment of Zimbabwean refugees now piles one shameful act on another. If South Africa doesn't provide legal refugee status, shelter, and medical care to refugees, it will promote a grave health problem-and a risk to its own people.
Original Report
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| Cholera: Disease of disaster |
Cholera: Disease of disaster
CBC NEWS [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Government of Canada (Crown Corporation)] - December 10, 2008
In the days after Cyclone Nargis sent a wall of seawater through Burma's low-lying Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008, the threat of disease became a major concern for survivors.
The United Nations estimated that at least 1.5 million people were "severely affected," needing food, shelter and clean drinking water.
Clean drinking water is especially critical in the wake of a disaster of this magnitude. Without it, people begin to dehydrate within a few days. And with seawater and large numbers of decomposing bodies overwhelming water supplies, disease quickly becomes a threat.
Among the most common diseases to hit areas where drinking water is compromised is cholera.
Although cholera did not turn out to be a major problem in Burma after the storm, it did later in the year in Zimbabwe. ...
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Hebrew U. Students' Anti-Cholera Plan Helps Red Cross in Kenya
ARUTZ SHEVA (Israeli National News) - By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu - August 14, 2008
The Red Cross in Kenya has adopted a unique cholera prevention program developed by master degree students from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The prevention program was found to be highly effective in prevention and management of the disease. The Red Cross is preparing to implement the program beyond the displaced persons camps in Kenya, where it was first put into use. ... There are outbreaks of cholera in Kenya every year, mostly as a result of torrential rains with accompanying floods that contaminate already inadequate water supplies. The students have determined that the disease can be prevented and fatalities easily avoided if prevention efforts are integrated into routine health care and if outbreaks of the disease are reported early enough. However, student team leader Solomon Nzioka from Kenya said that the government often denies the outbreaks out of fears of losing tourist dollars. ... Read Full Report |
| Watch Arab prof urge White House attack |
 Kuwaiti smiles at thought of using anthrax to kill 330,000 Americans
WORLDNETDAILY - By Bob Unruh - February 25, 2009
A professor from Kuwait, the country liberated from Saddam Hussein's attack squads by the United States in the first Gulf War, has called Islamic terrorists "the most honorable people in the world" and has outlined on Arab television a potential terror attack that would involve smuggling anthrax from Mexico into the U.S. and killing 330,000 people in 60 minutes.
The plan was described by Abdallah Al-Nafisi in a speech that aired on Al-Jazeera television Feb. 2, according to MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, an independent nonprofit that provides translations and analysis of media reports.
Al-Nafisi, whose school affiliation was not identified, says: "Four pounds of anthrax - in a suitcase this big - carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S., are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour, if it is properly spread in population centers there."
He calls the plan "horrifying," but says, "9/11 will be small change in comparison. Am I right?"
The plan is simple to carry out, he emphasized.
"There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings and so on. One person, with the courage to carry four pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this 'confetti' all over them, and then will do these cries of joy. It will turn into a real 'celebration,'" Al-Nafisi said.
He said Americans already are afraid that WMDs will "fall into the hands of 'terrorist' organizations like al-Qaida and others."
The video has been posted online and is available on the MEMRI organization website.
"There is good reason for the Americans' fears, because al-Qaida used to have in the Herat region. ... It had laboratories in north Afghanistan. They have scientists, chemists, and nuclear physicists. They are nothing like they are portrayed by these mercenary journalists - backward Bedouins living in caves. No, no. By no means. This kind of talk can fool only naïve people. People who follow such things know that al-Qaida has laboratories, just like Hezbollah," he said.
He cited Hezbollah "laboratories" in Lebanon where the terrorist group makes weapons to use and sell.
After viewing the Al-Nafisi video, Jamie Glazov, author of the new book "United in Hate" explained that "militant Islam needs to kill in order to survive. It can breathe only if it kills."
He noted with President Bush now gone from office, potential threats from the likes of Al-Nafisi are closer to becoming reality.
"In the face of this morbid threat we have the liberal-Left trivializing the danger that confronts us and, worse still, going out of its way to frustrate our society's ability to defend itself," Glazov said. "We have Obama now, who has closed all of our CIA interrogation centers abroad, plans on closing Guantanamo, has appointed people who are intent on frustrating every ability we have to gather information on impending strikes, and the list goes terrifyingly on." ...
Read Full Report |
Black Death Plague Kills 40 Al Qaeda Terrorists
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ARUTZ SHEVA (Israeli National News) - By Hillel Fendel - January 22, 2009
At least 40 Al Qaeda terrorists were killed earlier this week by a plague called the Black Death.
The same disease that devastated Europe in the Middle Ages claimed terrorists training this week in a camp in Algeria. The dead were members of a group called AQLIM (Al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful Al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East. The disease is accompanied by horrific symptoms, causing terrible suffering to its victims.
One security source told the British paper The Sun, which broke the story, "This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease. It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying Al-Qaeda."
Al Qaeda also fears that surviving terrorists will give themselves up in order to seek treatment.
The Sun reported that the last outbreak of the disease killed 30,000 Londoners in 1665. Deaths nowadays are rare, because the disease can be treated with antibiotics, and it has become virtually unknown in the developed world.
Original Report
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Al-Qaeda cell killed by Black Death 'was developing biological weapons'
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LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH [Barclay] - January 20, 2009
An al-Qaeda cell killed by the Black Death may have been developing biological weapons when it was infected, it has been reported.
The group of 40 terrorists were reported to have been killed by the plague at a training camp in Algeria earlier this month.
It was initially believed that they could have caught the disease through fleas on rats attracted by poor living conditions in their forest hideout.
But there are now claims the cell was developing the disease as a weapon to use against western cities.
Experts said that the group was developing chemical and biological weapons.
Dr Igor Khrupinov, a biological weapons expert at Georgia University, told The Sun: "Al-Qaeda is known to experiment with biological weapons. And this group has direct communication with other cells around the world.
"Contagious diseases, like ebola and anthrax, occur in northern Africa. It makes sense that people are trying to use them against Western governments."
Dr Khrupinov, who was once a weapons adviser to the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, added: "Instead of using bombs, people with infectious diseases could be walking through cities."
It was reported last year that up to 100 potential terrorists had attempted to become postgraduate students in Britain in an attempt to use laboratories.
Ian Kearns, from the Institute for Public Policy Research, told the newspaper: "The biological weapons threat is not going away. We're not ready for it."
Original Report
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To kill by the wild beasts of the earth (Rev 6:8)
Experts predict next epidemic will start in animals |
USA TODAY [Gannett] - By Steve Sternberg - October 21, 2008
Bonnie Henry calls it the most surreal episode of her life. A deadly microbe from China infected a hotel guest in Hong Kong, hitchhiked on a jumbo jet to Toronto and turned a local hospital from a sanctuary for the sick into the incubator of an epidemic.
For Henry, the doctor in charge of Toronto's operational response to SARS, the scenario was science fiction come to life. On a bleak day in March 2003, she ordered the hospital, Scarborough Grace, to close to new patients. She helped reopen a shuttered tuberculosis hospital and ordered 13 ailing health workers to check in. ...
What worries Henry is that SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, may be a rehearsal for something worse. "I absolutely think it's inevitable," says Henry, who is now director of public health emergency management in British Columbia.
A report by the non-profit Trust for America's Health, to be released next week, asserts that infectious diseases from the developing world are anything but "a back-burner concern."
The report, "Germs Go Global: Why Emerging Infectious Diseases Are a Threat to America," cites National Intelligence Estimates that conclude outbreaks of new and resurgent infectious diseases, many of which "originate overseas," kill more than 170,000 people in the USA each year.
The death toll would climb much higher in the event of a new global pandemic or bioterror attack. Infectious diseases, the report concludes, have become "a matter of national security."
"The three deadliest events in human history were all infectious diseases," says medical historian David Morens of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "The 1918-1919 flu killed 50 million to 100 million people. The Black Death killed 25 million people, and AIDS has killed 25 million or more.
"There are lots of reasons to think more will be coming." . . .
In a typical year, infectious diseases kill about 57 million people, 26% of all deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Three diseases - AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria - account for about 6 million deaths. A pandemic inevitably would send the toll much higher.
One of the scariest diseases is bird flu, H5N1, which has killed millions of birds but few people. That's no reason to write it off. Of 387 people infected as of Sept. 10, WHO reports, 245 have died. . . .
To get answers, public health experts are expanding research into how outbreaks get their start. A study in the journal Nature in February offers a critical clue. Researchers analyzed 335 outbreaks worldwide between 1940 and 2004. More than 60% of epidemics, including HIV and SARS, began when a germ leapt from wildlife into humans. ...
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* Emphasis Added
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Spain reports fifth human death from mad cow disease
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AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - March 6, 2009
The Spanish government late Friday confirmed the country's fifth fatality from the human variant of mad cow disease, a woman who died in the northern city of Santander in January.
The health ministry said laboratory tests confirmed that the woman had Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) as the human variant of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, is known.
"The appearance of sporadic cases of the disease does not indicate new risks for the health of the public," it said in a statement.
The last death in Spain which was confirmed to have been due to the brain-wasting disease took place in August 2008 in the northwestern region of Castilla and Leon.
Spain recorded its first human death from mad cow disease in June 2005 when a 26-year-old woman succumbed to it in Madrid.
More than 200 people around the world are suspected to have died, most of them in Britain, from the human variant of the disease, which was first described in 1996.
Scientists believe the disease was caused by using infected parts of cattle to make feed for other cattle.
Authorities believe eating meat from infected animals can trigger the human variant of the fatal brain-wasting disease.
The 27-member EU, of which Spain is part, has banned high-risk materials such as spinal cord from use in feed and stricter labelling was also introduced.
Original Report
Also:
'New CJD type' discovered in US
BBC NEWS [PSB operated by BBC Trust] - July 10, 2008
A new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) may have been uncovered in a handful of patients in the US.
Ten people have so far died from a fast-advancing form of fatal dementia called PSPr, New Scientist reports.
Patients develop the trademark brain damage associated with CJD - the type not linked to BSE - but scientists believe there may be a genetic cause. ...
Unlike "variant CJD", the human form of BSE in cows contracted by eating contaminated brain tissue in the 1980s and 1990s, the cause of most cases of sporadic CJD is unknown.
The new cases were referred to CJD surveillance units in the US because they were a suspiciously fast-advancing form of dementia with additional symptoms such as the loss of the ability to speak and move, even though traditional tests that normally help diagnose CJD proved negative. ...
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1st US case of Marburg fever confirmed in Colo.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS - February 8, 2009
WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. - The first U.S. case of Marburg hemorrhagic fever has been confirmed in Colorado, and authorities say the patient - who contracted the rare illness while traveling in Uganda - has since recovered.
The disease, caused by a virus indigenous to Africa, spreads through contact with infected animals or the bodily fluids of infected humans. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Dave Daigle said no previous cases have been reported in the United States.
The patient had traveled to Uganda, visited a python cave in Maramagambo Forest in Queen Elizabeth Park and encountered fruit bats, which can carry the Marburg virus. The Ugandan government closed the cave after a tourist from the Netherlands died from Marburg in July. ...
Marburg hemorrhagic fever is extremely rare. The CDC's Web site counts fewer than 500 confirmed cases since the virus was first recognized in 1967. More than 80 percent of the known cases are fatal.
It has an incubation period of 5 to 10 days. The first symptoms are fever, chills and headaches, but symptoms worsen significantly after the fifth day of illness. ...
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Ebola may have passed from a pig to a human
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INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Donald G. Mcneil Jr. - January 23, 2009
In the first known case of what may be transmission of the Ebola virus from a pig to a human, a pig handler in the Philippines has tested positive for a strain of the virus, world health officials and the Philippine government announced Friday.
But the strain - Ebola Reston - is not known to be dangerous to humans, and the worker, who was infected at least six months ago, is healthy, officials said.
The development is worrying because pigs are mixing vessels in which other viruses from humans and animals exchange genetic material, possibly creating strains that are more lethal or more infectious.
But Dr. Juan Lubroth, chief of animal health at the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, said there was "more need to investigate than to worry" and still many unanswered questions.
Ebola Reston, normally a monkey virus, was first found in pigs last year in the Philippines. Health authorities closed two farms and took blood samples from 6,000 pigs and 50 workers on the farms and in slaughterhouses. Only four pigs and the one worker tested positive, the Philippine health secretary, Francisco Duque, said at a news conference in Manila. ...
Ebola Reston was first found in monkeys from the Philippines that died after arriving at a laboratory in Reston, Virginia, in 1989. Antibodies to it were found in workers in several laboratories, but it is not known to have caused more than a mild flu in any human.
By contrast, the Zaire, Sudan and Bundibugyo strains of Ebola, all found in African apes, cause fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans.
It is not known how the pigs were infected, but Dr. Lubroth noted that studies in Africa found Ebola viruses in fruit bats. Similar bats live in the Philippines, and fruit bats are thought to have transmitted Nipah virus to pigs, possibly through their droppings or dead bodies.
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Plague emerges in Grand Canyon, kills biologist
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USA TODAY [Gannett] - By Steve Sternberg - October 21, 2008
One day last October, Eric York lugged the carcass of an adult mountain lion from his truck and laid it carefully on a tarp on the floor of his garage.
The female mountain lion had a bloody nose, but her hide bore no other signs of trauma. York, a biologist at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, found the big cat lying motionless near the canyon's South Rim. He was determined to learn why she died.
Because the park lacks a forensics lab, he did the postmortem in his garage, in a village of about 2,000 park employees.
Epidemic experts can only speculate about what happened next. When York cut into the lion, he must have released a cloud of bacteria and breathed in. On Nov. 2, York was found dead, a 21st-century victim of plague, the disease that in the Middle Ages turned Europe into a vast mortuary. He was 37.
The case mirrors events that have promoted a global surge in epidemics, among them influenza, HIV, West Nile virus and SARS. A study released this year in the journal Nature reported that about 60% of epidemics begin when a microbe makes the leap from an animal into a human.
"What will be the next emerging disease? The one we least expect," says David Morens of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. . . .
Both York and the mountain lion had pneumonic plague, a lung infection that spreads through a cough or a sneeze.
"Pneumonic plague is a highly fatal disease," Wong says. "The death rate can be as high as 50% even with treatment." ...
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Jellyfish gone wild ruin tourist spots, report says
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REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Philip Barbara - December 12, 2008
Ed. Note: The picture to the left is a warning sign from Cape Tribulation in northern Queensland, Australia. What an appropriate name.
BE/\LERT!
WASHINGTON - Huge swarms of stinging jellyfish and similar slimy animals are ruining beaches in Hawaii, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean, Australia and elsewhere, U.S. researchers reported on Friday.
The report says 150 million people are exposed to jellyfish globally every year, with 500,000 people stung in the Chesapeake Bay, off the U.S. Atlantic Coast, alone.
Another 200,000 are stung every year in Florida, and 10,000 are stung in Australia by the deadly Portuguese man-of-war, according to the report, a broad review of jellyfish research.
The report, available on the Internet at http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/jellyfish/index.jsp, says the Black Sea's fishing and tourism industries have lost $350 million because of a proliferation of comb jelly fish.
The report says more than 1,000 fist-sized comb jellies can be found in a cubic yard (meter) of Black Sea water during a bloom.
They eat the eggs of fish and compete with them for food, wiping out the livelihoods of fishermen, according to the report. ...
"There is clear, clean evidence that certain types of human-caused environmental stresses are triggering jellyfish swarms in some locations," William Hamner of the University of California Los Angeles says in the report.
These include pollution-induced "dead zones", higher water temperatures and the spread of alien jellyfish species by shipping.
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Scientists make HIV strain that can infect monkeys
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REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - By Will Dunham - March 3, 2009
WASHINGTON - Scientists have created a strain of the human AIDS virus able to infect and multiply in monkeys in a step toward testing future vaccines in monkeys before trying them in people, according to a new study.
This strain of HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, was developed by altering a single gene in the human version to allow it to infect a type of monkey called a pig-tailed macaque, the researchers said on Monday.
The genetically engineered virus, once injected into this monkey, proliferates almost as much as it does in people, but the animal ultimately suppresses it and the virus does not make it sick, they said.
The strain is called simian-tropic HIV-1, or stHIV-1.
Researchers hope to be able to test possible new AIDS drugs and vaccines in monkeys before trying them in people. ...
The genetically engineered virus infects the monkeys and during the early course of infection is a reasonably good mimic of what happens in HIV-infected people, Bieniasz said. ...
"If our research is taken further, we hope that one day perhaps in the not-too-distant future, we'll be able to make vaccines that are intended for use in humans and the very same product will be able to be tested in animals before human trials," Paul Bieniasz of the Rockefeller University in New York, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview. ...
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| AIDS: Leading cause of death among black women ages 24-34 |
HIV/AIDS CONFERENCE: Message of hope goes out to blacks
THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION [Cox Enterprises] - By Gracie Bonds Staples - March 8, 2009
The story of HIV/AIDS in the African-American community is an old one that hasn't changed much. At all stages -- from infection with HIV to deaths from AIDS -- blacks continue to bear the brunt of the epidemic.
Today, AIDS is the leading cause of death among black women ages 24-34 and the second leading cause among black men ages 35-44.
But there is still hope, health officials say. ...
The goal of the two-day conference, scheduled for Saturday and March 15, is to identify people who are HIV positive and get them into care, said Banner, chairman of the planning committee, a coalition of AIDS service organizations. ...
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| AIDS top killer disease in China last year: govt |
REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - Reporting by Kirby Chien; Editing by Phakamisa Ndzamela - February 17, 2009
BEIJING - The AIDS virus became the top deadly infectious disease in China last year for the first time, killing 6,897 people in the first nine months of 2008, the official news agency Xinhua said on Tuesday.
The number of people infected with the HIV/AIDS virus doubled during that period, Xinhua said, citing a report posted on the Ministry of Health website.
Xinhua said there were a total of 264,302 HIV/AIDS cases by the end of September last year and 34,864 people have died of the disease so far.
United Nations figures estimate that 700,000 people in China were HIV positive by the end of 2007.
Xinhua said tuberculosis was the second biggest killer in the first nine months of last year, while rabies ranked third followed by hepatitis and infant tetanus.
The country reported a one-fifth rise in syphilis last year, with a total of 257,474 cases, while gonorrhea cases dropped by a tenth, China's health ministry said. ...
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| Study Cites Toll of AIDS Policy in South Africa |
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Celia W. Dugger - November 25, 2008
JOHANNESBURG - A new study by Harvard researchers estimates that the South African government would have prevented the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients and widely administered drugs to help prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies.
The Harvard study concluded that the policies grew out of President Thabo Mbeki's denial of the well-established scientific consensus about the viral cause of AIDS and the essential role of antiretroviral drugs in treating it. ...
For years, the South African government did not provide antiretroviral medicines, even as Botswana and Namibia, neighboring countries with epidemics of similar scale, took action, the Harvard study reported. ...
The 330,000 South Africans who died for lack of treatment and the 35,000 babies who perished because they were infected with H.I.V. together lost at least 3.8 million years of life, the study concluded. ...
Max Essex, the virologist who has led the Harvard School of Public Health's AIDS research program for the past 20 years and who oversaw the study, called South Africa's response to AIDS under Mr. Mbeki "a case of bad, or even evil, public health." ...
The new government is now trying to hasten the expansion of antiretroviral treatments. The task is urgent. South Africa today is home to 5.7 million people who are H.I.V.-positive - more than any other nation, almost one in five adults. More than 900 people a day die here as a result of AIDS, the United Nations estimates. ...
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| Over 56,000 new AIDS infections each year in U.S. |
REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor - August 2, 2008
WASHINGTON - At least 56,000 people become infected with the AIDS virus every year in the United States -- 40 percent more than previous estimates, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC stressed that actual infection rates have not risen but said better methods of measuring new diagnosed infections and then extrapolating this to the general population led to the fresh estimates.
"CDC's first estimates from this system reveal that the HIV epidemic is -- and has been -- worse than previously known. Results indicate that approximately 56,300 new HIV infections occurred in the United States in 2006," the CDC said in a statement.
"This figure is roughly 40 percent higher than CDC's former estimate of 40,000 infections per year, which was based on limited data and less precise methods."
Globally, 33 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS and 2 million die of it each year.
The CDC estimates roughly 1 million Americans are infected with the virus. Dr. Kevin Fenton, who heads CDC's AIDS branch, said 15,000 to 18,000 Americans die every year of AIDS.
"The data really confirm that there is a severe impact of this epidemic among gay and bisexual men in the United States ... as well as black men and women," Fenton said in a telephone interview.
More than 28,000 of the new infections are among men who have sex with men, the new estimates show. Close to 17,000 are among heterosexuals -- and 15,000 of these are women.
"These data are confirming what we had known before," Fenton said. "It also mirrors what we see about sexually transmitted diseases and changes in risk behavior among men who have sex with men."
Many recent studies have shown gay and bisexual men are having risky, unprotected sex more often than before, perhaps emboldened by the knowledge that the disease can be treated. ...
Cocktails of HIV drugs can keep patients alive and healthy but not everyone gets them, Fenton said.
Too many Americans are diagnosed late, after the virus has already damaged the immune system beyond repair, he said.
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
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Flu strain proves resistant to medication: report
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AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - March 2, 2009
A virulent strain of influenza sowing misery across the United States is proving resistant to what had been until recently the most effective anti-viral drugs, according to a study released Monday. A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that the H1N1 subtype of influenza A viruses commonly proved resistant to the popular drug oseltamivir. Oseltamivir, sold commercially in the United States as the drug Tamiflu, is produced by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, and is the main antiviral remedy on the market. But during the 2007-2008 flu season last year, the Tamiflu-resistant strain of the virus accounted for fully one in five cases of flu in the United States. Preliminary data during the current 2008-2009 influenza season shows that the virus's resistance to the Tamiflu continues to be high and that the drug-resistant strain of the flu continue to have a high incidence. Equally worrying is the virulence of this particular strain of flu. Data last year for 99 individuals infected with oseltamivir-resistant influenza found that five of the patients had to be hospitalized, four of whom died. The authors wrote that the worrisome development "has highlighted the need for the development of new antiviral drugs and rapid diagnostic tests that determine viral subtype or resistance." ... Read Full Report
Also:
World warned over killer flu pandemic
THE INDEPENDENT, UK [APN / INM / O'Reilly] - By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent - July 21, 2008The world is failing to guard against the inevitable spread of a devastating flu pandemic which could kill 50 million people and wreak massive disruption around the globe, the Government has warned. In evidence to a House of Lords committee, ministers said that early warning systems for spotting emerging diseases were "poorly co-ordinated" and lacked "vision" and "clarity". They said that more needed to be done to improve detection and surveillance for potential pandemics and called for urgent improvement in rapid-response strategies. ... With international tourist journeys now reaching 800 million a year, giving unprecedented potential for epidemics to spread across borders, and many cities rapidly growing in developing countries, which would provide "fertile ground" to spread disease, peers on the committee warned that conditions such as Sars, avian influenza and ebola "have the potential to cause rapid and devastating sickness and death across much of the world if they are not detected and checked in time". ... Read Full Report
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Breakthrough as scientists develop one-shot jab that WILL beat flu
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LONDON DAILY MAIL [Associated Newspapers/DMGT] - By David Derbyshire - February 22, 2009
A superdrug that protects against all the most deadly types of flu has been developed by scientists.
A single injection of the anti-viral medicine can fight off everything from a common winter virus to a life-threatening strain of bird flu, researchers say.
The breakthrough brings closer the Holy Grail of influenza treatment - a oneshot vaccine for lifelong protection against every imaginable type of the virus.
Researchers believe the new drug, which uses man-made antibodies, could be available in less than five years. A vaccine would follow soon afterwards.
Flu experts say it is only a matter of time before Britain is struck by another pandemic like the one which killed millions in 1918.
They are most concerned about the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu which has killed 200 people, mostly in Asia.
If H5N1 mutates into a form that spreads easily from person to person, it could kill tens of thousands in the UK alone. ...
In laboratory experiments, reported in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, the antibodies disabled eight strains of virus, including H5N1 and the 1918 'Spanish Flu' strain. ...
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Researchers unlock secrets of 1918 flu pandemic
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REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Will Dunham and John O'Callaghan - December 29, 2008
WASHINGTON - Researchers have found out what made the 1918 flu pandemic so deadly -- a group of three genes that lets the virus invade the lungs and cause pneumonia.
They mixed samples of the 1918 influenza strain with modern seasonal flu viruses to find the three genes and said their study might help in the development of new flu drugs.
The discovery, published in Tuesday's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could also point to mutations that might turn ordinary flu into a dangerous pandemic strain.
Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin and colleagues at the Universities of Kobe and Tokyo in Japan used ferrets, which develop flu in ways very similar to humans.
Usually flu causes an upper respiratory infection affecting the nose and throat, as well as so-called systemic illness causing fever, muscle aches and weakness.
But some people become seriously ill and develop pneumonia. Sometimes bacteria cause the pneumonia and sometimes flu does it directly.
During pandemics, such as in 1918, a new and more dangerous flu strain emerges.
"The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most devastating outbreak of infectious disease in human history, accounting for about 50 million deaths worldwide," Kawaoka's team wrote.
It killed 2.5 percent of victims, compared to fewer than 1 percent during most annual flu epidemics. Autopsies showed many of the victims, often otherwise healthy young adults, died of severe pneumonia.
"We wanted to know why the 1918 flu caused severe pneumonia," Kawaoka said in a statement.
They painstakingly substituted single genes from the 1918 virus into modern flu viruses and, one after another, they acted like garden-variety flu, infecting only the upper respiratory tract.
But a complex of three genes helped to make the virus live and reproduce deep in the lungs.
The three genes -- called PA, PB1, and PB2 -- along with a 1918 version of the nucleoprotein or NP gene, made modern seasonal flu kill ferrets in much the same way as the original 1918 flu, Kawaoka's team found.
Most flu experts agree that a pandemic of influenza will almost certainly strike again. No one knows when or what strain it will be but one big suspect now is the H5N1 avian influenza virus.
H5N1 is circulating among poultry in Asia, Europe and parts of Africa. It rarely affects humans but has killed 247 of the 391 people infected since 2003.
A few mutations would make it into a pandemic strain that could kill millions globally within a few months. ...
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New bird flu cases revive fears of human pandemic
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LOS ANGELES TIMES [Tribune Company] - By Mary Engel - January 4, 2009
Just when you thought you could scratch bird flu off your list of things to worry about in 2009, the deadly H5N1 virus has resurfaced in poultry in Hong Kong for the first time in six years, reinforcing warnings that the threat of a human pandemic isn't over.
India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and mainland China also experienced new outbreaks in December. During the same period, four new human cases -- in Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia -- were reported to the World Health Organization. A 16-year-old girl in Egypt and a 2-year-old girl in Indonesia have died.
The new cases come after a two-year decline in the number of confirmed human deaths from H5N1 bird flu and as fewer countries are reporting outbreaks among poultry. A United Nations report released in October credits improved surveillance and the rapid culling of potentially infected poultry for helping to contain and even prevent outbreaks in many countries. ...
It was in Hong Kong in 1997 that the H5N1 virus was first observed to jump from chickens to humans, infecting 18 people and killing six of them, raising fears of a worldwide catastrophe. Hong Kong ordered its entire poultry population, estimated at 1.6 million birds, destroyed within three days. ...
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Also:
China reports 6th human bird flu case this year
REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - January 25, 2009
BEIJING: It is the sixth human case of bird flu to be reported in China this year. The Chinese Health Ministry said on its website (www.moh.gov.cn) the latest victim was a 29-year-old man surnamed Zhou who fell sick on Jan. 15. In recent weeks four people have died of bird flu in China.
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Togo: Recent bird flu outbreak is deadly H5N1
ASSOCIATED PRESS - September 16, 2008
Tests performed after the first ever outbreak of bird flu in the West African nation of Togo have confirmed the presence of the virulent H5N1 strain of the virus, state media said Monday.
The virus was detected at a poultry farm housing more than 4,500 birds in the village of Agbata outside the capital, Lome, according to the government.
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| Norovirus: Killer Flu Hits Britain |
DAILY EXPRESS - By Martyn Brown - December 30, 2008
BRITAIN'S flu crisis is expected to get even worse within weeks as a deadly Australian strain of the virus spreads across the country, health officials warned yesterday.
The strain that caused a severe epidemic in Australia, killing six children, has arrived here as the UK struggles with its worst flu outbreak for eight years.
Experts have warned that infections in Britain and Ireland will increase from January to March. ...
The flu season began a month earlier than last year and coincided with widespread outbreaks of the norovirus "winter vomiting bug".
Now the arrival of the H3N2 Brisbane 10 strain will put further pressure on the health service. ...
This year's outbreak is well on course to be the worst since 1999/2000, when 22,000 people died.
Officially, an outbreak does not become an epidemic until the rate is higher than 200 per 100,000 people. ...
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Also:
Killer Virus Grips Britain
DAILY EXPRESS - December 16, 2008
Scores of hospitals have been forced to close wards to new patients as they struggle to cope with the influx of norovirus sufferers.
One of London's leading hospitals has even had to turn away 999 emergency patients after being overwhelmed with cases of the virus, while another hospital has drafted in GPs to cover for staff hit by the bug. ...
Last year more than three million people were struck down by the bug as it reached epidemic levels. Now experts are warning that the virus could affect even more this year. ...
At its height last year the virus, which causes projectile vomiting, diarhea, mild fever and headaches, was striking down more than 200,000 a week. The illness can prove deadly for the vulnerable - children and the elderly. ...
At least 21 hospitals have had to isolate patients. ...
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Obesity Bug You Can Catch
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DAILY EXPRESS of LONDON [Express Newspprs/Northern-Shell plc.] - By Jo Willey - January 26, 2009
OBESITY can be "caught" as easily as a common cold from other people's coughs, sneezes and dirty hands, scientists will claim today.
Researchers believe that an airborne "adenovirus" germ could be causing the fat plague that is blighting Britain and other countries.
As many as one in three obese people may have become overweight after falling victim to the highly infectious cold-like virus, known as AD-36.
It is known to cause coughs, sore throats, diarrhoea and conjunctivitis but has now also been found to make fat cells multiply, leading to weight gain.
The shocking discovery will add to evidence that Britain's obesity epidemic is not simply down to an unhealthy diet or lack of exercise. ...
Studies have shown that chickens and mice infected with AD-36 put on weight quicker than uninfected animals, even when they were not given extra food. It has also been found to cause huge weight gain in monkeys.
Now studies on humans show that 33 per cent of obese adults had contracted AD-36 at some point in their lives, compared with only 11 per cent of lean men and women.
Professor Nikhil Dhurandhar, of Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Louisiana, US, who led the research, said AD-36 continued to add weight gain long after those infected had seemingly recovered. ...
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The earth mourns... consumed by plague
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E. coli Outbreak in Okla. Largest of its Kind in U.S. History
ASSOCIATED PRESS - September 3, 2008
An E. coli outbreak linked to a restaurant in northeastern Oklahoma has sickened more than 200 people and killed at least one person, making it the largest outbreak of this strain of E. coli in U.S. history, according to health officials.
The Country Cottage restaurant in Locust Grove has been closed voluntarily for more than a week, but an exact source of the contamination has not been pinpointed, state epidemiologist Dr. Kristy Bradley said in a statement. ...
Symptoms of E. coli infection include stomach cramps and bloody diarrhea. Most of those who die have weak immune systems, such as the elderly or very young. ...
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'Germ warfare' fear over African monkeys taken to Iran
THE TIMES of LONDON [News Corporation/Murdoch] - By Daniel Foggo - July 6, 2008Hundreds of endangered monkeys are being taken from the African bush and sent to a "secretive" laboratory in Iran for scientific experiments. An undercover inquiry by The Sunday Times has revealed that wild monkeys, which are banned from experiments in Britain, are being freely supplied in large numbers to laboratories in other parts of the world. ... The revelation will fuel speculation that the monkeys may be used for research involving biological weapons. Primates are typically used by scientists wishing to test both the effectiveness of germ warfare agents and defences against them. ... Read Full Report
Tainted cheese fuels TB rise in California
MSNBC [NBC Universal (General Electric Co.-Vivendi SA)/Microsoft] - By JoNel Aleccia - June 4, 2008A rare form of tuberculosis caused by illegal, unpasteurized dairy products, including the popular queso fresco cheese, is rising among Hispanic immigrants in Southern California and raising fears about a resurgence of a strain all but eradicated in the U.S. Cases of the Mycobacterium bovis strain of TB have increased in San Diego county, particularly among children who drink or eat dairy foods made from the milk of infected cattle, a study in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases shows. But the germ can infect anyone who eats contaminated fresh cheeses sold by street vendors, smuggled across the Mexican border or produced by families who try to make a living selling so-called "bathtub cheese" made in home tubs and backyard troughs. ... Read Full Report
Pennsylvania school district plagued with STDs
TIMES HERALD-RECORD, Middletown, NY [News Corporation/Murdoch] - By Stephen Sacco - June 27, 2008MILFORD, Pa. - An estimated 10 percent of middle and high school students in the Delaware Valley School District are infected with a sexually transmitted disease. About two dozen teenage girls in the district have tested positive for pregnancy. And officials say there's one confirmed case of a student with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. ... School officials released the alarming figures in a letter sent home June 15 to the parents of the more than 3,000 Delaware Valley middle and high school students. Maternal and Family Health Services in Milford - a nonprofit health clinic serving male and female patients - alerted the district to the figures. Clinic officials say they estimate that more than 300 Delaware Valley middle and high school students contracted a sexually transmitted disease in the past year; and 25 to 30 girls tested positive for pregnancy. Students as young as 12 years old reported being sexually active, officials say. ... Read Full Report |
Hungry caterpillars force Liberian emergency
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CNN [Turner Broadcasting/Time Warner] - By Melissa Gray - January 28, 2009
Liberia's president has declared a state of emergency after hordes of ravenous caterpillars infested the country.
Tens of millions of the worm-like larvae have appeared in the northern part of the country, where they are destroying green crops like cabbage and collard greens and contaminating the water supply, Liberian Information Minister Laurance Bropleh told CNN Wednesday from the capital of Monrovia.
"I am not aware that they have been here before, ever, and certainly not in this great number," Bropleh told CNN. "That is why it was so overwhelming initially when we first discovered it."
The state of emergency covers the three northern Liberian counties of Bong, Lofa, and Gbarpolu, Liberian officials said.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told legislators Monday that 350,000 people in 62 communities in those three counties may have been affected.
There are also indications the bugs have spread to neighboring Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, Bropleh said. ...
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US: Horror Emergency Laws Set To Kill
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WISE UP JOURNAL - By Gabriel O'Hara - February 1, 2009
The majority of this article is made up from an absolutely horrifying section of the National Medical Bill. Horrors that you've not heard about in 70 years are actually written down and are legal. Everything in this article has a link to the official bill. The section in question of the Medical Bill springs from the World Health Organisation standards and recommendations. Most countries are likely to have the same bills because most follow the WHO's lead, however in some countries these emergency plans can not be seen even by homeland security so this Irish Medical Bill could be a window into what other Governments are also prepared to do.
These specific emergency measures can legally be carried out without the so called emergency ever happening in your country, all that is required is a simple alert from the unelected people at the WHO. As we will see, these psychotic Government actions to a so called "imminent" emergency will actually do more damage than if the emergency hit.
We'll come to the Medical Bill in a moment but first we'll look at this 2008 pamphlet from the Government that states a worldwide pandemic would be caused by "a new influenza strain" and they are pretty confident when they state "there will be more pandemics". It also lets us know who is in control of kicking off the alert and actions when it says, "You will be advised to begin these preparations if and when the World Health Organisation confirms that a pandemic is imminent." The Department of Health & Children's National Pandemic Influenza Plan shows the WHO puts our global society currently at phase 3 of a phase 6 global pandemic, "The World Health Organization (WHO) uses six phases of pandemic alert as a system for informing the world of the seriousness of the threat." Phase 3: "Human infection(s) with a new subtype, [...] We are now in Phase 3 (January 2007)." The power to alert/get nations into implementing WHO actions is further consolidated in to the hands of one person, the current Director-General (Chinese Margaret Chan) and the pandemic plan says, "the designation of alert phases, including decisions on when to move from one phase to another, is made by the Director-General of the World Health Organization. The transition between phases may be rapid and some phases may be skipped. "
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* Emphasis Original
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