The Mississippi State Department of Health reports seven new human cases of West Nile Virus, bringing the state’s total number of West Nile Virus cases to 93 with three deaths for 2008.

The new cases are in Hinds, Jones, Leake, Leflore, Lincoln and Madison counties. The agency also reports one new case of LaCrosse Encephalitis in Madison County. The Health Department reports confirmed the probable cases to the public.

Since March 2008, West Nile virus cases have been reported in Calhoun, Clarke, Forrest , George, Grenada, Harrison, Hinds, Jasper, Jones, Lamar , Lawrence, Leake, Leflore, Lincoln, Madison, Marion, Monroe, Neshoba, Panola, Pearl River, Rankin, Scott, Simpson, Sunflower, Washington, and Wayne counties.

Deaths have been reported in Forrest, Hinds, and Leflore counties. Six cases of LaCrosse Encephalitis have been reported in Adams, Amite, Harrison, Hinds, Madison, and Yazoo counties.

Six cases of Eastern Equine Encephalitis and two cases of West Nile virus have been reported in horses.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Posted: September 30th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Diseases, West Nile Virus.
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Sexual health workers in Australia are reporting the highest rates of chlamydia seen in the last seven years.

The city of Gisborne has jumped up the charts and now registers with the highest rate of chlamydia in the country, with 15 to 19-year-olds recording the most cases of the sexually-transmitted infection.

“We want to bring about awareness that we all have the responsibility to control our fertility and have a say about our fertility,” says family planning practice nurse Kaye Foreman. “Whether we are delaying having a family or wanting to know more about the steps to take . . . you don’t want it blighted with an STI.”

Nearly 20 percent of women coming into the clinic unknowingly had chlamydia, she said.

“People don’t know they have it because there are no symptoms, it is the silent infection,” says Foreman. “But the spread of it can be stopped with the use of condoms. It is getting worse and worse . . . and HIV will be following close behind if we aren’t careful.”

Family planning positive sexual health co-ordinator Linda Coulston said it had to be “cool” for teenagers to start wearing condoms.

“If a girl has a condom in her wallet ‘just in case’ she is labelled badly by other kids, but it has to start being the cool thing to do . . . it is about information and awareness,” she says.

It was also important for men to start taking more responsibility, said Foreman.  “They are 50 percent responsible for everything that happens.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Chlamydia infection rates rise as out-of-control sex flourishes.

Posted: September 30th, 2008 under Chlamydia, Diseases.
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A woman who survived a rare flesh-eating disease may have made it through the ordeal only because she was morbidly obese.

Clair Robinson, 23, of Victoria, Australia, reckons she is lucky to be alive after contracting the killer bacteria following surgery.

She mistakenly believed she had a simple fever and stomach ache until she was told it was flesh-eating bacteria eating through her stomach muscles and body tissue.

“Being big saved my life,” she said. “If I had have been smaller it would have eaten my organs and my insides. My kidneys and liver would have been eaten if I hadn’t have been big. Maybe fat people do have a good life after all.”

The patient contracted the condition, the clinical name for which is necrotising fasciitis after an operation to remove cysts from her ovaries. The bacteria is fatal in 50 percent of cases.

As her condition improved, she was airlifted to an Australian hospital’s intensive care unit in a bid to save her.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Morbid obesity an infection protection strategy?

Posted: September 29th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Flesh-Eating Bacteria.
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The flu season is upon us once again, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning that mutant strains of the virus are likely to emerge once again.

The flu virus has an innate ability to adapt, so new strains emerge all the time.

The new vaccine, created for this year, covers the A/Brisbane strain that wasn’t covered by last year’s vaccine, said Michael Shaw, associate director for laboratory science in the CDC’s influenza division.

CDC officials knew the A/Brisbane strain was mutating quickly last year. However, at the time the vaccine was made, fertile hen eggs used to develop vaccines wouldn’t accept the first isolates of the strain, so last year’s vaccine didn’t cover A/Brisbane, Shaw added.

A new solution: cell-based vaccines, which might include late-developing strains of influenza because they accept isolates of viruses faster than eggs. Cell-based vaccines might be available in two or three flu seasons.

Several pharmaceutical companies are close to applying for licenses with the Food and Drug Administration to develop cell-based vaccines, Shaw said. Then the virus could be inserted into a mammalian cell for cultures to grow so vaccines could be developed, he added.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

CDC warns that flu season is now upon us again.

Posted: September 29th, 2008 under Avian Flu, Developing Diseases, Diseases, Influenza.
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Mobile phone developer Nokia has developed a new software to help health care organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) more accurately collect data on critical issues such as disease outbreaks. The Amazonas State Health Department in Brazil will be the first to use the solution as part of its fight against dengue fever in the city of Manaus in Northern Brazil.

The data gathering software can be used on mobile phones to create tailored questionnaires and distribute them to multiple mobile phones using a normal mobile network.

Field personnel surveying local conditions can quickly complete the questionnaires and immediately transmit their findings to a central database. The system also allows organizations to geo-tag data with GPS location information to build a more detailed picture of very local conditions.

“Sound decisions are based on the analysis of fresh, accurate data. However, for organizations with a remote or mobile workforce, this is easier said than done. Information related to health, agriculture, and environmental conditions is often recorded on paper, transported, and transcribed, in a process that can take months and result in errors. Nokia Data Gathering aims to improve accuracy and deliver information in near real-time, helping decision-makers to improve the delivery of social services,” said Gregory Elphinston, director of community involvement at Nokia.

Accurate and timely information is essential when monitoring the effectiveness of disease prevention measures and preventing further outbreaks. This is the basis for the deployment of Nokia Data Gathering in Brazil by the Amazonas State Health Department, SUSAM (Secretaria de Estado de Saude do Amazonas), which will be using the solution to monitor outbreaks of disease and the effectiveness of prevention programs in the city of Manaus.

Beginning next month, 50 field personnel equipped with Nokia E61 and Nokia E71 devices will take to the street in the metropolitan region of Manaus focusing initially on dengue fever.

According to Agnaldo Costa, State Health Secretary of Amazonas State, “the transmission of information immediately after the interviews gives us improved agility, increases public safety, and avoids the manual filling-in of forms which is usually a difficult and time-consuming process.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

The lowly mobile phone is the latest dengue-fever fighting tool.

Posted: September 26th, 2008 under Dengue Fever, Diseases.
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California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week signed two measures requiring California hospitals to strengthen their efforts at preventing staph outbreaks and to alert the public to their rates of infection.

The policy move was a shift for the governor, who vetoed similar legislation a few years ago. Since that time, however, worries about the growth of these bacteria have made halting infections a top public health priority.

Hospitals throughout the state have had a tough time combating methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. That bacteria can spread from patient to patient through unsterile clothing, ventilation systems, surgical equipment or room furnishings.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) believes that 2 million patients nationwide contract an infection each year, and about 100,000 die.

California health officials estimate that between 5 percent and 10 percent of patients in California hospitals develop infections, often through catheters, IV lines, and ventilators or during surgery, increasing treatment costs by about $3.1 billion a year.

One of the new laws demands that high-risk patients should be tested for MRSA within 24 hours of admission.

The second bill strengthens the public health department’s surveillance efforts of hospitals and requires doctors and other medical professionals at hospitals to be trained in preventing the spread of infections.

Betsy Imholz, a spokeswoman at Consumers Union, said the laws will help public health officials get accurate statistics on these bacterial infections.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Schwarznegger wants to terminate MRSA.

Posted: September 26th, 2008 under Clostridium difficile, Developing Diseases, MRSA.
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The world’s governments should spend more than $5 billion a year to prevent deaths from malaria. That’s nearly five times the current spending to fight the mosquito-borne disease, an international health consortium said this week.

The Roll Back Malaria Partnership — comprised of United Nations agencies, the World Bank, leading drugmakers, and aid experts — stated that bolstering spending on bed nets, medicines and malaria tests could save 4.2 million lives a year by 2015.

The “Global Malaria Action Plan,” unveiled in the midst of a global financial crisis that may curb international aid budgets, asks for malaria spending to increase to $5.3 billion in 2009, $6.2 billion in 2010, and $5.1 billion annually from 2011-2020.

Yet, another $8.9 billion is needed in the next decade for research and development into malaria drugs, vaccines, and tests, plus vector-control measures to fight mosquitoes, the report said.

Total spending on malaria, from both national governments and international groups such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, was about $1.1 billion last year.

A spokesman for Roll Back Malaria said the disease now causes at least $12 billion in direct economic losses for African countries a year.

“Minimizing the malaria burden means more people at work, more children at school, and a break in the cycle of poverty,” the spokesman said.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Malaria is one of the world’s oldest infectious diseases.

Posted: September 25th, 2008 under Diseases, Malaria.
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A number of hospitals in the Philadelphia area had higher-than-anticipated death rates for patients with bloodstream infections last year, according to a statewide report card on healthcare.

Those hospitals with a higher death rate included the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University Hospital as well as St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown Township and Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland.

Three other hospitals - Albert Einstein Medical Center, Bryn Mawr Hospital, and Grand View Hospital - had fewer than expected deaths among infected patients, the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) found in its annual performance report.

Experts said the deadly bloodstream infections represented a growing national problem and that local hospitals must do more to prevent them.

The infections have killed more than 4,200 patients in Pennsylvania last year, representing an outrageous 53 percent rise since 2003, records demonstrate.

“There are a growing number of cases across the country, mostly because people are surviving other kind of infections, and they progress and end up in the blood,” said Kate Flynn, president of the Health Care Improvement Foundation.

She said the group identified key areas for improvement and “sepsis is one of those.”

The council examined 31 conditions and treatments, including heart attacks, strokes, prostate surgery, and hysterectomies. An Internet version of the report due out this week at www.phc4.org evaluates an additional 20 care areas.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Posted: September 25th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Impaired Immunity.
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The rate of HIV infection among illegal drug users is rising, according to doctors.

The report, published this week in the British medical journal The Lancet, says 3 million self-abusing, injection drug users across the globe may be HIV-positive.

More than 40 percent of drug users were infected across the globe.

The authors are worried that the lack of data from Africa and say the risk factors that have helped spread HIV in this way exist on the continent.

The doctors said there was a “pressing need” to address the problem.

The researchers behind this study, from the University of New South Wales in Australia, carried out a wide-ranging review of published data.

They concluded that both the numbers of injecting drug users and the prevalence of HIV infection among them are on the increase.

The virus is spread mainly by the use of shared needles.

Researchers say that this was due to the swift introduction of needle exchange programs in the 1980s — though this point is controversial and debatable.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Injecting more than just illegal drugs.

Posted: September 24th, 2008 under Diseases, HIV.
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The typical reason that adults undergo tonsillectomy is chronic infection. But, according to a new study presented today at a conference in Chicago, kids generally have their tonsils removed to treat obstructed airways.

That’s according to a study presented today in Chicago at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery Foundation, the largest gathering of ear, nose and throat specialists.

Tonsillectomy in adults, while far less common than in children, still accounts for one third of all procedures, the doctors said.

To discern the reasons for tonsillectomy in adults and identify factors associated with post-surgery complications, Dr. Elizabeth Kathryn Hoddeson from Emory University in Atlanta and Dr. Christine G. Gourin from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore reviewed the medical records of 361 adults who had their tonsils out between 2001 and 2007.

The data shows that 57 percent of adults had the surgery to treat chronic infection in the tonsils and throat, while 27 percent had the surgery to correct upper airway obstruction caused by enlarged tonsils. In 16 percent of cases, suspected cancer was the reason for the surgery.

A total of 15 percent of the adults presented with complications following the surgery, most often bleeding, followed by pain and dehydration, and admission for low blood-oxygen levels.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Tonsil removal for kids.

Posted: September 24th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Diseases, Impaired Immunity, Strep Throat.
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