A rising number of cases of dengue fever are being reported in Maylasia, according to a report by the country’s health minister, Datuk Liow Tiong Lai.

“We are seriously considering imposing a quarantine,” he said. “This was among the measures used by other countries to contain the problem.”

During the first 40 weeks of the year, there were 35,227 dengue cases, including 78 deaths nationwide, with 105 cases in the Sept 28 to Oct 4 week.

“Previously, there was a small percentage of dengue haemorrhagic fever which can kill, but now it is up to 50 percent of the dengue cases,” said the health minister.

Some patients were also infected with Chikungunya, spread by the same mosquito.

Several measures are being taken to contain the disease, including mass fogging, search-and-destroy teams sent to find mosquito breeding grounds, and a campaign to raise awareness. The health department also invited a virologist to capture the mosquitos and identify the type of dengue which was being spread here.

“We have to see if the joint effects (of Chikungunya and dengue) are causing the short and acute dengue fever and the deaths,” said the health minister.

There are also an increased number of EV-71 cases this year in Maylasia, authorities said.

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

Posted: October 31st, 2008 under Dengue Fever, Developing Diseases, Diseases, EV71.
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Females have the highest rate of HIV/AIDS infections in Tanzania, according to a new report. The study was published by the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS), and research was lead by Dr. Fatma Mrisho.

Dr. Mrisho said that current figures show that 7 percent of women are HIV-positive while men account for 5 percent.

“The high rate of HIV/AIDS infections in women is caused by men who have multiple concurrent partners thus infecting more and more women,” she said.

Dr. Mrisho said the current number of HIV/AIDS cases and related figures are a hindrance to national development.

“The survey indicates that out of 33 million people in the country more than 2 million people are HIV-positive. The state of the epidemic needs our concerted efforts as a team to contain and mitigate the effects of the epidemic,” she said.

Dr. Mrisho said that a technical review of the district and community health services has shown a definite improvement in the state of the health services.

“There are very practical recommendations on the way forward and in my opinion…. many of them are doable,” she said.

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

New study provides details on HIV in Tanzania.

Posted: October 31st, 2008 under Diseases, HIV.
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A four-year-old boy from Sibu, Maylasia died last month after showing symptoms of the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD). The disease was due to the deadly Enterovirus-71 (EV-71), the same virus that killed 30 children younger than five-years-old there a decade ago, deputy chief minister Tan Sri Dr. George Chan said.Dr. Chan said that the government had taken measures to prevent a serious outbreak and the public need fret.

“We are monitoring the situation very closely,” he said.The doctor told news conference there that two children aged two and three have been hospitalized at the Miri Hospital since Oct 14 after suffering serious illness of HFMD. Their condition was stable. Thus far this year, 6,414 HFMD cases have been reported in Sarawak with the Miri Hospital and Sibu Hospital handling most of the cases.

EV-71 on the rise in Southeast Asia.

Posted: October 30th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, EV71.
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A suburban New York City hospital says that seven babies born in recent weeks developed skin rashes from the staph infection known as MRSA.

None of the children became seriously ill and Westchester County Health commissioner Joshua Lipsman says other patients at St. John’s Riverside Hospital in Yonkers should not be afraid.

Though MRSA is resistant to penicillin and related drugs, it can be treated with other antibiotics.

The hospital’s chief executive officer Jim Foy says the first case came to light on Sept. 24 and the most recent was found on Sunday.

Foy said yesterday that the maternity and nursery wards have been cultured and disinfected and area pediatricians have been asked to watch for cases.

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

Newborns at risk for MRSA.

Posted: October 30th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, MRSA.
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A new report by The Mayo Clinic calls Morgellons disease “a mysterious skin disorder” characterized by disfiguring sores and crawling sensations on the skin.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) refers to the condition as “unexplained dermopathy.”

The agency has opened up a clinical investigation on the disease.

“Persons who suffer from this unexplained skin condition report a range of cutaneous (skin) symptoms including crawling, biting, and stinging sensations; granules, threads, fibers, or black speck-like materials on or beneath the skin; and/or skin lesions, e.g. rashes or sores,” according to the CDC. “In addition to skin manifestations, some sufferers also report fatigue, mental confusion, short term memory loss, joint pain, and changes in vision.”
The condition was reported for the first time in 2001 by Mary Leitao—who was trained in biology—on behalf of her two-year-old son, who had developed skin lesions, and complained of “bugs.”

She examined the lesions and discovered colored fibers in them. She claimed that the fibers were actually emerging from the sores. The boy was examined by many physicians, who did not find any known disease in the child. Moreover, a number of doctors familiar with the case felt that Leitao might suffer from Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy, and suggested that she should seek psychiatric care.

According to Leitao, she got the name “Morgellons” from the essay A Letter to a Friend by Sir Thomas Browne, published posthumously in 1690. Browne describes a certain “endemial distemper of little children in Languedoc [in southern France], called the Morgellons, wherein they critically break out with harsh hairs on their backs, which takes off the unquiet symptomes of the disease, and delivers them from coughs and convulsions.”

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

Posted: October 30th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Flesh-Eating Bacteria, Morgellons Disease.
Comments: 1

A new study suggests that eating dried plums slows the development of atherosclerosis, commonly known of as hardening-of-the-arteries. An inflammatory disease, the condition leads to cardiovascular disease and stroke, and is the leading cause of death in western society.

The study is published in this month’s edition of the British Journal of Nutrition.

There are many studies on the effects of fruit and vegetables on serum cholesterol, but few reports exist on the reduction of atherosclerosis.

This study is the first studying the effect of a fruit, in this case dried plums, on this type of disease.

“This study breaks new ground by showing a significant reduction in the development of a major inflammatory disease,” says researcher Dan Gallaher, PhD, a professor of nutrition in the department of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota. “It also strengthens the notion of eating fruit, in particular dried plums, as a preventive measure against heart disease.”

The dried fruit has many nutrients, including potassium, magnesium and boron, as well as a high antioxidant score, giving dried plums numerous health benefits from helping maintain desirable blood sugar levels to possibly reducing skin wrinkles.

The study was conducted over a five-month period on a strain of mice that develop atherosclerosis more quickly than normal. The amount of dried plum powder shown to significantly reduce the area of atherosclerotic lesion was equivalent to eating 10 dried plums a day.

The study shows a reduction in the area of atherosclerotic lesions in the entire arterial system as well as the aortic arch.

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

Dried prunes reduce arterial inflammation.

Posted: October 29th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Diseases, Impaired Immunity.
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Children are reportedly dying in eastern China from hand, foot and mouth disease. This is the country’s second outbreak of the powerful toddler virus this year, state media reported yesterday.

Doctors warned that the disease was epidemic in some parts of the coastal Fujian province, with 113 cases reported since the start of October.

The three latest victims were all less than one year old and from the same place, Jian’ou City, the government said.

An outbreak of the virus in southern China killed at least 42 people in April and May, and 27,500 additional cases, largely affecting toddlers, were reported.

Hand, foot and mouth disease is a frequent childhood illness, but the outbreaks in China have been linked with enterovirus 71 (EV71).

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

The cause of hand, foot, and mouth disease — the EV-71 virus.

Posted: October 28th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, EV71.
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A new report reckons that blood kept in storage for 29 days or more - nearly two weeks less than the current government standard - may double one’s risk of a hospital-acquired infection.

Doctors at Cooper University Hospital in Camden tracked 422 patients receiving blood transfusions who were admitted to an intensive-care unit between July 2003 and September 2006.

The infections - including pneumonia, sepsis and upper respiratory infections - appeared to be linked with the age of the blood.

“Stored red blood cells undergo changes that promote the release of a number of biochemical substances called cytokines, which can depress the recipients’ immune function and leave them more susceptible to infection,” said the study’s author Raquel Nahra. “Those changes start around 14 days of storage.”

Complicating matters, said the doctors, who presented their findings at a conference of the American College of Chest Physicians in Philadelphia, are many institutions’ policies of using the oldest available blood first. Shorter blood storage requirements may reduce overall supply, though.

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

Posted: October 28th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Impaired Immunity.
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South African public health officials are closely monitoring an “unknown disease similar to hemorrhagic fever” that has killed three people in Johannesburg.

Melinda Pelser, spokeswoman at Johannesburg’s Morningside Clinic, said the disease causes external and internal bleeding and was spread through bodily fluids. There were no signs it was airborne.

Tests were being carried out on the body of a Morningside hospital cleaner, to see if his death was also connected to the disease.

South Africa’s Health Department, which issued an alert over the weekend, said: “Blood samples of three of the cases are negative for any particular disease, including Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers.”

“At this stage the Department cannot confirm speculations linking these deaths to Ebola or any of the other viral hemorrhagic fevers,” officials said.

Dr. Frew Benson, the department’s director of communicable diseases, said that “our one concern is that we don’t know what we’re dealing with…the fact that we don’t know what the disease is, is a matter of concern for us.”

There are several strains of hemorrhagic fever, including Ebola and Marburg, that have killed hundreds of people in outbreaks in Africa.

The diseases lead to bleeding from multiple body sites and can have very high death rates.

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

Doctors treat patient with Ebola virus.

Posted: October 27th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus.
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Killing drug-resistant staph in the noses of wrestling-camp counselors slashed the rate of potentially deadly skin infections 58 percent at the camp, compared with a year earlier, a new study shows.

MRSA often lives in people’s noses without infecting them, growing and multiplying. This is called colonization. These colonized patients can spread MRSA to others, or can become infected through a break in the skin. The nostrils of the camp counselors and coaches were cleaned out using topical antibiotics called mupirocin and chlorhexadene for five days.

Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, infected 25 percent of the wrestlers at a Minneapolis wrestling camp in 2006. Last year, researchers tested coaches’ and counselors’ noses for MRSA and found about half were carriers. Once doctors removed the contaminant, infections dropped.

Killing bacteria from carriers in other situations involving close quarters also may help slow the spread of the disease throughout the community, the researchers said. MRSA infected 94,360 people in 2005, killing 18,650, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Counselors “show them the moves and have a lot of direct contact with the kids,” said Bruce Anderson, the study’s author and a researcher at the University of Minnesota in Burnsville, said. “When we found the rate was that high among the counselors, that was amazing to me.”

Anderson reported his findings last week at the Interscience Conference on Anti-Microbial Agents and Chemotherapy in Washington.

Nearly 14 percent of MRSA infections involve those who acquired the disease outside the health-care system.

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

Swabbing the nose with this ointment can stop MRSA.

Posted: October 27th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, MRSA.
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