H5N1

UK to urge global clampdown on antibiotics amid public health fears

Via The Guardian: UK to urge global clampdown on antibiotics amid public health fears. Excerpt:

Britain is to urge the G8 to take action against the spread of drug-resistant microbes as medical and veterinary experts warn that co-ordinated international action is needed to prevent soaring rates of potentially lethal infections turning into a public health catastrophe. 

David Willetts, the science minister, will propose far-reaching measures that would clamp down on the overuse of antibiotics by GPs and hospital doctors. He will also try to restrict usage on farms and fisheries, where the drugs are blended with feed to boost yields. 

Willetts will push for a consensus on ways to ramp up the discovery of new drugs to fight bacteria, speed their approval and delivery to patients, and strengthen cross-border surveillance for emerging resistant strains. 

"Across the G8, we should regard the spread of antibiotic resistance as a global challenge that is up there with climate change, water stress and environmental damage, and there are genuine policy consequences that follow from that," Willetts told the Guardian ahead of Wednesday's meeting of science ministers at the Royal Society in London. 

Drug-resistance is an inevitable consequence of antibiotics. The drugs wipe out susceptible infections but leave resistant organisms behind. The survivors multiply and, in time, can become immune to even the strongest antibiotics. Though improved surveillance and hygiene has reduced levels of life-threatening MRSA and C difficile "superbugs" in hospitals, resistant strains are on the rise. 

In Britain, doctors see ever more resistant strains of TB, E coli and Klebsiella, which causes pneumonia. Some 80% of gonorrhoea is now resistant to the frontline antibiotic tetracycline. Of serious concern is the rise of resistance to powerful drugs called carbapenems, the antibiotics of last resort. The first few cases were detected in Britain in 2003, but since then the numbers have soared to 217 cases in the first six months of 2011. 

Willetts has asked England's chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, to brief the meeting after she warned in a March report that untreatable infections posed a "catastrophic threat" to the population.

Just 4 germs cause most of severe infants' diarrhea

Via The New York Times, a May 20 report: 4 Germs Cause Most of Infants’ Severe Diarrhea. Excerpt:

Just four germs are responsible for most of the severe and fatal diarrhea among the world’s infants, according to a large new study. 

Diarrhea is a major killer of children, with an estimated 800,000 deaths each year; it has many causes, and doctors want to focus on the most common ones to bring death rates down. 

The study, financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and published by The Lancet, found that the most common causes were rotavirus; a protozoan called Cryptosporidium; and two bacteria, Shigella and a toxin-producing strain of E. coli. In some areas, other pathogens, including the bacteria that causes cholera, were also important. 

The study followed more than 9,000 children with diarrhea seen at clinics in Bangladesh, Gambia, India, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique and Pakistan, and, for comparison, more than 13,000 children without the disease. The children with diarrhea were more likely to have stunted growth and eight times as likely to die during a two-month follow-up period. 

Diarrhea seemed to be linked to chronic malnutrition, which causes gut inflammation that can make it harder to digest food.

Canada: N.S. officials waited 5 days to announce E. coli outbreak

Via CBC News, a report from The Canadian Press: N.S. officials waited 5 days to announce E. coli outbreak. Excerpt:

Public health officials in Nova Scotia knew they were dealing with an outbreak of E. coli five days before they informed the public about it in early January, documents obtained by The Canadian Press show. 

The first indication that staff were aware of the E. coli 0157 outbreak appears in two emails sent by the province's chief medical officer to staff with the Health Department and district health authorities on Dec. 31, 2012. 

In one of the emails, Dr. Robert Strang says the Health Department was in the process of gathering more information about the outbreak and officials would meet on Jan. 2 to assess it. 

Notes from that day's meeting, which were released under access-to-information legislation, show that Health Department officials knew there were dealing with seven confirmed cases of E. coli 0157 affecting people ranging in age from 18 to 83. 

Those notes also show that six of those people reported eating at fast food restaurants and they showed symptoms of the bacterial infection from Dec. 23-26, 2012. Officials were also aware of an E. coli outbreak of the same strain in New Brunswick but decided to delay notifying the public, the notes show. 

"There have been no media calls yet. Until we know what the link is, we will provide standardized messaging," the notes said. 

“If N.B. is sending messaging out, we should be consistent. Delay 24 hours." 

Public informed Jan. 4

It wasn't until Jan. 4 that the department issued a news release confirming it was investigating the cases, two of which required hospital admission. No one died. 

In an interview, Strang said he doesn't believe Health Department officials tried to withhold information from the public. Instead, he said they needed to gather more information from the people who contracted the infection. 

"The judgment was that we needed to wait at least 24 hours... so we have something concrete that we can say to the public," Strang said. 

"What do you say publicly without doing unnecessary harm or creating unnecessary anxiety? So we'd respond if questions came to us, but we didn't feel we were ready yet to go proactively because we didn't have enough of the detail."

Canada: Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory prepares for next big outbreak

Via The Star: Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory prepares for next big outbreak. Excerpt from a long, informative article by Jennifer Yang:

In late November, a strange envelope turned up at the Canadian embassy in Lebanon. Its suspicious contents — wood shavings, according to local reports — sparked alarm: did it contain dangerous pathogens? Could this be a bioterrorist attack? The building was closed until the package could be investigated. 

In snowy Winnipeg, 9,600 kilometres away, Dr. Cindi Corbett received the call: she was going to Beirut. In the hours before sunrise on Nov. 30, Corbett and her team drove to a nondescript warehouse and grabbed four black bags — inside were the components of a mobile laboratory, capable of handling some of the world’s deadliest pathogens. 

The team was soon en route to Lebanon. Within hours of arriving at the embassy, they had set up their lab, investigated the package and deemed it to be harmless. 

The episode drew little attention, both at home and in Lebanon, and nowhere on Google will you find any mention of Corbett in Beirut. For the mother of two, it was just another day on the job as one of Canada’s top bioterrorism scientists. For the National Microbiology Laboratory where Corbett works, the Beirut incident was just another example of how Public Health Agency of Canada scientists work behind the scenes to protect people from microscopic dangers. 

Public-health practitioners sometimes mutter that people only notice them when things go wrong. Canadians may remember reading about the National Microbiology Laboratory during SARS, the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic or the recent XL Foods E. coli outbreak. 

But even in the long, quiet stretches between crises, the lab is working every day to keep pathogens at bay. The Next Big One is always simmering; whether it boils over depends on a mixture of chance and preparedness. 

Ten years after SARS, considered by some to be the first pandemic of the 21st century, the Toronto Star travelled to Winnipeg to meet the people whose job it is to keep pathogens from gaining the upper hand.

UK: New wave of 'superbugs' poses dire threat, says chief medical officer

Via The Guardian: New wave of 'superbugs' poses dire threat, says chief medical officer. Excerpt:

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria with the potential to cause untreatable infections pose "a catastrophic threat" to the population, the chief medical officer for Britain warns in a report calling for urgent action worldwide. 

If tough measures are not taken to restrict the use of antibiotics and no new ones are discovered, said Dame Sally Davies, "we will find ourselves in a health system not dissimilar to the early 19th century at some point". 

While antibiotics are failing, new bacterial diseases are on the rise. Although the "superbugs" MRSA and C difficile have been reduced to low numbers in hospitals, there has been an alarming increase in other types of bacteria including new strains of E coli and Klebsiella, which causes pneumonia. 

These so-called "gram negative" bacteria, which are found in the gut instead of on the skin, are highly dangerous to older and frailer people and few antibiotics remain effective against drug-resistant strains. 

As many as 5,000 patients die each year in the UK of gram negative sepsis – where the bacterium gets into the bloodstream – and in half the cases the bacterium is resistant to drugs. 

"Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat," said Davies. "If we don't act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can't be treated by antibiotics. And routine operations like hip replacements or organ transplants could be deadly because of the risk of infection. 

"That's why governments and organisations across the world, including the World Health Organisation and G8, need to take this seriously." 

There has been an 85% reduction in MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which has meant that many large, acute hospitals have no more than two or three cases a year. But there are now 50 to 100 cases of gram-negative bacteria infection for every MRSA case, according to Professor Mike Sharland of St George's hospital in London, an adviser to the Department of Health on the use of antimicrobials (antibiotics and antivirals) in children. 

"This is your own gut bugs turning on you. Between 10% and 20% are resistant to drugs. We do not yet know why they are on the rise, although some hospital procedures, such as the use of catheters, may be implicated. Many are in the very young or older population," he said. 

"There is a lot of work going on through Public Health England and the Department of Health to try to work out why it has suddenly risen." 

In the second volume of her annual report, Davies calls for politicians to treat the threat of the new bugs and the failing antibiotics as seriously as they did MRSA. She wants action across government departments – involving the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in particular – because of the use of antibiotics in farming. 

She is asking for the threat to be added to the government's strategic risk register, which will make it easier to raise as an issue abroad. Drug resistance is a global problem as the resistant strains of bacteria travel the world.

China: IKEA starts probe into source of bacteria in cakes

Via Xinhua, a report datelined Stockholm: IKEA starts probe into source of bacteria in cakes.

Sweden's IKEA said on Tuesday they had started an investigation on the source of bacteria detected in its cakes. 

The bacteria that the Chinese authorities detected in the cakes posed no harm to health, which was why it could possibly pass the Swedish quality control, reported the Swedish Television SVT. 

"But the bacteria detected in the cakes should not have been there. We are investigating on how the bacteria would end up there," Sara Paulsson, press officer of IKEA, was quoted as saying by SVT. 

"We believe that it is just this batch of cakes that were affected. All the products had received quality control against noxious bacteria before they left the factory in Sweden," she added. 

The Swedish company Almondy, IKEA's supplier and the producer of the cakes, claimed that none of tests had shown a positive result of harmful bacteria in the cakes when they left the factory. 

Some 1,800 cakes that imported from Sweden and would have been sold at IKEA stores in Shanghai of China were destroyed as large amounts of coliform bacteria were detected by the local quarantine bureau.

China: Faecal bacteria found in Ikea chocolate cakes from Sweden

Ikea can't seem to win for losing. Via The Local.se: Faecal bacteria found in Ikea chocolate cakes. Excerpt:

Health authorities in China have confiscated nearly two tonnes of chocolate cakes imported from Sweden by Ikea after finding high levels of bacteria commonly found in the human intestinal tract. 

According to the Shanghai Daily, high levels of coliform bacteria were found in a shipment of Ikea's almond chocolate cakes, prompting authorities to seize and destroy 1.87 tonnes of the dessert. 

The shipment arrived in Shanghai from Sweden in January. Coliform bacteria are universally present in large numbers in the faeces of warm-blooded animals and are commonly used bacterial indicator for testing the sanitary quality of foods and water. 

Ikea officials have since pointed that the bacteria was not healthy 

"We now know that it’s a coliform bacteria that’s not dangerous to people’s health, not as with E. Coli or anything similar," Sara Paulsson of Ikea told the TT news agency. 

"But we’ll never know exactly which bacteria it is because the cakes have been destroyed." 

The cakes have not been sold in Sweden. 

The Ikea chocolate cakes were one of 247 different products from a range of suppliers that failed Chinese sanitation inspections, the Shanghai Daily reported. 

"We buy chocolate from one supplier. That it's of high quality, that checks are carried out in all warehouses, and that rules are followed are obviously all important questions," Ikea spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson told TT. 

The revelations that faecal bacteria were found in Ikea's chocolate cakes comes just a week after horsemeat was found in the company's Swedish meatballs, prompting a massive recall. 

On Monday, the Sweden-based meatball supplier to Ikea stores in Europe said it had traced the horsemeat to a Swedish supplier with ties to slaughterhouses in Poland.

Canada: E. coli detected in Chilliwack water a day after Fraser Health heard defiance from residents about chlorination

Via the Chilliwack Times, less than an hour's drive from where I live: UPDATE: E. coli detected in Chilliwack water a day after Fraser Health heard defiance from residents about chlorination. Excerpt and then an update:

The irony is almost too much to bear. 

The day after hundreds of residents piled into Chilliwack Alliance Church to give Fraser Health Authority (FHA) bureaucrats a piece of their mind about a chlorination edict, E. coli has been detected in the main water system. 

City offiicals issued a water quality advisory Wednesday for Greendale residents after water sampling confirmed E. coli bacteria "in one isolated location." 

The test result was the lowest level detectable. Still, the city has activated its standby chlorination system and is flushing the pipes in the area. The chlorine will take 12 hours to reach the area and residents are advised to run the water in their pipes to flush their systems. 

Results from resampling should be available by Thursday after which the city and FHA will determine if a boil water advisory is warranted. 

The news comes less than 24 hours after approximately 500 people attended an FHA public meeting to discuss the order that Chilliwack begin drinking water chlorination. 

The format of the meeting saw Van Buynder speak about the water system and the FHA edict followed by a question-and-answer period. 

He began by talking about Walkerton and the seven people who died and the 2,300 people who got sick in that Ontario town in May 2000. 

"The message that got out at that particular time is that If we don't do drinking water protection properly and we get unlucky with the bug that turns up, then this has enormous consequences for the residents of the town that we are talking about," Van Buynder said.

As I type, CBC Radio is interviewing the mayor of Chilliwack about whether or not the city now has a boil-water advisory. The mayor says no. The radio interviewer says yes. She says yes, but it's not an official Fraser Health Authority decree.

Sweden: Meat recalled over E.coli faeces fears

Via The Local.se: Meat recalled over E.coli faeces fears.

Around six tonnes of hamburger and kebab meat distributed and sold across Sweden may have been contaminated by intestinal bacteria which may have been caused by animal excrement. 

The meat, which has been on sale across the country for the past four months, has been found to contain traces of the potentially life-threatening E.coli bacteria. 

The contaminated meat was brought to the attention of the authorities when two children fell ill in Västerås in eastern Sweden in January. 

"It's one of the most severe types of food poisoning that you can suffer from," said Helena Storbjörk Windahl at the Stockholm food safety authorities to the the Aftonbladet daily. 

The beef has been traced to the distributor Sven P in Stockholm, but is originally from a slaughterhouse in the Netherlands. 

During the slaughter process the faeces from the animals can infect the meat. 

"If there is 12 tonnes coming in then you don't take a test on every little bit. One has to take a certain number of samples," said Yvonne Björling, Sven P's CEO to the newspaper. 

Of the shipment of twelve tonnes, some six tonnes have to date been sold as ground beef and made into hamburgers or kebab meat, Björling said. 

The remaining six tonnes has now been recalled.

Canada: Ottawa launches review into XL Foods E. coli outbreak

Via CBC News: Ottawa launches review into XL Foods E. coli outbreak. Excerpt:

The federal government has launched a review of the E. coli outbreak last fall that sickened 18 people and led to the largest beef recall in Canadian history. 

The review is to focus on what contributed to the outbreak of the potentially deadly bacteria at the XL Foods Inc. plant in Brooks, Alta. 

It will also look at how well the Canadian Food Inspection Agency performed, including why tainted meat was distributed to retailers and sold to consumers. 

Agriculture Canada said the review will be conducted by an independent panel of experts who are to hand in a report with recommendations to improve food safety. 

"We take the safety of Canada's food supply very seriously and we remain committed to the continuous improvement of Canada's strong food safety systems," Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said in a news release Friday evening.