H5N1

Dominican Republic: Lady dies of cholera

Via Hoy Digital: Muere una señora por cólera. [Lady dies from cholera] Excerpt, with my translation:

Una señora de 85 años murió de cólera en el sector Los Cocos del barrio La Ciénaga, en el Distrito Nacional, según certificaron médicos de servicio  en un consultorio que tiene el Ministerio de Salud Pública en el lugar. 

A lady of 85 has died of cholera in the Los Cocos section of La Ciénaga neighbourhood in the National District, according to doctors working in a local clinic run by the Ministry of Public Health.

La nueva víctima de cólera es Polonia Betances, quien fue afectada por los vómitos y la diarrea que  la deshidrataron. 

The new victim is Polonia Betances, who was dehydrated by vomiting and diarrhea.

A la pena producida por la muerte de su pariente se agregaba el hecho de que a las 12:00 del mediodía los familiares no habían encontrado en ninguna de las instituciones contactadas una ambulancia que la llevara donde sería sepultada.

Adding to the pain caused by the death of their relative, the family at noon had still not seen an ambulance that would take her to her burial.

Pakistan: Dengue may strike back in August

Via The Nation, a report datelined Karachi: Dengue may strike back in August. Excerpt:

Experts have warned the citizens that dengue fever might strike back in the metropolis in the month of August, as the ongoing rainy season can play its negative role to aggravate dengue fever in the whole province. 

Experts have strongly advised the citizens to prevent themselves from mosquito bites by wearing appropriate dresses, using repellents and insecticides; stagnant rainwater on the streets of the city may activate the breed of mosquitoes, causing dengue fever and malaria. 

Talking to The Nation, Dr Rafique Khanani, associated with the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), of the Infection Control Society of Pakistan (ICSP), said that it is declared a largely urban phenomenon, which starts from August and got momentum in September and October. 

He said that the fatal disease spreads from Karachi to other parts of the province; but this year the largest city of the country has received very limited rain so far that is why the stagnant water can not be seen as much as it was in previous years. 

There are chances of dengue fever but low intensity due to the limited amount of rain in the city, he said, adding that cases of dengue fever are being reported in the city but cases are in very limited numbers. 

He said that the Aedes aegypti mosquito bites during the day, lives indoors in domestic settings and breeds in both clean and polluted water, while adult mosquito was destroyed in temperature beyond 38 C, the eggs can withstand desiccation and can hatch next year as well whenever conditions are conducive. 

Dr Syed Aijaz Hussain Zaidi, a very busy physician, told The Nation that the rainy days are specific for breeding of mosquitoes causing dengue fever; the ongoing season may help activating victors (eggs) of the mosquitoes. The rainy season creates new breeding pools. The breeding of mosquitoes could be multiplied if the water of these pools did not drain properly, while the temperature from 22 to 30 degree centigrade help in the breeding of mosquitoes, he adds.

Japan: Radioactive waste worries local governments

Via The Daily Yomiuri: Radioactive waste worries local governments / Officials seek guidance from central authorities on how to permanently dispose of sludge, ash. Excerpt:

Many local governments are troubled over how to handle waste containing radioactive cesium, including sludge discharged from water and sewage treatment plants, and ash. 

According to surveys by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and The Yomiuri Shimbun, more than 120,000 tons of such radioactive waste is being stored in Tokyo and 13 prefectures in the Tohoku and Kanto regions. 

Although the government aims to establish a new law to create a government-led framework to dispose of the waste, it is uncertain whether this will resolve the problem quickly. 

About 180 tons of sludge was being stored at a disposal site in Fukushima city as of Wednesday. Sludge is discharged when river water and sewage is purified at treatment plants--water treatment plants discharge sludge containing mostly earth and sand, while sludge from sewage treatment plants contains domestic wastewater and excrement. 

Therefore, most of the sludge is incinerated to reduce its volume, after which it is buried or recycled into materials for cement. 

At the disposal site in Fukushima's Horikawacho district, sandbags weighing one ton each were recently piled up inside an outdoor tank about 5 meters deep and surrounded by concrete walls 15 centimeters thick. 

The bags were filled with dehydrated sludge containing radioactive cesium. Workers in protective suits lifted the bags into the tank with a crane. 

The quantity of the radioactive sludge was increasing by about 14 tons a day, and according to workers, the 10 tanks at the site will be full by the end of the year.

Nigeria: Kwara denies report on cholera outbreak

Via The Nation: Kwara denies report on cholera outbreak. Excerpt:

The Kwara State Government yesterday denied reports of an outbreak of cholera in the state. 

It said what happened “were isolated but contained cases of gastroenteritis, a stomach condition, in Okelele and Adabata” areas of Ilorin, the state capital. 

Commissioner for Health Alhaji Kayode Issa said the only confirmed case of cholera has been treated, adding that cholera and gastroenteritis have similar symptoms.  

Issa said a one confirmed case of cholera could not be described as an outbreak. 

He said cholera is an endemic condition that could be controlled through good hygiene.  

In a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Media and Communications, Muideen Akorede, the commissioner said 11 cases of gastroenteritis were reported last week, adding that the patients had been treated at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) and discharged. 

Issa said the ministry’s emergency response teams visited the affected areas and identified the patients as well as their and their families. 

He said the ministry complied with  the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) protocol on infection control.  

Singapore: Seletar Hills residents face dengue threat

Via Razor.tv: Seletar Hills residents face dengue threat. This is a six-minute video from a TV news broadcast, and very much worth watching. The blurb:

As temperatures rise this hot season, so have incidences of dengue. The latest victims include a TNP New Face contestant and several residents of Seletar Hills. Heat hastens both the virus multiplication rate and maturation rate in mosquitoes, so they stay in their infectious period for longer. 

India: Cholera fears in Delhi

Via The Hindustan Times: Agencies fail to act as residents complain of water contamination. Excerpt:

The tap water in your house, which appears clean, might be carrying a host of germs. Claims of residents complaining about contaminated water have been corroborated by the MCD's health department which claims that a number of water pipelines are crossing through sewerage lines of DJB. 

As many as 67 pipelines in the city are crossing through sewerage lines of Delhi Jal Board (DJB). This data was found during an inspection carried over six months by the MCD after it received reports of more than 200 cases of cholera being reported from across the city. 

While residents have been complaining to the DJB but they claim till date no action has been taken by the board. 

"In our areas the pipelines are very old and were laid nearly 25 years back. Over a period of time they have rusted and sewage water gets mixed with drinking water which is supplied to our area. We have been writing to DJB officials about it but so far no action has been taken. I have been getting numerous complaints from the residents," said Harvinder Singh, general secretary of Lajpat Nagar III Resident Welfare Association (RWA). 

He further said that in Lajpat Nagar III, block K, H, F, are facing an acute problem. 

"The pipelines that carry the water in our colony were laid many years back and have rusted over a period of time. Hence, initially for at least 20 odd minutes the water that we get is brownish in colour which starts to improve if we leave the tap running for sometime," said Subash Sahni, president of C-4, RWA, Vasant Kunj.

Canada: So when does this become a crisis?

Via the excellent blog Those Emergency Blues, Jane Doe links problems in the emergency department with declining senior care as a single big public-health problem: So When Does This Become a Crisis? Excerpt (but read the whole thing):

I walked into the Emergency Department one hot morning a couple of weeks ago and found every last stretcher — twenty-five beds, including the two we try to reserve for trauma or codes — was filled with admitted patients; furthermore, five additional patients were waiting for consultants and likely admission. We were operating at 120% capacity even before the usual gamut of ED patients would begin flooding in. 

Trying to manage an ED under these circumstances is like walking through an open field holding an umbrella during a thunderstorm. You know lightning is going to strike, and you hope like hell it doesn’t strike you. As charge nurse you start re-triaging the patients already under your management. Which admitted patients requiring cardiac monitoring can be safely parked in the hallway (in violation of fire codes) to make room for the syncopal vag bleed at triage? Which chest pain gets the last monitored bed? Is that MVC the paramedics rolling in nothing or a multisystem trauma? 

And then, nurses providing care at the front-line begin to get frustrated and angry, because all of them chose to be ED nurses (as opposed to med-surg nurses), and they have lots of expensive education to validate their choice. In the event, they are helpless watching their elderly admits decompensating before their eyes. 

Even more seriously, the sudden arrival of a trauma or a patient coding in the waiting room means a scramble to find room; in a scenario when seconds count, delay could be disastrous if there is no available bed to treat them.

I don’t actually think the general public understands the fine line emergency department nurses and physicians walk between successful outcomes, where the patient is treated, made well, and discharged, and the morgue. Every health care professional in the ED practices with their heart in their throat and their licences over the fire. 

So when does this become a crisis?

Nigeria: Parents risk jail for skipping polio drops

Via News24.com: Parents risk jail for skipping polio drops. Excerpt:

Parents who do not allow their children to be vaccinated against polio now risk jail for defying a government order aimed at ensuring that the disease is eradicated from Africa's most populous nation, authorities said on Friday. 

Tajuddeen Gambo, the permanent secretary of the Kano state health ministry, said that Nigeria has a law that punishes parents who refuse their children access to health care. 

"Polio immunisation is part of health care," Gambo said. 

Kano state is located at the heart of Nigeria's impoverished and Muslim-dominated north where polio vaccines have been met with resistance by a minority, but health officers say that minority is enough to compromise the entire door-to-door campaign. 

"When they come to my house, I will tell them there are no children in this house," says a 45-year-old politician in the village of Dungurawa, just outside the city of Kano. 

"If they insist, I will not let them in." 

He said he was skeptical about government concern with polio alone. "What about the other diseases?" 

Just over a week ago, Unicef announced at a meeting held with northern traditional and religious leaders that 20 new polio cases had been found in Nigeria's north this year and that two of them were in Kano state.

Brazil: Mato Grosso state sees sharp fall in dengue cases

Via Terra.com: MT registra 7,6 mil casos de dengue no primeiro semestre. [Mato Grosso reports 7,600 dengue cases in first half of year.] But this is actually good news. Excerpt, with my translation:

O Estado de Mato Grosso registrou 7.624 casos de dengue no primeiro semestre deste ano. Segundo dados divulgados na última quinta-feira pela Secretaria de Estado de Saúde de Mato Grosso (SES-MT), até o dia 28 de julho,36 destes casos foram considerados graves, resultando em cinco mortes. Outros dois óbitos ainda estão em investigação. 

The state of Mato Grosso recorded 7,624 cases of dengue in the first half of the year. According to figures released Friday by the State Secretariat of Health, as of July 28 36 of these cases were considered serious and resulted in 5 deaths. Another 2 deaths are under investigation.

A secretaria também divulgou que a capital do Estado, Cuiabá, foi a cidade que mais registrou casos, 1.068. No mesmo período do ano passado foram registrados 40.521 casos casos de dengue no Estado.

The secretariat also reported that the state capital, Cuiabá, was the city with the most cases,1,068. In the same period last year, 40,521 dengue cases were recorded in the state. 

Japan: Torrential rain in Niigata, Fukushima

Via NHK: Torrential rain in Niigata, Fukushima. Excerpt:

Torrential rains that hit Niigata and Fukushima prefectures in northeastern Japan have left 3 people dead and 3 others missing. 

The heavy rain continued through Saturday. More than 6,400 buildings have been damaged or flooded. 

Evacuation orders or advisories were in place for 7,300 people in the 2 prefectures.