H5N1

Even low levels of air pollution can damage health, study finds

Via The Guardian: Even low levels of air pollution can damage health, study finds. Excerpt:

A study in one of the cleanest countries in the world could help governments think about future ways to manage air pollution.  

Abundant data from London’s infamous 1952 smog onwards tells us that breathing high concentrations of air pollution harms our health. This feeds into the 20th-century idea of targets for the quality of our air. However, the new study looked at the health harm from air pollution from another angle.  

Census records for more than 7 million Canadians from between 1981 and 2016 were combined with air pollution data to find out if small amounts of particle pollution were still harmful.  

Despite the relatively clean air, the study found that nearly 8,000 Canadians were dying early each year from outdoor air pollution. Notably, even people in the cleanest areas were experiencing an impact on their health.  

Air pollution harm was seen at concentrations that were at about one half of the latest World Health Organization guideline and at just quarter of the 2040 target proposed for England.  

The Canadian study was one of three funded by the US Health Effects Institute. The other two looked at more than 60 million people in the US and 27 million people in Europe. They reached similar conclusions: there is no lower limit that can be used to define safe air quality. This means governments should not constrain their ambition around setting targets for the worst air that people should breathe.  

Prof Michael Brauer from the University of British Columbia, who led the Canadian study, said: “These findings suggest important health benefits could be gained from continued reductions in air pollution and more stringent regulatory standards, including in countries such as Canada and the UK.  

“Considering that we don’t identify a ‘safe’ level of air pollution, we should rethink our approach and focus on continued reductions year by year, rather than just setting fixed concentration standards that are only reviewed every five to 10 years. The health impacts are far too large.”

Japan's daily COVID-19 tally hits record 250,000 cases

Via The Mainichi Shimbun: Japan's daily COVID-19 tally hits record 250,000 cases.

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's daily coronavirus tally soared to a record 250,403 cases on Wednesday, as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's new Cabinet faces the challenge of tackling the seventh wave of the COVID-19 pandemic amid renewed concerns over a strain on the medical system.  

"We will move into a new phase toward" a life with COVID-19 without delay, Kishida said at a press conference after the new lineup for his Cabinet was announced the same day.  

Fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron BA.5 subvariant, Japan's new COVID-19 cases topped 250,000 for the first time, exceeding the previous record of around 249,800 on Aug. 3.  

New coronavirus cases had been increasing since June and in mid-July, the figure more than doubled from a week before. The number of deaths and of people suffering from severe conditions has also been quickly rising.  

Out of Japan's 47 prefectures, 20 reported a record number of cases on Wednesday, while Tokyo reported 34,243 cases and Osaka and Aichi prefectures saw 23,730 and 18,862 cases, respectively.

ECDC: Monkeypox multi-country outbreak

Via ECDC, an August 8 situation update: Monkeypox multi-country outbreak. Excerpt:

Since the start of the monkeypox outbreak and as of 8 August 2022, 13 912 confirmed cases of monkeypox (MPX) have been reported from 29 EU/EEA countries: Spain (4 942), Germany (2 887), France (2 423), Netherlands (959), Portugal (710), Italy (545), Belgium (482), Austria (173), Denmark (123), Sweden (114), Ireland (97), Poland (76), Norway (65), Hungary (48), Greece (39), Slovenia (38), Luxembourg (34), Malta (30), Czechia (28), Romania (28), Finland (20), Croatia (12), Iceland (11), Estonia (9), Slovakia (8), Bulgaria (4), Latvia (3), Lithuania (3) and Cyprus (1).  

Two deaths have been reported from Spain.  

Since the start of the monkeypox outbreak and as of 8 August 2022, the following Western Balkan countries have reported confirmed cases of monkeypox: Serbia (23), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1) and Montenegro (1). In addition, five cases have been reported from Turkey.  

Since the start of the outbreak, ECDC provides updates for EU/EEA countries, the Western Balkans and Turkey twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays), with the number of MPX cases reported to The European Surveillance System (TESSy) or collected through ECDC’s epidemic intelligence from official public sources.

A zoonotic henipavirus in febrile patients in China

Via NEJM, a letter to the editor: A Zoonotic Henipavirus in Febrile Patients in China. Excerpt:

The Hendra virus and the Nipah virus, which belong to the genus henipavirus in the family Paramyxoviridae, are known to infect humans and cause fatal disease; however, other related henipaviruses have been detected in bats, rodents, and shrews. During sentinel surveillance of febrile patients with a recent history of animal exposure in eastern China, a phylogenetically distinct henipavirus, named Langya henipavirus (LayV), was identified in a throat swab sample from one patient by means of metagenomic analysis and subsequent virus isolation. 

The genome of LayV is composed of 18,402 nucleotides with a genome organization that is identical to that of other henipaviruses (Figure 1A). LayV is most phylogenetically related to Mojiang henipavirus, which was discovered in southern China (Figure 1B). 

Subsequent investigation identified 35 patients with acute LayV infection in the Shandong and Henan provinces of China, among whom 26 were infected with LayV only (no other pathogens were present). These 26 patients presented with fever (100% of the patients), fatigue (54%), cough (50%), anorexia (50%), myalgia (46%), nausea (38%), headache (35%), and vomiting (35%), accompanied by abnormalities of thrombocytopenia (35%), leukopenia (54%), and impaired liver (35%) and kidney (8%) function. 

A serosurvey of domestic animals detected seropositivity in goats (3 of 168 [2%]) and dogs (4 of 79 [5%]). Among 25 species of wild small animals surveyed, LayV RNA was predominantly detected in shrews (71 of 262 [27%]), a finding that suggests that the shrew may be a natural reservoir of LayV. (Additional details of the study are provided in the Supplementary Methods section in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org.) 

Although the current study does not fulfill Koch’s postulates, the following findings from the patients with acute LayV infection suggest that LayV was the cause of febrile illness: LayV was the only potential pathogen detected in 26 of the 35 patients (74%) with acute LayV infection; in paired serum samples that were obtained from 14 patients during the acute and convalescent phases of infection, the IgG titers in 86% of the convalescent-phase samples were 4 times as high as those in the acute-phase samples; viremia was associated with acute LayV infection; and the patients with pneumonia had higher viral loads than those without pneumonia (mean [±SD] log10-transformed copies per milliliter, 7.64±0.98 vs. 4.52±1.13). 

Although human-to-human transmission has been reported for the Nipah virus, we found no obvious spatial or temporal aggregation of human cases or the assigned haplotypes on the basis of three common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (Figure 1C). There was no close contact or common exposure history among the patients, which suggests that the infection in the human population may be sporadic. Contact tracing of 9 patients with 15 close-contact family members revealed no close-contact LayV transmission, but our sample size was too small to determine the status of human-to-human transmission for LayV. 

The potential cross-reaction with Mojiang virus should be assessed to improve serologic testing. In our study, a newly identified henipavirus of probable animal origin was associated with febrile illness, a finding that warrants further investigation to better understand associated human illness.

Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change

Via Nature Climate Change: Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change. The abstract:

It is relatively well accepted that climate change can affect human pathogenic diseases; however, the full extent of this risk remains poorly quantified. Here we carried out a systematic search for empirical examples about the impacts of ten climatic hazards sensitive to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on each known human pathogenic disease. 

We found that 58% (that is, 218 out of 375) of infectious diseases confronted by humanity worldwide have been at some point aggravated by climatic hazards; 16% were at times diminished. Empirical cases revealed 1,006 unique pathways in which climatic hazards, via different transmission types, led to pathogenic diseases. 

The human pathogenic diseases and transmission pathways aggravated by climatic hazards are too numerous for comprehensive societal adaptations, highlighting the urgent need to work at the source of the problem: reducing GHG emissions.