H5N1

Pakistan: Leishmaniasis affects dozens in hilly area

Via the Pakistan Observer: Leishmaniasis affects dozens in hilly area.

Dozens of children have been affected by Leishmaniasis – a parasitic skin disease transmitted by sand-fly in different parts of hilly area Shin Ghar north of the Sherani district. The children have been suffering in Killi Kachh Kazha Mulla Nika, Killi Kamalzai and other villages of Shin Ghar in the east of Zhob city. 

The DHQ civil hospital lacks anti-leishmaniasis vaccines including other life saving drugs for the last few months that adds to the miseries of patients. 

According to Dr. Abdul Qayyum, focal person World Health Organization at Leishmaniasis center DHQ civil hospital, although the patients have approached the center, yet the center has no vaccines against the ailment that caused by the sand-fly bite.

Leishmaniasis as an occupational hazard of archaeologists

I'm currently reading Douglas Preston's book The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story. Look for a review in The Tyee soon. But in the meantime, I recommend it if only for its remarkable description of leishmaniasis—which Preston and many other members of the expedition contracted, as well as members of the Honduran army who were providing security.

The first part of the book is what editors like to call "rollicking adventure"—exotic locales, unexplored wilderness, high tech, drug cartels, deadly snakes underfoot. It is indeed great fun, as long you're safely reading about them at home. And the expedition really did discover a major pre-Columbian civilization destroyed by Spanish diseases before the Spanish even set foot in Honduras. We fret about pandemics; the Americas suffered the real thing after 1492, with a likely loss of 95% of the pre-Columbian population.

 

The lost city was abandoned in the early 1500s, and evidently not revisited by humans until the expeditions that Preston describes. But its valley was full of sand flies that had been swapping leishmaniasis parasites for 500 years with various mammal hosts. When the archaeologists and their support staff arrived, the sand flies feasted on them—and a few months later, the victims were fighting for their lives.

 

Preston offers the most vivid account I've yet read about this disease. While he and his colleagues fought a New World strain of the disease, other strains have been killing humans and other species for a long, long time. As Preston observes, even the dinosaurs caught leishmaniasis.

Mystery nodding syndrome may be triggered by parasitic worm

Via Science: Mystery nodding syndrome may be triggered by parasitic worm. Excerpt:

Between 1990 and 2013, thousands of children in war-torn South Sudan and northern Uganda suddenly developed a severe and puzzling form of epilepsy. When exposed to food or cold temperatures, affected children nodded their heads uncontrollably. Over time the seizures often worsened, leaving the children severely disabled. Many died of malnutrition, accidents, or secondary infections. 

In some communities, roughly half of families had at least one child with the condition, called nodding syndrome; by 2013, an estimated 1600 children in Uganda were affected. But the cause of the devastation was a mystery. Now, a study finds that a parasitic worm often found in the children might trigger the body’s own defenses to attack neurons. 

The study doesn’t prove the worm is the culprit, but it “is the first to show that a cause-effect relationship is plausible,” says Hermann Feldmeier, a parasitologist at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, who was not involved in the study.

The rash of cases in Uganda and South Sudan triggered an intense hunt for the cause, but searches for viruses, bacteria, environmental toxins, genetic factors, and nutritional deficits all came up empty. One key clue: Areas with nodding syndrome also had high rates of onchocerciasis, an infection with the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus. Spread through the bites of black flies, which breed in swift-flowing streams, the worms can invade the eye, and the infection is commonly known as river blindness. The World Health Organization estimates that at least 18 million people, most in sub-Saharan Africa, are infected. 

Researchers had suggested as early as the 1960s that high rates of epilepsy in Tanzania, with similar nodding symptoms, might be related to onchocerciasis. Others have noted that children with nodding syndrome are more likely to be infected than their healthy peers. But there’s no evidence that the worm invades the brain or directly causes seizures. 

Some researchers suggested that the worm instead causes an autoimmune reaction that damages the nervous system. Searches for antibodies that might play an autoimmune role had come up empty. But neuroimmunologists Avindra Nath and Tory Johnson of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, decided to use an improved protein chip to screen for antibodies to thousands of proteins at once.  

The new tool proved its worth. Blood from nodding syndrome patients reacted strongly to four proteins; in the case of one protein, called leiomodin-1, patient sera reacted 33,000 times more strongly than did sera from unaffected controls. The researchers then looked for the antibodies causing the reaction. As they report this week in Science Translational Medicine, antibodies to leiomodin-1 turned up in 29 of 55 nodding syndrome patients but only 17 of 55 controls. Patients also carried much higher antibody levels than controls.

WHO: Burden of foodborne diseases falls largely on children under five

A news release from WHO: WHO’s first ever global estimates of foodborne diseases find children under 5 account for almost one third of deaths. Click or tap through to download the full report and related information. Excerpt:

Almost one third (30%) of all deaths from foodborne diseases are in children under the age of 5 years, despite the fact that they make up only 9% of the global population. This is among the findings of WHO's "Estimates of the global burden of foodborne diseases" – the most comprehensive report to date on the impact of contaminated food on health and well-being. 

The report, which estimates the burden of foodborne diseases caused by 31 agents – bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins and chemicals – states that each year as many as 600 million, or almost 1 in 10 people in the world, fall ill after consuming contaminated food. Of these, 420 000 people die, including 125 000 children under the age of 5 years. 

“Until now, estimates of foodborne diseases were vague and imprecise. This concealed the true human costs of contaminated food. This report sets the record straight,” says Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO. “Knowing which foodborne pathogens are causing the biggest problems in which parts of the world can generate targeted action by the public, governments, and the food industry.”  

While the burden of foodborne diseases is a public health concern globally, the WHO African and South-East Asia Regions have the highest incidence and highest death rates, including among children under the age of 5 years. 

“These estimates are the result of a decade of work, including input from more than 100 experts from around the world. They are conservative, and more needs to be done to improve the availability of data on the burden of foodborne diseases. But based on what we know now, it is apparent that the global burden of foodborne diseases is considerable, affecting people all over the world – particularly children under 5 years of age and people in low-income areas,” says Dr Kazuaki Miyagishima, Director of WHO’s Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses. 

Diarrhoeal diseases are responsible for more than half of the global burden of foodborne diseases, causing 550 million people to fall ill and 230 000 deaths every year. Children are at particular risk of foodborne diarrhoeal diseases, with 220 million falling ill and 96 000 dying every year. Diarrhoea is often caused by eating raw or undercooked meat, eggs, fresh produce and dairy products contaminated by norovirus, Campylobacter, non-typhoidal Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli. 

Other major contributors to the global burden of foodborne diseases are typhoid fever, hepatitis A, Taenia solium (a tapeworm), and aflatoxin (produced by mould on grain that is stored inappropriately). 

Certain diseases, such as those caused by non-typhoidal Salmonella, are a public health concern across all regions of the world, in high- and low-income countries alike. Other diseases, such as typhoid fever, foodborne cholera, and those caused by pathogenic E. coli, are much more common to low-income countries, while Campylobacter is an important pathogen in high-income countries. 

The risk of foodborne diseases is most severe in low- and middle-income countries, linked to preparing food with unsafe water; poor hygiene and inadequate conditions in food production and storage; lower levels of literacy and education; and insufficient food safety legislation or implementation of such legislation.

Liberia: Nearly 900,000 children vaccinated against polio

Via The Bush Chicken: Nearly 900,000 Children Vaccinated Against Polio in Liberia. Excerpt:

Liberian health authorities have reported that the recent polio, measles and deworming campaign across the country was a success. 

According to Adolphus Clarke, an estimated 900,000 children were vaccinated against polio. Clark is the Deputy Program Manager for the Integrated Measles and Polio Campaign at the Ministry of Health. 

He said the vaccination campaign occurred from May 8 to 14 and targeted children under the age of five. 

The campaign was much needed because, during the Ebola outbreak, many children were not immunized. The situation created a cause for concern as health authorities feared another health disaster. 

Even during the period of the campaign, at least seven of the 562 suspected measles patients died. The deaths came from Margibi, with three deaths; Montserrado with two; and Grand Bassa and Nimba, which both recorded one death. 

Clark said, “The Ministry of Health was able to reach 588,677 children with the measles vaccine, which also represents 98% of the period covered during the immunization campaign.” 

He also said the Ministry of Health was able to deworm 509,813 children; which represents 98% of the target. The deworming campaign aimed to treat 522,732 children between 12-month-old to five-year-old. 

According to the World Health Organization, deworming is an effective treatment against infections caused by a group of parasites known as helminths, generally referred to as worms. Common infections caused by these parasites include internal bleeding, diarrhea, and poor absorption of nutrients, which can negatively impact the growth and development of children

Vietnam: Expert warns of mutant dengue fever in Vietnam as four die

Via Thanh Nien Daily, a May 15 report: Expert warns of mutant dengue fever in Vietnam as 4 die. Excerpt:

Heath experts warn that mosquitoes in Vietnamese cities have exhibited an insecticide-resistance at the same time that climate factors have extended the dengue fever season year-round. 

Mosquitoes carrying the virus have exhibited signs of resistance to several common common insecticides said Tran Thanh Duong, head of the National Institute of Malariology, Parasitology and Entomology during a Wednesday meeting in Hanoi. 

Duong said the disease has killed at least four among the more than 8,000 people infected this year and will grow increasingly hard to manage since Vietnam hosts four strains of the virus. 

People who develop immunity to one remain vulnerable to others, he said. 

Duong said the disease has become active during all seasons due to climate and environmental changes. 

Traditionally, the illness peaked in the south during June (the start of monsoon season) and in September in the north. 

Duong said dengue fever has been considered an urban disease due to a dramatic surge of infections in large cities and rapidly urbanizing areas. 

Health officials in Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s largest metropolis reported more than 2,600 dengue fever cases this year, up nearly 28 percent year on year. 

They've also warned that the disease may see its peak turn, this year, in its three- to five-year cycle. 

The city health department is conducting sterilization and larva destruction campaigns through June.

Meanwhile, a May 16 report says Vietnam is at risk of a triple pandemic of hand-foot-mouth disease, dengue, and measles. And a 58-year-old man, fond of raw pig's blood pudding and a dish including pig intestines and raw vegetables, has been hospitalized with parasitic worms in his brain. The National Hospital of Tropical Diseases gets 30 to 40 such cases a year.

Canada: Inuit whalers warned after infectious ‘cat parasite’ found in belugas

Via The Globe and Mail: Inuit whalers warned after infectious ‘cat parasite’ found in belugas. Excerpt:

University of British Columbia researchers have issued a health advisory to Inuit whalers after discovering an infectious cat parasite in belugas in the Arctic Ocean, a potentially fatal portent of climate change in the North. 

Michael Grigg and Stephen Raverty, part of UBC’s Marine Mammal Research Unit, presented their findings this week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Chicago. They contend the thawing of Arctic ice, borne through climate change, is responsible for the parasite’s migration north.  

“There’s a series of pathogens circulating in the lower 48 of the United States, and they don’t tend to go north because of cold temperatures,” explained Grigg, in a video released by UBC. “And what’s now happening… is pathogens that have created a status quo in the lower 48 are now emerging to cause disease among susceptible populations in the Arctic.” 

The parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, is typically carried by cats, and is the leading cause of infectious blindness in humans. Severe cases of Toxoplasmosis can be fatal. It can be spread by the consumption of uncooked meat, which is a staple of the traditional diet of the region’s Inuit peoples. 

Beluga have been hunted by the Inuit for centuries, and are still a major part of the culture and diet for many. A single whale, hunted during the summer months, can provide food for several families over the course of a winter. 

Traditionally, it was difficult to find wood for fire on the Arctic tundra, so whale meat was consumed raw or frozen – a practice that continues today. 

A Northwest Territories man who has been part of the traditional hunt for decades said he’s always cooked his beluga meat to prevent the spread of parasites. 

But the hunter, who asked not to be named because of his employment in the territorial government, said the announcement wouldn’t change the way people harvest and consume beluga. 

“Unless somebody goes blind from eating this meat, it’s not going to change it one bit,” he said. “It’s hard to educate the older people. They’re set in their ways, that’s the way they were taught, and they don’t want to change.” 

“Even my father, he says: ‘we’re not cooking it.’ I say, ‘yeah, we are.’ I set aside some muktuk (frozen whale blubber) and say ‘that’s yours. You want to eat it raw, you go ahead. We like it cooked.’ It kills parasites, we know it does. 

“But my father, he’s 77, and just set in his ways, and that’s the way he wants it done. I’m sure he’s fine with that.”