An American doctor who had been treated in Atlanta for Ebola and declared free of the virus by his doctors has now been found to have the virus in his eye two months after his release.
Dr. Ian Crozier was experiencing horrific pain in his left eye according to the New York Times. The pressure in his eye kept increasing while vision decreased and the hue of his eye changed from blue to green.
Tests showed the virus was still living in his eye.
“It felt almost personal that the virus could be in my eye without me knowing it,” Crozier said.
The 44-year-old doctor contracted the disease while working at a hospital in Sierra Leone. The doctors at Emory University Hospital called Crozier “the sickest of all the four Ebola patients” who they had treated.
Emory University has updated the treatment protocols for victims of the virus.
“Following recovery from Ebola virus disease, patients should be followed for the development of eye symptoms including pain, redness, light sensitivity and blurred vision, which may be signs of uveitis,” said Steven Yeh, associate professor of ophthalmology at Emory University School of Medicine.
Emory said in a statement that they did not find the virus in tears and the outer membranes of the eyes.
“These findings have implications for the thousands of Ebola virus disease survivors in West Africa and also for health care providers who have been evacuated to their home countries for ongoing care,” Jay Varkey, assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine said. “Surveillance for the development of eye disease in the post-Ebola period is needed.”
Four new cases of bird flu have been found in Iowa including one farm with 2.8 million laying hens. Three of the new cases are at commercial turkey farms in Buena Vista and Cherokee Counties.
The Iowa Department of Agriculture says that 19.4 million birds will be destroyed because of the virus, although that estimate did not include the number birds from the commercial turkey farms.
The farms will be quarantined and all the turkeys destroyed according to officials. Every flock within 6.2 miles of the infected farms will be quarantined and tested to see if the virus has spread beyond the four new infected locations.
Governor Terry Branstad has declared a state of emergency so that state agencies can take strong measures to stop the virus from continuing to spread. Cherokee, Clay, Kossuth, Madison, O’Brien, Osceola, Pocahontas, Sac and Sioux counties have all been impacted by the virus.
Scientists speculate that migratory birds such as ducks and geese have spread the virus through their droppings on the farms. Farm workers then unknowingly spread the virus through dust or bird feathers.
The risk to humans is considered low according to health officials.
The outbreak is also causing concern among grocers because there is only seven months to Thanksgiving and it’s possible the farms will not be able to meet the demand for turkeys on the holiday. The cost of turkey could skyrocket because of short supply.
Minnesota has declared a state of emergency because of a strain of avian flu that has led to the elimination of 7.3 million birds. It’s the second state to declare the emergency over the bird flu following Wisconsin.
The highly infectious strain of H5N2 bird flu has been found in 46 different Minnesota farms in 16 counties. The disease has hit around 2.6 million birds.
State health officials are rushing doses of Tamiflu to farm workers or anyone else who has been in contact with the infected birds. As of April 24th, no humans have been confirmed to have been infected with the H5N2 strain.
“There’s no reason for anybody in the state of Minnesota to be concerned about their own health,” Governor Mark Dayton said at a press conference on Thursday after declaring the state of emergency.
The H5N2 strain is so deadly to birds that an entirely infected flock will die within 48 hours.
Two bird flu strains have been discovered in the United States this year. The H5N2 strain is in Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin. It has also been identified on farms in Ontario, Canada. The other strain, H5N8, was found in California and Idaho.
The top U.S. egg producing state, Iowa, reported the virus in a farm that has 3.8 million hens.
One person is dead and over 20 sickened after an outbreak of botulism at a Lancaster, Ohio church’s potluck dinner.
The Ohio Department of Health confirmed that each of the victims of the botulism had attended the potluck.
Fairfield Medical Center identified the first case of botulism on Tuesday morning and had several cases soon follow the initial patient. Most of the sick are middle-aged but there were no details released about the person who died from the illness.
Pastor Bill Pitts of Cross Pointe Free Will Baptist church said the potluck was aimed at building fellowship among members. The church provided meat and drink and everyone in attendance was encouraged to bring a covered side dish.
“Our main emphasis, right now, is for everyone to pray,” he said. “These are people that we love and work with. [I’m] just calling out for a lot of people to pray for them if they would.”
Hospital officials say at least five victims are being treated by intensive care units.
Botulism is caused by a nerve toxin produced by certain bacteria. The disease is rare but very life threatening.
A mysterious disease in Ondo State, Nigeria has left at least 18 people dead since April 13th.
Dr. Dayo Adeyanju, the state commissioner for health, told reporters that 18 people died and 5 others are being treated. Preliminary tests indicate the disease is not contagious according to Dr. Adeyanju.
The symptoms include headaches, blurred vision, blindness and unconsciousness. Victims die within 24 hours of showing symptoms.
Speculation centers on locally brewed alcohol or herbicide.
The World Health Organization (WHO) released numbers that conflicted with Dr. Adeyanju, stating that 13 people were killed in 18 total cases. The WHO said tests in Lagos ruled out viruses and bacteria.
WHO spokesman Dr. Tarik Jasarevic said that they would be conducting toxicological tests on one of the dead to try and determine the source.
Those infected have been quarantined at the General Hospital in Irele and the rest of the hospital has been cleared of patients.
An untreatable tick-borne disease has been found in parts of southern Connecticut.
The Powassan virus is similar to Lyme disease with headache, nausea and fever. Unlike Lyme disease that can be easily treated with antibiotics, Powassan virus can often be fatal.
The virus impacts the central nervous system and causes encephalitis and meningitis.
Dr. Theodore Andreadis of the Connecticut Agriculture Experiment Station, told WCBS that fortunately there has not yet been a human case of the disease in the area. However, the fact ticks in the region carry the disease could be a serious threat to hikers and anyone who is close to a wooded area.
“These ticks will transmit this virus when they feed within a matter of hours, whereas with Lyme disease, for example, ticks generally have to feed up to two days before they’re capable of transmitting it,” Andreadis told WCBS 880.
Twelve cases of the disease were found in the U.S. in 2013, the last year statistics for the disease have been published by the CDC.
A horrifically painful and potentially fatal skin disease is reportedly breaking out among the members of the terrorist group ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Leishmaniasis is spread through the bite of female sand fleas. It causes open lesions on the skin that eat away at flesh. Without medical treatment, the disease can be fatal. The final stages of the disease attack the spleen and liver along with destroying red blood cells.
Medical centers in the region have closed because of the terrorists. Doctors Without Borders had clinics in the region to treat the disease that was almost at epidemic levels before their departure but it was deemed unsafe for their staff to continue operations.
However, the London Daily Mirror reported that many of the terrorists are refusing to accept medical help for their infections, contributing to the spread among the terrorists fighting the Iraqi army.
The disease is common in areas where people suffer from extreme poverty, malnutrition and deforestation. The disease gained international exposure in 2008 when a British TV host contracted it on a shoot and was hospitalized for three weeks to fight the disease including rounds of chemotherapy.
A new drug-resistant strain of food poisoning has arrived in the United States via travelers from abroad.
The disease, shigella, is a bacteria that infects intestines. The disease causes cramps and rectal pain, bloody or mucus-laced diarrhea and vomiting. The CDC reported 243 cases in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
About 20 percent of the people infected with the bacteria needed to be hospitalized.
The regular drug-impacted version of the disease, shigellosis, impacts half a million Americans every year.
“If rates of resistance become this high, in more places, we’ll have very few options left for treating Shigella with antibiotics by mouth,” says epidemiologist Anna Bowen, who led the study.
The disease of very infectious. At few at 10 germs can cause an infection.
The drug resistant strain has found in 32 states from May 2014 to February 2015 in people who had connection to international travel.
A dangerous and deadly bacteria has been released from a high-security laboratory in Louisiana.
The release of Burkholderia pseudomallei from the Tulane National Primate Research Center has been the subject of investigations by multiple federal and state organizations but none has been able to explain the cause of the release or even how much bacteria has contaminated the land in the area.
The lab, 35 miles north of New Orleans, is just the latest safety breach at some of the biggest laboratories in the nation.
“The fact that they can’t identify how this release occurred is very concerning,” Richard Ebright, a biosafety expert from Rutgers University, told USA Today.
The scientists at the lab say that four monkeys that were never used in the experiments have been confirmed to have exposure to the virus. A federal investigator became ill after visiting the facility and tested positive for the virus. The scientist will make a full recovery.
“We’re taking this extraordinarily seriously. It’s very disturbing to us,” said Andrew Lackner, director of the Tulane primate center. “Right from the beginning we’ve spent an enormous amount of time trying to figure out how this could have happened.”
Lackner says there is no public health threat.
A disease that has been feared since Biblical times is on the rise in Florida.
Officials near Daytona Beach say that three people have been diagnosed with leprosy over the last five months. Two of the patients reportedly had been infected after close contact with armadillos.
Three cases are unusually high for a disease that is considered rare.
Brevard County officials say that 18 cases of leprosy have been found in their county in the last five years and most of those cases are patients who had some kind of contact with armadillos.
Health officials say that only 150 to 250 new cases of leprosy are found in the United States each year.
Florida health officials say that the disease is not very contagious to the public at large.
