Six new cases of the deadly MERS virus have appeared in the Middle East.
Five people in Saudi Arabia and one person in the United Arab Emirates have been infected with MERS according to the World Health Organization. One of the patients has died, bringing the death toll from the virus to 74 of 176 confirmed cases.
The WHO said the case in the United Arab Emirates was a woman married to a man who has been previously diagnosed with the disease. She is being kept in isolation in a hospital despite not showing any adverse symptoms.
Officials in the region are citing new research showing transfer between camels and humans in a warning telling people at risk for the virus to avoid barns and farms.
Twenty-four flights were canceled on Sunday and Monday after flu-stricken pilots and flight attendants working for Alaska Airlines called in sick.
According to Alaska spokeswoman Bobbie Egan, approximately 270 passengers were affected by canceled flights.
Off-duty pilots and flight attendants volunteered to work while their colleagues were out sick according to Egan.
The airline anticipates a less busy Tuesday, and says it probably won’t have to cancel any more flights due to illness.
A mutation discovered in a new strain of bird flu has rendered the virus resistant to treatment drugs without limiting its ability to spread.
Most seasonal flu strains often become less transmissible when developing drug resistance, but scientists discovered that the H7N9 bird flu does not lose any of its spreading potential even with drug resistance.
Researchers said they do not believe this will make H7N9 any more likely to develop into a pandemic, but do recommend that doctors should be careful in their use of anti-viral medicines and consider using other drugs instead of Tamiflu to treat H7N9 cases.
The H7N9 bird flu has infected at least 139 people so far in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and has killed 45 people.
Soldiers from the USS Ronald Reagan quickly jumped in to help the victims of the 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan.
The troops were simply fulfilling their long held mission of helping the poor and unfortunate throughout the world.
Now, months later, some of the troops involved in the rescue are finding themselves being diagnosed with cancers that could be connected to radiation exposure. At least 51 Navy sailors have been found to have diseases likely connected to radiation.
Two soldiers are speaking out about the situation.
Quartermaster Maurice Enis said that a few months after their deployment to the coastline a few miles from the stricken Fukushima Nuclear Plant, he found strange lumps on his body. He was diagnosed with radiation poisoning and told his illness would get worse. His fiancée, Jamie Plym, said she suffered gynecological symptoms and hemorrhaging so bad she needed to be hospitalized.
The soldiers are now suing Tokyo Electric Power Company claiming the company did not warn the Navy that the tsunami caused a nuclear meltdown and sent huge amounts of contaminated water into the sea. The troops ended up within two miles of the plant while the company ordered an evacuation of towns as far as 12 miles from the plant for safety reasons.
The soldiers say they don’t blame the Navy which acted in good faith.
A strain of bird flu that was discovered in 1965 has infected a human being for the first time.
A 73-year-old Chinese woman died earlier this month of respiratory failure and a post-mortem examination showed she had contracted H10N8 bird flu. The H10N8 strain was discovered in birds in 1965 but had never been found in a human being.
Doctors said the woman was admitted with severe pneumonia, high blood pressure, neuromuscular problems and a heart attack. They had not suspected bird flu at the time of her admission.
Family members in contact with the woman have not shown symptoms of the virus. Officials say the woman had contact with animals at a live bird market four days before she fell ill.
Chinese health officials and the World Health Organization say they will be increasing their surveillance of hospitals to look for more potential H10N8 victims.
This is the second new bird flu virus to infect humans in China in 2013. H7N9, which has killed 45 of the 137 people it has infected, was discovered in March 2013.
A mysterious illness showing flu-like symptoms has killed four people in east Texas.
Montgomery County Health Officials confirmed the deaths of four out of eight patients showing signs of the mystery disease.
The patients all show signs of the flu or pneumonia but all tests for flu are negative. The patients range in age from 41 to 88 and health officials have not said the ages of the patients who have died.
Sources told KHOU-TV that two of the surviving patients at Conroe Regional Medical Center are “very sick.”
Health officials say they are waiting for more conclusive test results to determine the possible illness. They would not comment on whether the patients had pre-existing medical issues. Doctors have been advised to use extra precautions to keep the illness from spreading.
A virus that causes debilitating illness has been discovered in the Caribbean after previously only being identified in Africa.
A dozen cases of the chikunguya virus has been confirmed in St. Martin, and islan d in the northeast Caribbean. Health officials say that another dozen people are suspected to be infected with the virus.
The virus causes fever, rash and fatigue along with intense muscle and joint pain that can leave victims virtually incapacitated for weeks. In some cases, doctors have been able to document victims with joint and muscle pain for years.
While the disease can be debilitating, it is not fatal. It is spread through mosquitos that can also carry the deadly dengue fever virus.
There are no specific treatments for the disease and there is no vaccine available. Health officials say a few cases of the disease have been seen in Italy and France in recent years but the St. Martin cases are the first in the Americas.
The Centers for Disease Control has sent a health advisory to U.S. doctors to be alert for potential signs of the virus.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says that 2 million Americans have been sickened by some strain of drug-resistant bacteria and around 23,000 died because their infections could not be treated.
A deputy director for the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion says that the overuse of antibiotics contributes heavily to the problem.
“Very recently we looked at how good antibiotic prescriptions are in this country, and about half are unnecessary or the wrong antibiotic,” Dr. Michael Bell told CNBC. “That’s a lot of room for improvement.”
Federal officials are attempting to spur drug companies into creating new antibiotics. The Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now act, or GAIN, gives companies an additional five years of market-based exclusivity for drugs if they are produced for a “qualified infectious disease.”
“If you move to the post-antibiotic era, that means all of the advances of modern medicine could be reversed,” Cubist Pharmaceuticals’ Dr. Obi Umeh told CNBC. “Patients who had that infection in which there was no treatment option, they were in the post-antibiotic era.”
A USA Today study shows that the deadly MRSA bacteria are spreading far beyond hospitals.
The bacteria were commonly found in hospitals other health care facilities but did not impact the general population. Now, reports of the bacteria are being found in schools, workout clubs and even NFL locker rooms.
Researchers say MRSA’s ability to quickly develop immunity to drugs is hampering their ability to stop its spread. Despite a 30% decline in MRSA infections in health care facilities, there is little to no decline in community-based strains of the bacteria. Infections among children have jumped 10% a year because it can spread from two students simply bumping into each other in the hallway.
“We don’t really understand the origin of these [community based] strains,” Costi Sifri, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Virginia Health System., told the USA Today. “And we don’t really know how to contain them.”
Hospitals and doctors in most states are not required to report MRSA infections so groups like the CDC have had trouble monitoring outbreaks of the disease.
Researchers say the most effective way to stop MRSA is to develop a vaccine for staph infections. However, they say that a viable vaccine for the mass market is still years into the future.
A deadly pig virus has been discovered in Nebraska, making it the 20th state to be hit by Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea.
The disease had not been seen in North America until May when it was first discovered in the U.S. The disease has a high mortality rate among young piglets, with a 50 percent death rate on a farm infected with the virus common. However, USDA officials said in some cases the virus killed all the piglets on a farm.
Older pigs can be impacted by the disease but have a much lower mortality rate.
The National Pork Board has issued biosecurity guidelines to pork producers in an attempt to stop the epidemic. The spread of the virus is believed to be connected in some way with the trucking industry as most pigs are transferred via truck.
The deaths of piglets is leading market experts to see a steep decline in hog supplies through summer 2014.
