Tag Archives: viral disease

CDC issues a warning on Ebola-like virus in Iowa

CDC graph How deadly is Ebola-like virus

Important Takeaways:

  • An Iowa resident has died after contracting a frightening viral disease, similar to Ebola, that leaves victims bleeding from their eyeballs.
  • The patient had returned to the U.S. from West Africa earlier this month bringing the disease known as Lassa Fever, rarely seen in the U.S., back with them, health officials said.
  • The person was not sick while traveling meaning the risk to fellow airline passengers is ‘extremely low,’ officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
  • Patients are not believed to be infectious before symptoms occur and the virus is not spread by casual contact.
  • The patient, who has not been identified publicly, was placed in isolation in hospital at the University of Iowa Health Care Medical Center in Iowa City.
  • On Monday, testing by the Nebraska Laboratory Response Network revealed the patient had died from Lassa Fever.
  • If the results are confirmed, the Iowa case would be the ninth known case of Lassa Fever since 1969 in travelers returning to the U.S. from areas where the disease is found.
  • The CDC is now assisting Iowa health officials to identify people who had been in contact with the patient after symptoms began. Those identified as being in close contact will be monitored for three weeks.
  • Lassa Fever, which is caused by the Lassa virus, is a relatively common disease in West Africa, with between 100,000 and 300,000 cases diagnosed every year with around 5,000 deaths.

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WHO decries ‘collective failure’ as measles kills 140,000

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – Measles infected nearly 10 million people in 2018 and killed 140,000, mostly children, as devastating outbreaks of the viral disease hit every region of the world, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

In figures described by its director general as “an outrage”, the WHO said most of last year’s measles deaths were in children under five years old who had not been vaccinated.

“The fact that any child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease like measles is frankly an outrage and a collective failure to protect the world’s most vulnerable children,” said the WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus.

The picture for 2019 is even worse, the WHO said, with provisional data up to November showing a three-fold increase in case numbers compared with the same period in 2018.

The United States has already reported its highest number of measles cases in 25 years in 2019, while four countries in Europe – Albania, the Czech Republic, Greece and Britain – lost their WHO “measles-free” status in 2018 after suffering large outbreaks.

An outbreak in the South Pacific nation of Samoa has infected more than 4,200 people and killed more than 60, mostly babies and children, in a battle complicated by a vocal anti-vaccination movement.

In 2018, measles hit hardest in Liberia, Ukraine, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Somalia, the WHO said, with these five nations accounting for nearly half of all cases worldwide.

Globally, measles vaccination rates have stagnated for almost a decade. The WHO and the UNICEF children’s fund say that in 2018, around 86% of children got a first dose of measles vaccine through routine vaccination plans, and fewer than 70% got the second dose recommended to fully protect them.

STAGGERING

Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at Britain’s London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the numbers were “staggering”.

“Some countries are scrambling to vaccinate in the face of serious outbreaks – far too late for many,” she said.

Measles is one of the most contagious known diseases, more so than Ebola, tuberculosis or flu. It can linger in the air or on surfaces for several hours after an infected person has been and gone, putting anyone not vaccinated at risk.

Among wealthier nations, vaccination rates have been hurt by some parents shunning them for what they say are religious or philosophical reasons. Mistrust of authority and debunked myths about links to autism also weaken vaccine confidence and lead some parents to delay protecting their children.

Research published in October showed that measles infection not only carries a risk of death or severe complications including pneumonia, brain damage, blindness and deafness, but can also damage the victim’s immune memory for months or years – leaving those who survive measles vulnerable to other dangerous diseases such as flu or severe diarrhea.

The WHO data showed there were an estimated 9,769,400 cases of measles and 142,300 related deaths globally in 2018. This compares to 7,585,900 cases and 124,000 deaths in 2017.

Charlie Weller, head of vaccines at the Wellcome Trust global health charity, said the numbers were a tragedy. “If we are to protect lives, we must understand and address the reasons why measles vaccine uptake is lower,” she said.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Gareth Jones and Hugh Lawson)

World must prepare for inevitable next flu pandemic, WHO says

FILE PHOTO: A logo is pictured on the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, November 22, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – The world will inevitably face another pandemic of flu and needs to prepare for the potential devastation that could cause, and not underestimate the risks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

Outlining a global plan to fight the viral disease and get ahead of a potential global outbreak, the WHO said the next influenza pandemic “is a matter of when not if”.

“The threat of pandemic influenza is ever-present,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, said in a statement. “We must be vigilant and prepared; the cost of a major influenza outbreak will far outweigh the price of prevention.”

The world’s last flu pandemic was caused by the H1N1 virus, which spread around the world in 2009 and 2010. Studies of that pandemic found that at least one in five people worldwide were infected in the first year, and the death rate was 0.02 percent.

Global health experts and the WHO warn there is a risk that a more deadly flu virus will one day jump from animals to people, mutate and infect many hundreds of thousands of people.

Flu viruses are multiple and ever-changing, and they infect around a billion people every year around the world in seasonal outbreaks. Of those infections, around 3 to 5 million are severe cases, leading to between 290,000 and 650,000 seasonal flu-related respiratory deaths.

Vaccines can help prevent some cases, and the WHO recommends annual vaccination – especially for people working in health care and for vulnerable people such as the old, the very young and people with underlying illness.

The WHO plan – which it described as its most comprehensive to date – includes measures to try to protect populations as much as possible from annual outbreaks of seasonal flu, as well as prepare for a pandemic.

Its two main goals, the WHO said, are to improve worldwide capacities for surveillance and response – by urging all governments to develop a national flu plan, and to develop better tools to prevent, detect, control and treat flu, such as more effective vaccines and antiviral drugs.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Gareth Jones)