Zoonotic Infections News

Nipah virus (NiV), an RNA virus, and Nipah virus infection (NiVI) are relatively recently discovered entities. NiVI is a particularly lethal infection, with a mortality rate usually higher than 50%. Its reservoir is the flying fruit bat, but it can infect a wide range of mammals, including humans. NiV has been cited as a potential agent of bioterrorism because of many suitable physical attributes of the virus and the high mortality caused by the infection in people. Although there is no evidence of any country or group attempting to weaponize NiV, the potential certainly exists.

In the summer of 2016, an outbreak of anthrax in the Russian Arctic that left dozens of people hospitalized and one 12-year-old boy dead was blamed on the thawing carcass of a reindeer that had died in the area’s previous anthrax outbreak in 1941.

Researchers collected three species of ticks from multiple locations in Suffolk County, Long Island, and identified a high prevalence of polymicrobial infections capable of causing human disease.

Between 2002 and 2017, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services identified three human cases of tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis that were linked to diseased free-ranging deer, researchers reported in MMWR.

The proportion of pathogens infecting chickens and pigs in developing countries that are also significantly resistant to antibiotics grew from 2000 to 2018, with the highest levels of resistance seen in China and India, a newly published analysis showed.

A study of hundreds of swine workers in China showed that they are at an increased risk for infections with enzootic swine influenza A viruses despite pre-existing elevated neutralizing antibodies, according to a recent study.

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As a young medical student, I learned how tiny organisms could wreak great havoc in this world — which exposed me to the world of ID early in my medical career. I attended medical school with the goal of understanding and conquering them. During my ID rotation, I cared for a patient who had fever, vague symptoms and a rash that was biopsied. They called us, the ID service, hoping that we could offer answers. This role of a detective, collaborator, thinker and doctor is what still appeals to me the most about the practice of ID. I was in awe of the ID specialists who ascertained the etiology as secondary syphilis and treated this patient with penicillin — and I hoped someday to emulate them. Intriguing cases like this sparked my interest in this field, which only grew stronger in the years to come.

The incidence of West Nile virus neuroinvasive disease was approximately 25% higher in 2018 than the median annual incidence during the previous decade, according to study findings published recently in MMWR.

The CDC issued an updated recommendation for the serologic diagnosis of Lyme disease, endorsing the use of a two-tier testing algorithm that uses a second enzyme immunoassay, or EIA, in place of a western immunoblot assay.