Zoonotic Infections News

WHO recently released its annual list of priority diseases with an “urgent need” for accelerated research and development because of their potential to cause a public health emergency. Among them is an unknown disease that the agency termed “Disease X.”

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recently awarded scientists at The Scripps Research Institute a $15 million grant to study survivors of viral disease outbreaks, according to a press release.

Experts have released new guidelines recommending a variety of tests for diagnosing neurocysticercosis, as well as a multidisciplinary approach to treating the parasite-borne and potentially serious brain disease.

Nigeria has seen an “unusually high” number of Lassa fever cases during a weeks-old outbreak that has spread to 17 states, a WHO official said.

Plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, a gram-negative coccobacillus. HHS and the Department of Agriculture classify it as a Tier 1 select agent. Y. pestis exists in nature in rodent fleas. Periodically, the number of rodents and their fleas increase, presumably related to environmental factors. As rodents die from plague in increased numbers, the fleas abandon their preferred warm-blooded hosts to find others to feed on, such as humans. This is the most common manner by which humans become infected. Interestingly, in the infected flea, the midgut and the proventriculus (a valve-like area that keeps ingested mammalian blood from escaping) become blocked with aggregating Y. pestis. This causes the flea to bite more aggressively in an attempt to feed and in doing so, the flea delivers regurgitated Y. pestis with the feeding attempts. Therefore, not only does the rodent die, but ironically, the flea also eventually starves to death. Less commonly, infected rodents and other infected animals can infect humans by physical contact with their fluids or tissues through a break in the skin. Humans with pneumonic plague can cause infection by coughing infectious droplets. Because of the centrality of fleas as carriers of the disease, epidemics tend to occur in warm weather as opposed to cold weather. Y. pestis is very sensitive to sunlight and is rapidly killed outside the host.

When Omar S. Akbari, PhD, moved his lab of genetically modified mosquitoes from the University of California, Riverside, to the University of California, San Diego, he took only eggs, collecting some from each strain and sealing them in containers for the 90-mile trip south.

Patients of Asian or European descent often have genetic variants that make them more susceptible to dengue shock syndrome than patients of African descent, according to findings recently published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

An inactivated Hantavirus vaccine was moderately effective against hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome among South Korean military personnel, according to researchers.

The presence of rabies antibodies in a patient should not necessarily result in a diagnosis of the disease if the patient has received immune globulin, according to researchers.

African leaders made a public commitment to treat neglected tropical diseases as a top health priority on the same level as malaria.