Zoonotic Infections News

THOROFARE, N.J. —In the Journals Plus, a time-saving feature that provides busy physicians with summaries of the top articles from leading journals in medicine, has launched on Healio.com.

A girl in rural Iran with thermal burns on much of her body developed orf virus infection at the site of a skin graft harvest — the first reported case of its kind, according to researchers from the CDC and several other institutions.

A Zika virus outbreak that occurred in Mexico during late 2015 has been traced back to the Aedes aegypti mosquito, researchers reported, marking the first confirmed Zika transmission by that species to occur in North America.

“We found that RTS,S/AS01 provided efficacy in the first year after vaccination but that the efficacy subsequently waned,” Ally Olotu, PhD, of the Kenya Medical Research Institute, Wellcome Trust Program, and colleagues wrote. “Efficacy was close to zero in the fourth year and may have been negative in the fifth year.”

Artificial intelligence helped researchers identify more bat species that may be carriers of Ebola and other filoviruses, which could aid future surveillance and help fight outbreaks, they said.

It is time for another update on the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus situation globally. To refresh memories, MERS-CoV has been circulating in the Arabian Peninsula for some time now. The virus was first identified in September 2012, after a fatal severe acute respiratory illness, or SARI, with renal failure presentation in a Saudi Arabian male. Within a few days of publication of a report on this case in ProMED-mail, physicians in the United Kingdom identified another case of SARI and renal failure in a Qatari citizen who had been medevaced to the U.K. for treatment. Retrospective studies on specimens from fatalities due to SARI in an April 2012 outbreak at a Jordanian hospital ICU also identified MERS-CoV as the etiologic agent.

Although they were unable to confirm their suspicions, researchers in China suspect that two kidney transplant recipients died after they were given organs from a deceased donor infected with rabies.

Investigators from McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston received $11 million in funding from the NIH to study the pathogenesis, transmission and detection of prion diseases that can potentially affect humans, according to a press release.

The annual percentage of tuberculosis cases attributable to Mycobacterium bovis has remained stable in the United States and primarily affected children, Hispanic or foreign-born citizens, and those who reside in states near the Mexican border, according to a recently published analysis.

Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is a chronic bacterial infection caused by Mycobacterium leprae, an obligate intracellular parasite. Although an ancient disease, leprosy continues to be a major health problem in the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Several million people worldwide are permanently disabled by Hansen’s disease. Although 95% of the global total of new cases were reported from 14 countries in 2013 (Bangladesh, Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Tanzania), 59% were from India alone. In these countries, infected humans are the only known natural reservoir, and M. leprae are thought to spread person-to-person following long-term, close contact, usually with an infected member of the household who is excreting enormous numbers of leprosy bacilli in their nasal secretions. Nonetheless, only 5% of the world’s population are naturally susceptible to infection with M. leprae.