Zoonotic Infections News

PHILADELPHIA — The misidentification of spotted fever group Rickettsia infections may be responsible for the increased incidence and reduced severity of Rocky Mountain spotted fever cases reported in recent years, according to study data.

PHILADELPHIA — Newly presented findings suggested that ivermectin is active against multiple strains of malaria and may be capable of interrupting transmission of the disease.

Surveillance data from the first 6 months of 2015 suggested a continued decline in dracunculiasis cases despite eradication setbacks throughout the previous year.

WHO officials confirmed the spread of Zika virus in Colombia and reported additional cases in Brazil.

A recently published investigation has attributed a French outbreak of asymptomatic hepatitis E to the consumption of a piglet prepared with raw pork liver stuffing.

Important mosquito-borne viruses that are transmitted between humans via vector mosquitoes have a way of appearing or reappearing in the United States and in the Americas. Dengue is a classic example. Ships brought mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti) and viremic individuals to ports in the U.S. more than 300 years ago. Benjamin Rush, MD, a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, described a major dengue outbreak in Philadelphia in 1780. Cases continued to occur in the eastern U.S. port cities and Gulf Coast states for more than 150 years with a dramatic outbreak in New Orleans involving an estimated 40,000 people in 1873. Outbreaks finally ended in the country for a time in 1945. However, the mosquito vector did not disappear in Texas and the Gulf Coast states, and an additional dengue virus vector, the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, was introduced into the U.S. in the 1980s and spread.

Between 2009 and 2014, widespread transmission of the tick-borne Heartland virus was evident throughout the central and eastern United States, according to a recent CDC report.

A 2014 outbreak of Q fever in five New York residents and one Canadian may be linked to live cell therapy procedures conducted in Germany, according to recently published research.

A California child contracted a rare case of unspecified plague while visiting Yosemite National Park, likely from the fleas of a dead rodent or animal, state health officials reported.

A Michigan resident diagnosed with bubonic plague appears to have contracted the infection during a recent trip to Colorado, according to a press release from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.