Zoonotic Infections News

A severe outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in West Africa is expected to continue for the next 2 to 3 months, health officials said today during a press conference in Geneva.

Monday, April 7 is World Health Day, and WHO is using the occasion to launch a campaign called “Small bite, big threat” — aimed at increasing public awareness and reducing the global threat of vector-borne diseases, according to a news release.

Since 2005, 22% of US jurisdictions stopped conducting active human surveillance for West Nile virus, according to a report in MMWR. In addition, 13% stopped mosquito surveillance and 70% had reduced mosquito trapping and testing.

Physicians at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel have reported a suspected case of person-to-person transmission of Q fever among hospitalized pregnant women.

An Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreak in Guinea has spread to its neighbor, Liberia, according to WHO.

Among poultry species in China, chicken and quail seem to be particularly susceptible to H7N9 influenza virus infection and viral shedding, suggesting that these avian species may be reservoirs of the virus, according to recent findings.

Six new cases of Heartland virus were discovered in 2012 and 2013, the CDC reported in MMWR. Five cases were in Missouri and one was in Tennessee.

The emerging tick-borne pathogen Candidatus Neoehrlichia mikurensis may be the cause of a systemic inflammatory syndrome among people with hematologic malignancies or autoimmune diseases, according to researchers from Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden.

An outbreak of severe hemorrhagic fever in southern Guinea has affected up to 86 people and killed 60, according to WHO.

The FDA recently approved the use of miltefosine to treat leishmaniasis. The drug had been granted fast-track designation, priority review and orphan product designation.