Zoonotic Infections News

The Plasmodium vivax parasite appears to be rapidly evolving to overcome resistance conferred by a specific blood type found among millions of people in Africa, researchers reported at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Health officials have updated the Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap, calling for the licensing of new vaccines by 2030 that show at least 75% efficacy against clinical malaria and are capable of eliminating the disease altogether, according to a press release.

There have been 624 reported cases of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in 34 states in the United States since surveillance began in 1993, according to a report in Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Researchers are studying reasons why dengue fever continues to spread from Key West, Fla., and not in Tucson, Ariz., which has an established vector population and shares similar social and behavioral characteristics with the Key West population.

There were 1,925 cases of malaria reported in the United States in 2011, and five people died of malaria or associated complications.

Since the World Health Assembly called for dracunculiasis elimination in 1986, incidence of the disease declined to 542 reported cases in 2012, according to the CDC.

DENVER — Sandflies are more active for a longer period of time in Austria than previously thought, and this may lead to an emergence of sandfly-borne diseases in Central Europe, researchers said here.

During the first week of August, the Syrian Ministry of Health and the WHO Early Warning Alert and Response System reported a significant increase in the number of suspected brucellosis cases in humans, with, reportedly, an average of 100 new cases recorded each week in Damascus and rural Damascus alone.

The CDC has awarded about $75.8 million to help states strengthen the epidemiology and laboratory capacity necessary to track and respond to infectious diseases, according to an agency press release.

The CDC has estimated that approximately 300,000 Americans are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year, 10 times the number of cases that are reported annually to the CDC, according to preliminary numbers presented at the 2013 International Conference on Lyme Borreliosis and Other Tick-Borne Diseases.