Communicable Diseases

GHealth News - Since mid-December 2024, China has experienced a rise in human metapneumovirus (HMPV) infections, sparking public concern about the emergence of a novel virus. However, health experts and officials have assured the public that HMPV is a well-established respiratory illness, often under-recognized but not new. Domestic media have highlighted the increase in HMPV cases, with some patients reporting "flu-like" symptoms, including dizziness, which has fueled speculation about an unfamiliar pathogen. This trend follows a similar surge in HMPV cases in the U.S. around April 2024, when the virus was described as "little-known" in media coverage. HMPV: A Familiar Virus Chinese experts emphasize that HMPV is not a new threat. Zheng Lishu, a virologist at the Chinese Cente...

GHealth News - France has reported bird flu outbreaks on two poultry farms in Normandy on December 27 and 28, shortly after regaining HPAI-free status on December 15. This status, which requires no outbreaks for at least a month, has now been lost, potentially affecting trade restrictions. The outbreaks led to the culling of entire flocks, totaling 25,540 birds. While France credits its year-old vaccination program, particularly for farm ducks, for reducing the virus's spread compared to past seasons, the country remains vigilant due to risks from migrating birds. Meanwhile, Germany also reported a bird flu outbreak on a Bavarian farm with 16,000 birds culled. (Reuters)

GHealth News - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that the bird flu virus mutated inside a Louisiana patient, who represents the nation’s first severe case of the illness. These mutations may enhance the virus's ability to bind to receptors in human upper airways, a development that scientists find concerning but not immediately alarming. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert, likened the mutation to a "key" that fits a "lock" on human cells but emphasized that it doesn’t yet “open the door” for human-to-human transmission. The patient, over 65 and with underlying health conditions, was hospitalized in critical condition after exposure to sick and dead birds in a backyard flock. The CDC confirmed no evidence of virus transmission to other...

Devastating flooding in South Sudan is affecting around 1.4 million people, with more than 379,000 displaced, according to a United Nations update that warned about an upsurge in malaria. Aid agencies have said that the world's youngest country, highly vulnerable to climate change, is in the grip of its worst flooding in decades, mainly in the north. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said about 1.4 million people were affected by floods in 43 counties and the disputed Abyei region, which is claimed by both South Sudan and Sudan. "Over 379,000 individuals are displaced in 22 counties and Abyei," it added in a statement issued late on Friday. A surge in malaria has been reported in several states, it said, "overwhelming the health syste...

Egypt has been certified malaria-free by the World Health Organization (WHO) - an achievement hailed by the UN public health agency as "truly historic". “Malaria is as old as Egyptian civilization itself, but the disease that plagued pharaohs now belongs to its history," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Egyptian authorities launched their first efforts to stamp out the deadly mosquito-borne infectious disease nearly 100 years. Certification is granted when a country proves that the transmission chain is interrupted for at least the previous three consecutive years. Malaria kills at least 600,000 people every year, nearly all of them in Africa. In a statement on Sunday, the WHO praised "the Egyptian government and people" for their efforts to "end a disease that has be...

By Melissa Rudy Amid reports of a deadly viral outbreak in Central Africa, researchers are reportedly scrambling to develop treatments and vaccines to combat the Marburg Virus. As of Sept. 30, 2024, the country of Rwanda — which is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — has reported 27 cases of the virus and nine subsequent deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most of the cases have affected health care workers at two health facilities in the city of Kigali, the same source stated. The patients are being cared for in hospitals, as noted by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Sept. 29.  "Contact tracing is underway, with 300 contacts under follow-up," WHO stated. This is the first time the M...

The World Health Organization (WHO) has approved the first diagnostic test for mpox where the results can be immediately known, saying it could prove pivotal in helping to stop the rising global cases of the deadly virus. The new PCR test enables the detection of the mpox DNA taken from skin lesion swabs. Currently, samples have to be sent to a laboratory for testing and the patient and medics have to wait days for the result. Limited testing capacity and delays in confirming cases continue to be a challenge in Africa - worsening the spread of mpox that was previously known as monkeypox. Of the more than 30,000 suspected cases reported in Africa this year, barely 40% had been confirmed through a test, the WHO said. Yukiko Nakatani, the WHO's assistant director-general, descr...

GHealth News - The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced the MVA-BN vaccine as the first vaccine against mpox to be added to its prequalification list. The prequalification approval is expected to facilitate timely and increased access to this vital product in communities with urgent need, to reduce transmission and help contain the outbreak. WHO’s assessment for prequalification is based on information submitted by the manufacturer, Bavarian Nordic A/S, and review by the European Medicines Agency, the regulatory agency of record for this vaccine. “This first prequalification of a vaccine against mpox is an important step in our fight against the disease, both in the context of the current outbreaks in Africa, and in future,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebre...

By  MARIA CHENG The World Health Organization declared Wednesday that the increasing spread of mpox in Africa is a global health emergency, warning the virus might ultimately spill across international borders. The announcement by WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus came after a meeting of the U.N. health agency’s emergency committee. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared mpox a public health emergency on the continent on Tuesday. WHO said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in Africa this year, which already exceed last year’s figures. So far, more than 96% of all cases and deaths are in a single country — Congo. Scientists are concerned by the spread of a new version of the disease there that might be more easily tra...

Less than a decade ago, the American anthropologist James C Scott described infectious diseases as the “loudest silence” in the prehistoric archaeological record. Epidemics must have devastated human societies in the distant past and changed the course of history, but, Scott lamented, the artefacts left behind reveal nothing about them. Over the last few years, the silence has been shattered by pioneering research that analyses microbial DNA extracted from very old human skeletons. The latest example of this is a groundbreaking study that identified three viruses in 50,000-year-old Neanderthal bones. These pathogens still afflict modern humans: adenovirus, herpesvirus and papillomavirus cause the common cold, cold sores, and genital warts and cancer, respectively. Th...