General Epidemiology
tsmith | May 16, 2011Via H5N1 and other sources, there's at least one new Ebola case in Uganda:
The rare and deadly Ebola virus has killed a 12-year-old Ugandan girl and health officials said on Saturday they expected more cases.
The girl from Luwero district, 75 km (45 miles) north of the capital Kampala, died on May 6, said Anthony Mbonye, the government's commissioner for community health, in the first outbreak of the virus in Uganda in four years.
"Laboratory investigations have confirmed Ebola to be the primary cause of the illness and death. So there is one case reported but we expect other…
tsmith | May 13, 2011It's been not even a month since the last paper looking at MRSA in meat, and up pops another one. So far here in the US, we've seen studies in Rhode Island (no MRSA found); Louisiana (MRSA found in beef and pork, but "human" types: USA100 and USA300); the recent Waters et al study sampling in California, Florida, Illinois, Washington DC, and Arizona, finding similar strains (ST8 and ST5, associated with USA300 and USA100, respectively). Now a new study has collected MRSA samples in Detroit, collecting 289 samples from 30 retail stores in the city.
For this study, they collected only beef,…
tsmith | May 12, 2011An ahead-of-print paper in Emerging Infectious Diseases is generating some buzz in the mainstream media. While the findings are interesting, I'm honestly not sure how they got published, being so preliminary.
Like many areas, Vancouver, British Columbia has seen a jump in the prevalence of bedbugs. After finding impoverished patients infested with the bugs, researchers decided to collect some and test them for pathogens--specifically, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE). So, they tested 5 bugs from 3 patients. That's it--it doesn't…
tsmith | May 10, 2011Maryn McKenna was awesome enough to take some time out of her vacation to blog about our recent ST398 paper, finding "livestock-associated" S. aureus in a daycare worker. She raised one question I didn't really address previously, regarding our participation by kids and workers at the facility (eight kids out of 168, and 24 out of 60 staff members).
(Staph screening is very non-invasive, by the way; it effectively involves twirling a long-handled Q-tip inside the front of your nostrils. Kinda makes you wonder why families would not have wanted to participate. On the other hand, since Iowa is…
tsmith | April 25, 2011Just received an email from Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases saying that my recent article, The Emergence of Staphylococcus aureus ST398, will be available for free online for the next two weeks. It was submitted roughly a year ago so it's already a bit dated in this quick-moving field, but provides an overview of "livestock-associated" MRSA up to mid-2010 or so--including food-associated MRSA.
tsmith | April 19, 2011As Maryn McKenna and others have reported, a paper was released on Friday showing a high percentage of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus contaminating raw, retail-available meat products. There has been a lot of media coverage of this finding--so what does the study say, and what are its implications? More after the jump.
First, a bit about S. aureus itself, and why this study was carried out. Historically, Staph has been a relatively common cause of food poisoning. The bacterium produces toxins that can collect to a high level when prepared foods are left at room temperature, such as…
tsmith | April 4, 2011Next to Ebola, my favorite virus would probably be smallpox (Variola virus). I mean, now that it's eradicated in nature, what's not to love about the mysteries it's left us--where it came from, why it was so deadly (or, not so deadly, as in the emergence of the "mild" form, variola minor), and will a new poxvirus emerge to take its place? The topic is particularly germane since the debate still rages on about the fate of the world's smallpox stocks. Smallpox has killed untold millions and influenced the destiny of societies; and as Michael Willrich details in his new book, Pox: An American…
tsmith | March 29, 2011One of the reasons I've not been blogging as much over the past 2 years or so is that it's been just insane in the lab. As I was still living off start-up funds and pilot grants, I didn't have anyone full-time to take care of everything, so all the work has been done by myself and a handful of excellent graduate & undergrad students. Happily, some of the initial projects are wrapping up, and publications are starting to come out (I'll be blogging about others in the coming days/weeks). One of them was published yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases: Livestock-associated…
tsmith | March 24, 2011Over at the Worms and Germs blog, Scott Weese has a great post on MRSA testing. He notes the he's frequently asked by human MRSA patients whether their pet should be tested as well, since several studies have documented transmission of MRSA between humans and their companion animals. His first response is always, "why?"
One big question I ask is 'why do you want to know and what would you do with the results?' Sometimes people want to know their pet's status to see if the pet was the source of their infection. However, MRSA in pets is typically human-associated, and if a pet is carrying…
tsmith | February 24, 2011It's been a busy few months. I'll have some additional announcements (and long-overdue book reviews) coming up soon, but in the meantime, one of my projects is humming along and is to the point where I can provide some detailed information about it.
Those of you who follow American Society for Microbiology conference announcements (and who doesn't, right?) may have seen the announcement for this mouthful of a conference: the 2nd ASM-ESCMID Conference on Methicillin-resistant Staphylococci in Animals. The previous incarnation was in London, but this year it's coming stateside, so mark your…
tsmith | October 4, 2010This is great. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia has launched a site on The History of Vaccines. I've been poking around, and there's an incredible amount of stuff to check out. They have a nice FAQ, Top 20 questions about vaccination, as well as some great activities (herd immunity! learn about Koch's postulates! understand the relative risk of vaccination versus other events!) and a metric fuckton of articles and images. Looks to be a fantastic resource for students, and for anyone interested in understanding vaccination.
tsmith | September 16, 2010Interesting discussion over at The Spandrel Shop and Cackle of Rad on doing field work in the sciences--and the potential dangers that might be encountered. Now, Prof-like Substance and Cackle of Rad are discussing field work along the lines of biological sample collection, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, which isn't something I've ever done. However, we have our own issues when carrying out our epidemiological field sampling; more after the jump.
For new readers, my lab works on emerging infectious diseases, and zoonotic diseases (which can pass between animals and humans) in particular…
tsmith | August 11, 2010Well, that was quick. Yesterday's post highlighting a really terrible paper in BMC's Virology Journal drew a lot of comments here and at Pharyngula, and attention at the journal (where it currently stands as the 5th most-accessed article in the last 30 days). The journal's Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Robert F. Garry, this in the comments section to my post:
As Editor-in-Chief of Virology Journal I wish to apologize for the publication of the article entitled ''Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time", which clearly does not provide…
tsmith | August 10, 2010Via Bob O'H and Cath Ennis comes this truly bizarre article from the Virology Journal: "Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time".
Now, regular readers will know that I normally love this type of thing; digging back through history to look at Lincoln's smallpox; Cholera in Victorian London; potential causes of the Plague of Athens, the origin of syphilis, or whether Yersinia pestis really caused the Black Plague. I've even written a bit about the history of influenza. So analysis of a 2000-year old potential flu case? Bring…
tsmith | July 13, 2010Blogging from Atlanta at ICEID, the perfect venue to highlight today's story in the NY Times by Carl Zimmer discussing gut microbes in health and disease--including an introduction focusing on fecal transplants to treat Clostridium difficile infections. If you're at ICEID, be sure to swing by several posters in both sessions today showing new work (ours and others') on zoonotic MRSA.
tsmith | April 29, 2010Student guest post Dayna Groskreutz
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) refers to a condition in which there is high blood pressure in the vessels carrying blood from the heart to the lungs. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a subset of PH referring specifically to an increase in the pressure within the pulmonary arteries (rather than the pulmonary veins or capillaries). The high blood pressure in the vessels causes thickening of these arteries, making it hard for the heart to pump blood to the lungs. Pressure builds up and backs up. Over time, stress on the heart causes it to enlarge, and it…
tsmith | April 29, 2010Student guest post by Raj Nair.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease that affects the central nervous system (CNS) consisting of the brain and the spinal cord [1]. It is thought to be an autoimmune disease since individual's immune system attacks their own healthy tissues [1]. However, studies to ascertain triggering factors such as genetic, environmental, and infectious causes are still in progress [2]. So one wonders "Who is more susceptible to develop MS" Literature reveals that typically people between 20 and 50 years of age are commonly diagnosed…
tsmith | April 27, 2010Student guest post by Shylo Wardyn
"Of all the parasites I've had over the years, these worms are among the... hell, they are the best".
Was Fry from the animated show 'Futurama' right in his assessment of worms being good for him? Did he know something about parasitic worm infections that I was unaware of? Well, in the show, his parasites were doing remarkable things for his body, but does this translate to real life at all? Some people think so. Altman reviews the idea that over evolutionary time, our ancestors were infected with all sorts of parasites and this led to an interaction…
tsmith | April 27, 2010Student guest post by Desiré Christensen
Colorectal cancer (aka colon cancer) includes cancers of the colon, rectum, and appendix. Colorectal cancer is more common in developed countries (e.g. United States and Japan) compared to developing countries in Africa and Asia. Each year in the United States, there are around 150,000 cases of colorectal cancer diagnosed and about 50,000 people die from this cancer. Risk factors for colorectal cancer include lifestyle factors (e.g. habitual alcohol use; high-fat, low-fiber diet; obesity; sedentary lifestyle; smoking), family history of intestinal…
tsmith | April 26, 2010Student guest post by Andrew Behan
Malignant Mesothelioma (MM) is a rare type of cancer which manifests itself in the thin cells lining the human body's internal organs. There are three types of MM; pleural mesothelioma, peritoneal mesothelioma, and pericardial mesothelioma, affecting the lining of the lungs, abdominal cavity, and lining of the heart, respectively (1). Pleural mesothelioma is most common, consisting of about 70% of all MM cases and has a poor prognosis; patients live a median time of 18 months after diagnosis. (Note: for the purposes of this article, MM will be used to…