infectious diseases
lborkowski | January 11, 2016USA TODAY’s Laura Ungar highlights an important measure in the omnibus spending bill Congress passed last month: It lifts the ban on the use of federal funds for needle-exchange programs. State and local needle-exchange programs still can’t use federal money to purchase needles, Ungar explains, but they can use it for staff, vans, outreach, and other expenses that typically cost far more than the syringes themselves.
Needle exchanges — also called syringe service programs (SSPs) — allow injection drug users to avoid sharing needles, a practice that can spread HIV, hepatitis C, and other…
lborkowski | December 28, 2015During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging. We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on May 27, 2015:
by Kim Krisberg
For more than a decade, biologist Mariam Barlow has been working on the theory that administering antibiotics on a rotating basis could be a solution to antibiotic resistance. After years of research, Barlow had lots of data, but she needed a more precise way to make sense of it all — something that was so specific it could easily be used to treat patients. So, she joined forces…
lborkowski | December 7, 2015Last month, researchers from China reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases that they had identified a gene (MCR-1) that confers antibiotic resistance to a last-resort antibiotic (colistin) and then found that gene in E. coli isolates from pigs, meat, and hospital patients. This prompted Danish researchers to re-examine the genomes of bacteria they had mapped previously, and they found the MCR-1 gene in sample from a patient who suffered a blood infection in 2015. They also found it in five food samples imported between 2012 and 2014.
Mike the Mad Biologist found the plasmid and protein…
kkrisberg | December 1, 2015I usually shy away from getting too personal in my work. But in the spirit of Thanksgiving and as a new mom, I was thinking about things for which I’m particularly grateful. One of the first things that came to mind as a public health reporter? Vaccines. So, in that vein, let’s celebrate some new and promising numbers on the worldwide effort to eliminate measles.
Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data on progress toward measles elimination since 2000. That’s the year the United Nations adopted the Millennium Development Goals, which included a goal to…
lborkowski | November 23, 2015Last week was World Antibiotics Awareness Week, and a new study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases showed just how dire the antibiotics situation has gotten. Authors from the South China Agricultural University, the China Agricultural University, and other institutions identified a gene that confers resistance to a last-resort antibiotic, and then found that gene in E. coli isolates from 15% of raw meat samples, 21% of pigs about to be slaughtered, and 16% of hospital patients with infections. (The study is behind a paywall, but there's a helpful summary here.)
The authors warn that given…
cmonforton | November 3, 2015Kim Krisberg and I are with our public health colleagues this week at the 143rd annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Thousands of researchers, practitioners, and advocates from across the U.S. and the globe have gathered in Chicago to swap best practices, share new science and organize for healthier communities. Here are some highlights from yesterday’s events courtesy of the APHA Annual Meeting Blog.
The tipping point: On our way to reducing gun violence: Public health advocates can agree that shootings are a huge health issue for the more than 33,000 victims of…
kkrisberg | September 25, 2015The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers it one of five neglected parasitic infections in need of targeted public health action. And while its transmission is still considered rare in the U.S., it seems residents of Texas may be at greater risk than scientists previously thought.
The disease is American Trypanosomiasis, more commonly known as Chagas disease. Chagas is a vector-borne disease in which the parasite is transmitted to animals and people by blood-sucking insects known as “assassin bugs” or “kissing bugs” (here’s what the bugs look like). However, the parasite isn’t…
lborkowski | August 3, 2015Last week, Nigeria met an important milestone: An entire year without a reported case of polio. If the WHO confirms the absence of the virus in samples taken from people in previously affected areas, Nigeria will no longer be on the list of countries where the disease is endemic. Another two years will have to pass without additional cases before the WHO can certify Nigeria -- and possibly the entire continent of Africa -- as polio-free.
India was in a similar position a few years ago: In 2012, it was removed from the list of polio-endemic countries, and the WHO declared it polio-free in 2014…
kkrisberg | June 10, 2015“All response is local” is a commonly heard phrase among public health practitioners who serve on the front lines of disease outbreaks, emergencies and disasters.
Whether it’s a measles outbreak, a terrorist attack or a hurricane, public health agencies are at the ready to deploy an emergency response infrastructure designed for one overriding purpose: to protect their communities against preventable disease and injury. That kind of preparedness takes an enormous amount of planning, training, practice and collaboration. It also requires sustained funding support — something that’s all too…
lborkowski | June 8, 2015A 68-year-old South Korean man recently returned from a multi-country trip to the Middle East developed a cough and fever. He visited four health facilities before being diagnosed with MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), and in the process spread the virus to several more people. Now, 50 people in South Korea have been diagnosed with MERS, and four have died. Two of the patients are healthcare workers.
MERS is a viral respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and characterized by fever, cough, and shortness of breath; it was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It has…
kkrisberg | May 27, 2015For more than a decade, biologist Mariam Barlow has been working on the theory that administering antibiotics on a rotating basis could be a solution to antibiotic resistance. After years of research, Barlow had lots of data, but she needed a more precise way to make sense of it all — something that was so specific it could easily be used to treat patients. So, she joined forces with a team of mathematicians. And the amazing results could help solve an enormous, worldwide problem.
In a nutshell, the team of biologists and mathematicians developed a software program that generates a road map…
lborkowski | May 7, 2015Last week Tyson Foods, the largest US poultry producer, announced that it was working to eliminate the use of human antibiotics in its US broiler chicken flock by September 2017. (Broilers are chickens raised for meat.) Tyson Foods President and CEO Donnie Smith cited global concerns over antibiotic-resistant infections and explained that the company “want[s] to do our part to responsibly reduce human antibiotics on the farm so these medicines can continue working when they're needed to treat illness."
As we’ve written before, the routine use of antibiotics to promote growth in food animals…
kkrisberg | March 27, 2015In a somewhat frightening illustration of anti-vaccine trends, a new report estimates that among groups affected in the recent measles outbreak, the rates of measles-mumps-rubella immunization might have been as low as 50 percent.
Earlier this month, a report published in JAMA Pediatrics concluded that MMR vaccination rates in many of the populations affected by the Disneyland-related measles outbreak are well below the necessary numbers to maintain herd immunity. Led by researchers at Boston Children’s Informatics Program, the project used disease data from the California Department of…
lborkowski | March 4, 2015Stanford medical student Nathan Lo reportedly caused a stir at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) last week when he presented a new finding: After analyzing surveys completed by 800,000 people in 22 sub-Saharan African countries, Lo and his colleagues found "no evidence to suggest that PEPFAR funding of abstinence and faithfulness programs results in reduced high-risk sexual behavior."
Using data from the US-funded Demographic and Health Survey, the Stanford researchers analyzed responses to questions about the number of sexual partners, age of first sexual…
kkrisberg | November 25, 2014Months before the first case of Ebola was diagnosed in Texas, the state’s public health laboratory had begun preparing for the disease to reach U.S. shores. And while the virus itself is an uncommon threat in this country, the response of the nation’s public health laboratory system wasn’t uncommon at all — in fact, protecting people’s health from such grave threats is exactly what public health laboratorians are trained to do.
“Having that preparedness background, we’re always ready to get that call at 3 in the morning,” said Grace Kubin, director of the Laboratory Services Section at the…
cmonforton | November 21, 2014Health and safety hazards encountered by custodians, palm tree workers, day laborers, nurses, and bakery workers are just some of the dozens of different occupations examined in research presented at this year’s annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). The association’s Occupational Health and Safety Section marked its 100th anniversary and members designed the first phase of an electronic timeline to memorialize key events in the Section’s history. A special scientific session explored the OHS Section’s history, starting with its founding co-chairs George Kober, MD…
kkrisberg | November 18, 2014They take care of our most precious resource and yet most of them have to rely on public assistance just to make ends meet.
Katie Johnston at the Boston Globe wrote about a new report from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, which “found that difficulties child-care workers face in making ends meet create high levels of stress that can affect their performance. Recent research has found that adverse interactions with caregivers early on can alter a child’s genetic chemistry, impairing memory, the immune system and mental health.” On average,…
cmonforton | November 10, 2014It’s been five years since the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) petitioned OSHA for a regulation to protect workers from infectious diseases. This week, OSHA will be taking a major step toward proposing such a rule. The agency and the Small Business Administration (SBA) will be convening a meeting of 50 representatives of small organizations (i.e., small businesses, not-for-profit organizations not dominant in their field, and local governments serving less than 50,000 residents) that would likely be affected by an OSHA infectious disease regulation. Such…
kkrisberg | October 7, 2014Washington Post reporter Lydia DePillis investigates the factors behind increasing workplace fatality rates among Latinos, even while overall workplace deaths in the U.S. are on the decline. DePillis starts with the story of Abdón Urrutia, a construction worker who injured his back while working on a project in Tysons Corner, Virginia.
On the day of his injury, after Urrutia lifted himself up the floor, he says, the staff at the company where he worked gave him eight ibuprofen, and he was able to go back to work. And he was back at work the next day, too — on lighter duty, without carrying…
lborkowski | September 11, 2014As we've written before, the routine use of antibiotics in livestock operations contributes to the global problem of bacteria resistant to antibiotics. So I was delighted to visit Maryn McKenna's Superbug blog and read that Perdue Farms, the US's third-largest chicken producer, has announced that it has stopped using antibiotics for growth promotion or disease prevention, and is no longer using antibiotics important for human medicine in 95% of its birds. (McKenna is always my favorite source for all things antibiotic-related; check out her antibiotics archive to learn more about this and…