New Ebola cases reported as WHO head visits DRC

Over the weekend, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) reported 7 more suspected cases of Ebola, raising the totals from Apr 4 through May 13 to 39 confirmed, suspected, and probable cases, including 19 deaths, for a case-fatality rate of 49%.

Only 2 cases have been confirmed by laboratory testing, and 25 are probable. The remaining 12 cases are suspected.

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The Little Molecule That Could Stop The Common Cold.

Researchers at Imperial College London are developing a way to outsmart the common cold virus by using a molecule that doesn’t target the virus at all. Instead, the new compound shuts down a protein in human cells that the virus needs.

Cheers.

Ebola vaccine arrives in DR Congo amid outbreak

Kinshasa (AFP) - Thousands of doses of Ebola vaccine arrived Wednesday in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is facing an outbreak of the deadly virus, the health ministry said.

Congolese authorities declared the outbreak in the northwest region near Congo-Brazzaville on May 8, and three have died from the disease, according to an official toll.

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DR Congo Ebola outbreak spreads to Mbandaka city

The Ebola outbreak in DR Congo has spread from the countryside into a city, prompting fears that the disease will be increasingly hard to control.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga confirmed a case in Mbandaka, a city of a million about 130km (80 miles) from where the first cases were confirmed.

The city is a major transportation hub with routes to the capital Kinshasa.

At least 44 people are thought to have been infected with ebola and 23 deaths are being investigated.

Ebola is a serious infectious illness that causes internal bleeding and often proves fatal. It can spread rapidly through contact with small amounts of bodily fluid and its early flu-like symptoms are not always obvious.

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Congo says 3 new Ebola cases confirmed in large city



Three new cases of the often lethal Ebola virus have been confirmed in a city of more than 1 million people, Congo's health minister announced, as the spread of the hemorrhagic fever in an urban area raised alarm.

The statement late Friday said the confirmed cases are in Mbandaka city, where a single case was confirmed earlier in the week.

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Congo to begin vaccinating against Ebola on Monday

Congo will begin administering an experimental Ebola vaccine Monday in Mbandaka, the northwestern city of 1.2 million where the deadly disease has infected some residents, Congo's health minister announced.

"The vaccination campaign begins tomorrow, Monday, in Mbandaka, capital of the province. It will target, first, the health staff, the contacts of the sick and the contacts of the contacts," Minister of Health Oly Ilunga told The Associated Press Sunday.

The death toll of the current Ebola outbreak has risen to 26.

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Missing microbes 'cause' childhood cancer

Our modern germ-free life is the cause of the most common type of cancer in children, according to one of Britain's most eminent scientists.

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia affects one in 2,000 children.

Prof Mel Greaves, from the Institute of Cancer Research, has amassed 30 years of evidence to show the immune system can become cancerous if it does not "see" enough bugs early in life.

It means it may be possible to prevent the disease.

What is Nipah virus?

Nipah virus is suspecting of killing at least 10 people in southwestern India, including a nurse caring for patients, according to officials there.

The little-known virus has never been seen in this part of India before and that’s got global health officials worried. It’s one of the deadliest viruses known.

Just what is Nipah virus and why is it on the priority disease watchlist of the World Health Organization?

It’s one of the deadliest viruses out there.

“It’s the worst disease no one has ever heard of,” said Dr. Jon Epstein, wildlife veterinarian and epidemiologist for the EcoHealth Alliance.

Nipah rarely infects people, but when it does, it can make them very, very sick. “This is a virus that when it gets into people, in Bangladesh, it kills them on average three-quarters of the time and in some cases 100 percent of the time,” Epstein said. It causes encephalitis,a brain inflammation that is often fatal and that can cause long-term disabilities in survivors.

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Ebola outbreak in DR Congo: Patients 'taken to church'

Three Ebola patients left a treatment centre in the Democratic Republic of Congo after their families demanded to take them to church, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Two of the patients later died, while the third returned to the centre in the city of Mbandaka.

This presents a new challenge for health workers battling to stop the spread of the contagious disease, says the BBC's Anne Soy in DR Congo.

Ebola has no known cure.

Health officials fear it could spread rapidly in Mbandaka, a densely populated city of one million.

Isolation is the main way to keep the disease under control.

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/05/24/stop-shop-recall-frozen-broccoli-listeria/640022002/

Stop & Shop, Giant, Martin's recall frozen broccoli due to listeria concerns

East Coast supermarket chains Stop & Shop, Giant and Martin's are recalling some of frozen broccoli due to listeria concerns.

At issue are the 16-ounce bags of Private Brands Frozen Broccoli Cuts with a March 15, 2020, best-by date and a 068826700926 UPC.

A store sample the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection's Food and Standards Division pulled tested positive for listeria, according to Stop & Shop's website.

Last week, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s latest Ebola outbreak was confirmed to have spread to Mbandaka, a transportation hub, home to over one million people. As of the time that this post was written, 31 cases of the disease have been confirmed in the west African nation. Of those confirmed to have been afflicted, nine have died.

Oh, and three individuals confirmed to have contracted the disease, two of which who were showing significant symptoms, managed to escape quarantine and mingle with an unknown number of people.


Two late-stage Ebola patients break quarantine, the number they may have infected is unknown

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Deadly Nipah virus claims lives in India

The death toll from the outbreak of a rare virus in southern India has risen to 14.

The Nipah virus, which can cause flu-like symptoms and brain damage, emerged in the state of Kerala this month.

video with link.

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Death toll hits 5 in E. coli outbreak tied to romaine lettuce


Four more deaths have been linked to a national food poisoning outbreak blamed on tainted Arizona-grown romaine lettuce, bringing the total to five.

The Arizona growing season is long over and it's unlikely any tainted lettuce is still in stores or people's homes. But there can be a lag in reporting, and reports of illnesses have continued to come in.

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MBANDAKA, Congo - The two brothers of Adalbert Wanza made a 170-mile round trip voyage on foot, boat and motorcycle through Congo's dense rain forest to bring him, and ultimately the rest of the world, grave news.

A visitor had died while in their home village, Ikoko-Impenge. A local priest buried him with ritual honors, including giving the corpse its last food and drink. Days later, the priest and most of his family were dead, too. When he heard the story, Wanza, the Catholic bishop of Mbandaka, knew it could be Ebola, which is endemic in the forest, and contacted health officials. Lab tests would prove him right.


With Ebola at a 'critical point' in Congo, aid groups scramble to limit the outbreak

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Nipah Virus, Dangerous and Little Known, Spreads in India

A rare, brain-damaging virus that experts consider a possible epidemic threat has broken out in the state of Kerala, India, for the first time, infecting at least 18 people and killing 17 of them, according to the World Health Organization.

The Nipah virus naturally resides in fruit bats across South and Southeast Asia, and can spread to humans through contact with the animals’ bodily fluids. There is no vaccine and no cure.

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Scientists map genetic codes of 3,000 dangerous bacteria

(Reuters) - Scientists seeking new ways to fight drug-resistant superbugs have mapped the genomes of more than 3,000 bacteria, including samples of a bug taken from Alexander Fleming's nose and a dysentery-causing strain from a World War One soldier.

The DNA of deadly strains of plague, dysentery and cholera were also decoded in what the researchers said was an effort to better understand some of the world's most dangerous diseases and develop new ways to fight them.

The samples from Fleming - the British scientist credited with discovering the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928 - were among more than 5,500 bugs at Britain's National Collection of Type Cultures (NCTC) one of the world's largest collections of clinically relevant bacteria.

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DRC probes 5 new possible Ebola cases; WHO details experimental drugs

Outbreak responders in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are investigating five more suspected Ebola cases, as two more patients died from their infections and the World Health Organization (WHO) shared more details about how experimental treatments will be used and studied among those sickened by the virus.

The new suspected cases come as tests ruled out an earlier suspected case, and all are from known contacts, Peter Salama, MD, the WHO's deputy director-general of emergency response, said on Twitter. The developments raise the outbreak total to 58, which includes 37 confirmed, 14 probable, and 7 suspected cases. The two new fatalities lift the number of deaths to 27.

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A set of ancient teeth unlock a bacterial secret about the bubonic plague




Nearly 4,000 years ago, a woman and a man were buried together just east of the Volga River in modern-day Russia, with a secret locked away in the pulp of their teeth.

The bodies were uncovered just a few years ago, the teeth pulled and sent westward to the Max Planck Institute in Germany, where Maria Spyrou was working on a Ph.D. in paleogenetics. When she subjected the pulp to a bevy of genetic tests, she found something surprising: an ancestor of the bacteria responsible for the Black Death.

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Multistate salmonella outbreak linked to pre-cut melon

Salmonella 101: What you need to know 01:07
Video CNN

(CNN)A multistate outbreak of salmonella linked to pre-cut melon has sickened at least 60 people, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Saturday. A recall has affected eight states, the CDC said.
Six people are sick in Illinois, 11 in Indiana, 32 in Michigan, 10 in Missouri and one in Ohio.
The melon was also sold in Georgia, Kentucky and North Carolina. Stores carrying the melon include Costco, Jay C, Kroger, Payless, Owen's, Sprouts, Trader Joe's, Walgreens, Walmart and Whole Foods/Amazon
Thirty-one people have been hospitalized in this outbreak, the CDC said, and no deaths have been reported.

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At one-month mark in Ebola outbreak, the focus shifts to remote areas

One month into the response to an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the focus has moved from urban areas to some of the most remote places on earth.

The shift comes after a series of unprecedented actions that have led to cautious optimism about the effectiveness of the response.

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