Categories: General
August 27th, 2009 1:57 pm ET - Ali S. Khan
The Public Health Matters blog welcomes requests from its readers. Recently, a reader asked us to address the issue of Hepatitis B in Kuwait. Dr. Frank Mahoney, a CDC medical epidemiologist who has worked extensively in the Middle East, wrote this response:
Categories: General
August 25th, 2009 1:21 pm ET - Rob
APHL/EID Fellow Amanda Candee collecting environmental samples from a sheep pen in western Colorado. Sheep are a major reservoir for Coxiella burnetii.
Q fever is a disease caused by the bacterium Coxiella burnetii, which can be transmitted to humans from animals such as sheep, goats, and cattle. C. burnetii is considered a possible bioterrorism agent because it is quite hardy in the environment, infects people who breathe aerosols containing the organism, and has a very low infectious dose (one organism can cause disease in a susceptible person).
Categories: Vectorborne
August 17th, 2009 11:26 am ET - Ali S. Khan
Egyptian fruit bats at home in the Python Cave, Maramagambo Forest, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.
Marburg hemorrhagic fever is one of the world’s deadliest diseases. While not always fatal, infection with the Marburg virus generally causes serious illness. There is no vaccine or drug therapy available for those who become infected and we know that as many of 90 percent of those infected during outbreaks have died.
