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.
Categories: Vectorborne
March 18th, 2009 10:31 pm ET - Ali S. Khan
Specimen captured in the Sanorales Region by Biologist Beatriz Salceda of the Entomology Department of the Institute of Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference of the Ministry of Health, Mexico. Photo courtesy of Dr. Rocío Sánchez, Medical Epidemiologist of the Directorate General of Epidemiology (DGE), leader of the outbreak invetsigation team.
A mysterious cluster of illnesses and deaths of unknown cause was recently reported in Baja California, a Mexican state that – as the Spanish translation suggests – is situated just below the California-Mexico border. Our shared border with Mexico fosters a mutual interest in epidemiologic events like this one — where time is of the essence and lives are at stake.
Categories: Vectorborne
January 30th, 2009 3:27 pm ET - Ali S. Khan
CDC’s Special Pathogens Branch recently diagnosed a case of Marburg hemorrhagic fever in a U.S. traveler, who returned from Uganda back in January 2008 [SPB posting]. This person had visited the famous “python cave” in Maramagambo Forest, Queen Elizabeth Park, western Uganda. Fortunately, no one seems to have been infected from this patient when she was hospitalized. But we are never more than 24 hours away from the next new infectious disease.
Categories: Vectorborne
January 5th, 2009 2:25 pm ET - Ali S. Khan
Ebola-Reston [initial identification] virus is a mystery. Although quite deadly in monkeys, this Ebola cousin doesn’t appear to cause human illness. And who knows how it got to or independently evolved in the Philippines – a good 7,000 miles and really big ocean away from its Zaire, Sudan, Cote D’Ivoire, and Bundibugyo brethren in Africa. If that wasn’t enough, our colleagues at Plum Island recently suspected it as the cause of disease in some sick pigs for the first time from the Philippines that happened to be submitted for testing for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS).
Categories: Vectorborne
October 17th, 2008 1:49 pm ET - Ali S. Khan
Immunohistochemistry stain of the liver from a fatal case of Lassa Fever.
An active, young Zambian safari guide fell ill last month with an unexplained illness that rapidly progressed to her death after medical evacuation to South Africa. Three additional people who had close contact with her or her body fluids, a paramedic, a nurse and a hospital worker, also shortly became ill — and despite all medical efforts, have also died. A fifth case, also a nurse, is currently hospitalized and receiving Ribavirin treatment. CDC’s unexplained death and severe illness group has supported the Ministry of Health and South African scientists of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) to identify a novel arenavirus as the cause of this medical mystery.
