Categories: Foodborne
April 16th, 2009 11:32 pm ET -
Ali S. Khan
The media has recently given attention to studies [G. Songer; Rodriguez-Palacios A, et al] that isolated a bacterium called Clostridium difficile from meats sold in grocery stores. C. difficile causes a severe colon infection and is generally acquired in hospitals and long-term care facilities. Although most of the cases of C. difficile infection are healthcare associated (80%), the other twenty percent of cases are acquired in the community – outside of healthcare settings. The cause(s) of these infections are still poorly understood. The recent studies question whether C. difficile in meats is a source of human infection.
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Categories: General
April 3rd, 2009 11:17 pm ET -
Alex da Silva
CDC plays a vital role supporting state health departments, particularly with management of rare or lesser-known pathogens. Recently, CDC’s Division of Parasitic Diseases (DPD) was contacted by the Hawaii Department of Health (HI DOH) for advice regarding three cases of presumed Angiostrongylus cantonensis (AC) infection. AC, commonly called the rat lungworm, is a parasitic worm and the most common infectious cause of eosinophilic (a type of white cell) meningitis in humans worldwide.
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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.
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Categories: General
March 13th, 2009 3:56 pm ET -
Jimee Hwang
Malaria is preventable and treatable. However, each year 350–500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and more than a million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa. In the U.S., about 1,500 people get malaria annually, almost all from traveling to countries where malaria is transmitted. In 2006, six people in the United States died from malaria.
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Categories: Foodborne
February 2nd, 2009 2:56 pm ET -
Ali S. Khan
CDC plays a vital role but public health happens at the local level thanks to the work of thousands of our state, territorial, tribal, city, and county public health professionals. So it is always a pleasure to meet with state epidemiologists, leaders in using epidemiologic data to guide public health practice and improve health. On January 29th, I met with the Executive Board of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists [CSTE]. Needless to say, the conversation quickly strayed to the current Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak associated with peanut butter produced at a Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) facility in Blakely, Georgia. These conversations among colleagues are noteworthy for being quite frank.
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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.
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