Ebola Spreads in Congo

As always, the assurances by the local government that they have an outbreak under control were untrue. Here's what Reuters is reporting on the situation:

"Health workers launched an emergency operation on Wednesday to fight an outbreak of deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever in southern Congo, airlifting supplies, setting up isolation tents and disinfecting contaminated areas.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and medical NGOs such as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) joined local health authorities in a major logistics operation to try to contain the outbreak in Kasai Occidental province of Democratic Republic of Congo.

Congo's government, citing test results from international laboratories, said on Monday at least five cases of Ebola had been confirmed in the province, where authorities have reported more than 160 deaths among 352 sick people over four months."

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And just after their "mystery disease" incident! The worst thing about this, of course, is Congo now has to reset their "... days since an Ebola outbreak" calender.

Does the WHO even care anymore? "Try to contain?" How about a little confidence folks...

Unknown Disease Ravages Congo

Here's something that's more than a little troubling...

"United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) experts have arrived in the centre of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where there has been an outbreak of an unknown but highly deadly illness that is proving to be particularly harmful for young children.

WHO said in a statement today that the exact number of cases and deaths is unknown, but the illness - which so far has no known cause - has a high mortality rate. Most sufferers experience fever, headaches, diarrhoea, vomiting and colicky abdominal pain, and more than 50 per cent of cases involve children under the age of 10.

A joint investigation team from WHO, the DRC's provincial and national health ministries and the National Institute of Biological Research (known by its French acronym INRB) has reached the source of the outbreak, in Kasai Occidental province, and taken clinical samples for laboratory testing.

WHO said it was also mobilizing support to mount an epidemiological investigation and to provide logistics, such as water, sanitation and other supplies, should they be required in any emergency response.

National health authorities in the DRC have already begun implementing measures to improve hygiene, strengthen infection controls, ensure the safety of the water supply and promote safe burial practices to try to limit the outbreak."

Marburg Hits Uganda

While most news sources are reporting on the English Foot and Mouth Outbreak, I personally find hemorrhagic fevers to be a lot more interesting... From BBC:

"An outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus has been confirmed in Uganda's Kamwenge district by the health authorities.

Two miners have been diagnosed with the fast-spreading Ebola-like haemorrhagic fever, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

One of them has died and about 40 other people working at Kitaka gold mine have been quarantined, officials say.

Marburg has a high fatality rate. The last reported outbreak was in Angola in 2005 when some 300 people died.

The health ministry has urged local people to report any suspicious cases.

Incubation takes up to 10 days and although the last suspected case was reported 15 days ago, there is still a risk that the disease could re-emerge.

"The last case needs to have been seen 21 days ago before we can actually say we've contained it," Sam Okware of Uganda's taskforce on haemorrhagic fevers told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

Gold miners in DR Congo have been struck by the disease in the past.

Dr Okware says it is not exactly known what causes Marburg, although birds and monkeys are suspected vectors. Rats and bats also reportedly spread the disease to humans.

"My own impression is that the source of the infection is in the mine itself - because when we went there to check, we found almost 5m birds in the mine and the situation was quite unsanitary," he said.

Early symptoms of Marburg are diarrhoea, stomach pains, nausea and vomiting, which give way to bleeding.

It is spread by the transfer of blood or other bodily fluids.

There is no cure. Infected patients need to be kept in isolation so as to prevent the spread of the virus."

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Marburg, of course, is a close relative to Ebola (not just "Ebola-like"). I expect this to spread fast and wide. The last stages are marked by bleeding from orifices, eyes, and even skin pores.

Life Goes On...

And just as Quebec was getting its blue-green algae situation under control...Rabies!!


"Quebec wildlife officials say they've contained a stubborn rabies outbreak emanating from the United States, trapping it in an area around a small town along the Quebec-Vermont border.

One phase of a ground operation to trap and kill raccoons and skunks was set to end Wednesday but conservation officers will resume the effort next month in the area along the southeastern border with Vermont.

They will also drop more cookies laced with oral rabies vaccine around St-Armand, near the Quebec-Vermont border. Officers in Vermont are running a similar campaign.

Quebec natural resources spokesman Pierre Canac-Marquis says infected animals from the United States are spreading rabies into Quebec. With 50 cases of raccoon and skunk rabies reported in the first six months of 2007 in Vermont, Quebec knew it had an outbreak heading its way.

"It's really the first time we've had this kind of intense outbreak,'' Canac-Marquis said.

Wildlife officials have 700 new samples to analyze, but the ratio of animals infected has considerably improved, he said.

At the height of the outbreak, conservation officers found one-in-15 raccoons on the Quebec side of the border area had contracted the disease. Those numbers have improved to one out of 45, according to Canac-Marquis.

"So far, the results we are getting is that we were quite successful in containing the outbreak,'' he said.

Rabies, which can be fatal if left untreated in humans, attacks the nervous system and is spread from animal to animal through saliva.

No humans have been infected in the latest outbreak, said Dr. Jocelyne Sauve, public health director for the affected region.

Thousands of traps have been set in the area 85 kilometres southeast of Montreal. Some animals have been euthanized as a precaution.

The main objective is to create a barrier or eradicate the outbreak altogether so it doesn't enter more heavily populated areas, including Montreal.

Canac-Marquis says the threat to the Montreal area is very real. American studies show that the virus can spread up to 40 kilometres in a single year.

Montreal officials estimate there are as many as 50 raccoons per square kilometre on Mount Royal, the wooded park in the heart of the city. With a large number of domestic animals, officials say an outbreak in the city could be a disaster.

Quebec's first case of raccoon rabies was reported in 2006 but it could take years of operations to really get a handle on the virus, Canac-Marquis said. Quebec is following in the footsteps of Ontario, where a raccoon rabies outbreak in 1999 was stopped by 2006."

Superstrain Up for Grabs

I can no longer maintain this blog to the degree it deserves - so I am giving posting priviliges to pretty much anyone who wants it.

Drop a comment if you want to keep the world updated on the bioterror and germwarfare fronts.

Big thanks to everyone who visits this blog and helped me out with stories and content. Keep fighting the fight!

JKS Out.

Simultaneous Measles Outbreaks in Eugene and Montreal

Quebec already has its hands full dealing with a massive algae problem, now there's a measles outbreak in Montreal:

"The greater Montreal area has 14 confirmed cases of measles, most of them adults.

Dr. Horacio Arruda of Quebec's Health Department says 12 of the cases involve adults between the ages of 22 and 39. Arruda said at a news conference in Montreal today that the virus was likely brought into Quebec by people who were traveling.

The other two cases involved children under the age of five who hadn't been vaccinated.

Arruda says anyone who has symptoms, including red spots, fever, coughing and sneezing, must contact public health officials."


Meanwhile, Eugene, Oregon is also experiencing a measles outbreak, uhm, of... well... two people:

"Lane County Public Health officials announced Monday they have confirmed a second case of measles in Eugene.

A 21-year-old Eugene man was treated at Sacred Heart Medical Center May 26 with a fever and rash after he returned from a trip in Japan. He was diagnosed with measles.

After he arrived in Eugene May 22, he socialized with another Eugene man, also in his early 20s, public health officials said. The second man became infected May 28.

"They partied together the night the first young man arrived here from Japan," said Dr. Sarah Hendrickson with Lane County Public Health.

Betsy Meredith, a Lane County Public Health nursing supervisor, said she fears more people will come down with measles."

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So it looks like Japan has some hot hot measles action that our vaccinations just can't handle. I wonder if the Montreal cases originated from someone who visited Japan.

I'm just really curious as to what Lane County Public Health means when they say "socialized" and "partied"... eh? EH?!?

JAPAN!!!!!!

Updated WHO figures on H5N1

Coming on the heels of the news that the Chinese soldier with bird flu has died, and also an Indonesian teenager has died of H5N1, the WHO has released the latest tally of Bird Flu Deaths and Cases Total by Country.

	DEATHS	CASES TOTAL
AZERBAIJAN	5	8
CAMBODIA	7	7
CHINA	16	25
DJIBOUTI	0	1
EGYPT	14	34
INDONESIA*	79	99
IRAQ	2	3
LAOS	2	2
NIGERIA	1	1
THAILAND	17	25
TURKEY	4	12
VIETNAM	42	93
TOTAL:	189	310

* - I added the latest Indonesian case (and death) into the list as it had not been added to the official WHO list.

The total deaths to cases ratio leaves us with a mortality rate of 60.967%, meaning about 6 out of every 10 bird flu cases result in death.

However, a more accurate mortality rate can be derived from averaging the mortality rate of all countries reporting H5N1 cases, which I went ahead and calculated.

The average mortality rate for the 11 countries reporting cases is 60.05%, and the median is 64% (which happens to be China, who I guess wants to be in the middle of everything)

I think the big surprise here is that there's a country out there named Djibouti. Seriously, I've never heard of it before! Here's the CIA World Factbook entry about it. Apparently it's a North African country next to Somalia that is "slightly smaller than Massachusetts."

Idiots Fightened By Protein Manipulation

The "let's censor science" crowd is back at it again! Ok, so the study in question is pretty awesomely about making things infectious that previously weren't, but that is not the point. What is the point? I will get to that. First the background from the Washington Post:


Researchers in Germany reported yesterday that they had altered the DNA of a disease-causing bacterium to enable it to infect a species it cannot normally sicken -- a double-edged advance that experts said could deepen scientists' understanding of human diseases but could also speed the development of novel bioterrorism agents.

The change in infectiousness -- the first of its kind ever engineered from scratch -- poses no direct threat to human health, scientists said, because the microbe already causes a human disease: the food-borne illness called listeriosis.

The change allows that microbe to sicken mice, a species it has no natural capacity to infect.

Still, the work has biosecurity implications because it could, in theory, be applied in reverse, endowing a bacterium that causes a serious animal disease with an unprecedented ability to sicken people.

Several experts said they were disappointed that the report, in today's issue of the journal Cell, does not mention those implications.

Also worrisome to some is that Cell's editors did not seek outside advice on whether publication of the study would pose a security threat. Although in this case the consensus appears to be that the study would have easily passed muster, several prestigious U.S. organizations have called for such reviews when "dual use" microbiological advances are submitted for publication.

Echoing the recommendations of the National Academies, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity -- part of the National Institutes of Health -- has called for extra layers of review before the publication of research that shows how to "alter the host range . . . of a biological agent."

Emilie Marcus, Cell's editor, said she has "a somewhat dissenting opinion" about the value of such reviews. "Issues were discussed and raised" internally, she said.

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HEY GOVERNMENT! SCIENCE DOESN'T FUCKING WORK FOR YOU OR GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU THINK!!!!!

In fact, Science doesn't even necessarily work for the betterment of humanity. Science is about understanding how things work. Then scientists, once they figure out how something works, publish an article about how it works.

I'd like to give a big round of applause to Emilie Marcus for rejecting outright the idea of "reviews" on what can be published in a scientific journal. I think that's what a board of editors is for. I don't think Stable Isotope Quarterly has been publishing troop positions in Iraq, and last I checked Elsevier hasn't released a "How to make weapons-grade anthrax FOR DUMMIES" book.

The pinheaded bureaucratic morons of the world think that the 400 year old tradition of free and global exchange of scientific knowledge is suddenly a bad thing because we are now FIGHTING TERROR!!!!

I think the culturing of XDR-TB is a bit more pressing biosecurity issue than the possibility that a terrorist sect will spend several years studying the protein structures of exotic animal diseases with the intention of infecting humans with them...

I mean come on, get a fucking grip people. These people make bombs out of cow shit and a briefcase. If you can't do it in a college biology lab they're not going to be messing about with it. Let the grown-ups make science progress so we can maybe figure out new ways to fight diseases other than throwing synthetic fungus at them.