Fogbow

Not a new disease, but it's been considered rare. Maybe now not so much.

https://news.yahoo.com/monkeypox-more-2 ... p_catchall

More than 200 people in 27 US states are being tracked for possible rare monkeypox infections, health officials say.

They fear people may have come in to contact with a Texas man who brought the disease in from Nigeria earlier this month.

The man - believed to be the first monkeypox case in the US since 2003 - was taken to hospital but is in a stable condition.

not totally new, but a fresh incident

Factfile: The Marburg virus, Ebola's deadly cousin
Issued on: 10/08/2021 - 17:16
Modified: 10/08/2021 - 17:14

Conakry (AFP)

Guinea has recorded the first known case of Marburg virus, a lethal cousin to Ebola, the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) says.

Here is a factfile on the disease (source: WHO, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

- What is Marburg? -

Marburg virus is a highly dangerous pathogen that causes haemorrhagic fever.

According to past outbreaks, the average fatality rate is 50 percent, in a range of 24-88 percent.

The virus is part of the so-called filovirus family to which the Ebola virus also belongs.

It takes its name from the German city of Marburg, where it was first identified in 1967, in a lab where workers had been in contact with infected green monkeys that had been imported from Uganda.

Two other outbreaks occurred at the same time in Frankfurt, also in Germany, and in Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, now Serbia. Seven people died.

- How is it transmitted? -

The natural "reservoir," or host, of the Marburg virus is the African fruit bat.

The cave-dwelling mammals carry the virus but do not fall sick from it, and can hand the virus to primates in close proximity, including humans -- one suspected pathway is the killing or butchering of infected bats for food.



https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/2 ... dly-cousin

https://www.labroots.com/trending/micro ... 662ot2ojQo

The bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei is a pathogen that can live in water and soil, usually in tropical parts of northern Australia or Southeast Asia. However, infections have occurred all over the world. When animals and humans come into direct contact with B. pseudomallei, it can cause a disease in called melioidosis, or Whitmore’s disease. It is thought that transmission from one person to another only happens rarely. Tropical freshwater fish are also a recently suspected transmission vector.

A close view of a bacterial growth culture plate with Burkholderia pseudomallei bacteria colonies 72 hours after inoculation. As incubation is extended, morphology changes. / Credit: CDC/ Courtesy of Larry Stauffer, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory
A close view of a bacterial growth culture plate with Burkholderia pseudomallei bacteria colonies 72 hours after inoculation. As incubation is extended, morphology changes. / Credit: CDC/ Courtesy of Larry Stauffer, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory

When the disease appears in the United States, it's usually because a traveler has become infected overseas. However, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now investigating several cases of melioidosis that have occurred in Americans that have not traveled internationally.

As of August 9, 2021, there have been four cases this year, one each in Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, and Texas; both adults and kids have gotten sick, and two patients have died. Healthy people can become sick with melioidosis, but cases tend to appear in adults with underlying health conditions like cancer or a chronic immune condition. Children can become sick without risk factors. Symptoms vary and can include chest pain, cough, headache, high fever, or unexplained weight loss.

Genomic sequencing revealed that the strains of bacteria that made these individuals ill are closely related, which suggests that there is a common source that all the pathogens came from. The strain is also very similar to some that have been found in South Asia.

The CDC is searching for the source; they've tested over 100 samples from different products as well as soil and water from areas near the patients' homes. None of these samples have tested positive for B. pseudomallei yet. Right now, the CDC suspects that the culprit is a product that's been imported, like food, drink, medicine, personal care or cleaning products. Though B. pseudomallei is naturally found in soil and water, the bacterium can live in many wet or moist places.



The CDC noted that they may have trouble finding the source for several reasons; the patients are separated by geography and their illnesses began at different times; they were exposed to an untold number of products before they got sick; and the bacterium that causes melioidosis may take weeks before it causes symptoms, so it's much harder for patients to recall all the stuff they may have come into contact with before the onset of their illness.

Not exactly new----

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60429726

Malawi has declared a wild polio outbreak after a case was identified in a three-year-old girl - the first of its kind in Africa for more than five years.

The continent was declared free of all forms of wild polio in 2020.

The Malawian authorities are now working to contain any possible spread including by boosting immunisation.

Wild polio remains endemic in only two countries in the world - Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Not exactly new but resurgent.

The last time I had avian flu, in October 2009, I quit smoking in order to improve my chances of surviving it.

Foggy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 6:47 am The last time I had avian flu, in October 2009, I quit smoking in order to improve my chances of surviving it.

I would think you are particularly susceptible.

Just doing a little quick searching and it looks like you *might* have some protection if you have been vaccinated against smallpox. But the last smallpox vaccinations in the U.S. were in 1971, so they're not sure. I don't know when children were typically vaccinated for smallpox back then, but I think I was in 8th grade when I was vaccinated, so about 1967.

I was born in 1951 and was vaccinated against smallpox before I can remember.

I was vaccinated against polio (Salk) in 1957 which I remember clearly.

I'm not sure if I was vaxxed against smallpox. I was born in 1972 which was the year before it was officially eradicated.

Still, it's going to be fun on this if the usual suspects start screaming against *Pox vaccinations... AGAIN.

My dad happened to send me a copy of my shot records that went from birth to 1982. There is no smallpox vaccine on there. Did get a couple of TB ones, for some reason. Got a Typhoid vaccine (just before moving to Germany). Got my first Polio when I was a bit over a month old.

Was vaccinated (remember kiddos, 'vaccination' is called that because milkmaids caught cowpox, but didn't catch smallpox. If you were 'vaccinated' against cowpox, you were good with smallpox) in England before emigrating to the United States. Got a second vaccination against smallpox in the US because obviously the first one was suspect. That was many, many years ago, though.

If you had the smallpox vaccine, it's easy to tell. You still have a small scar on your upper arm.

And I read an article just today on The Atlantic that said that mokeypox is very much a cousin of smallpox and the vaccine suppressed it.

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Thu May 19, 2022 7:25 pm If you had the smallpox vaccine, it's easy to tell. You still have a small scar on your upper arm.

I did have that circular scar, but it faded away in my 20s. Nothing visible today and age.

I put my glasses on, turned up the !ights and no....Monkey Pox is not on my 2022 Bingo card!

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Thu May 19, 2022 7:25 pm If you had the smallpox vaccine, it's easy to tell. You still have a small scar on your upper arm.

And I read an article just today on The Atlantic that said that mokeypox is very much a cousin of smallpox and the vaccine suppressed it.

My UK vaccination was on my upper right thigh, and it's no longer visible.

It was on my upper right thigh because it was felt that no one would ever see it there, since our bathing suits would cover it...

Your comments made me curious. While I can see a very slight scar where it is, for all intents and purposes mine is gone, too. I hadn't thought to look at it in years.

This is a good tweet thread about the current situation of monkeypox -

Tossing this here though it's an OLD disease: A cure for cancer.

New England Journal of Medicine: PD-1 Blockade in Mismatch Repair–Deficient, Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer

NYT: A Cancer Trial’s Unexpected Result: Remission in Every Patient

Not new but resurgent.