Pathogens and their impacts

[Pragma]

Just out of curiosity what do you consider slow?

several weeks to diagnosis but virulently contagious long before that...

I am, of course, being gloomy and sarcastic. In my darkest moods, a global pandemic seems the only way out of the current crisis...would be best if the highest fatality rates occur in those people with rich diets and high caloric intake.

There is a second way, perhaps. I think our problem, besides the obvious population and consumption, is system complexity, which itself requires huge amounts of energy.

The fastest way to reduce complexity is a very large CME. It would result in an almost instant end to industrial civilization, hopefully flatlining CO₂ concentrations and would affect the richest the hardest. I would guess that at least a billion or so wouldn't even notice that it had happened. Whoever survives would then have to weather the temperature bump when aerosols drop out.

Either way, not a pretty picture.

As long as natural CO₂e feedbacks don't overtake the situation, that is the best we could hope for and it would be a waiting game after that.

*Edit*I should have typed:

the "best" we could hope for

Did I mention the nuclear plants, uncontrolled either due to staff loss or technology loss?

[kassy]

That would work. But it´s not a pathogen.

#SH i think that several weeks would be pushing it.
Nature optimizes and for example flu is seasonal so it can not wait for weeks. It needs to get the push going so it has 1-4 days or so.

The pathogen has its own timing. After infection the cellular machinery starts cranking out copies and at some point it will burst the host cell. IIRC 6-8 hours before copies were made and then the actual cell gets punctured a couple of cycles after that.

A pandemic and a CME are basically just other ways of croaking all together while the whole key point is keeping an open future so our kids can actually have a live with choices....some stupid etc.

[Pragma]

That would work. But it´s not a pathogen.

You're right Kassy, but I thought it was pertinent.

No intention to hijack the thread.

Regarding pathogens, I seem to remember something about how it's not in an organism's best interest to be too effective. (Sorry for the anthropomorphism )

That said, a highly transmissible, high lethality pathogen could emerge spontaneously and wipe itself out by wiping out the host.

[kassy]

Yeah the pathogens do not want to kill us they just want to replicate.

All zoonotic diseases become less virulent over time and a lot of virulence is missmatched processes. In wild ducks flu is an intestinal disease while for us it is a respiratory disease all down to relative distribution of 2,3 and 2,6 alfa sialic sites.

The most interesting historicical pandemic is the spanish flu because that was actually simmering in the human reservoir for a while and then turned deadly.

Meanwhile we got to see if we can stop humans from eradicating humans...

[SteveMDFP]

Vox_mundi first raised the matter of Candida Auris on this thread.  It's a new fungal pathogen.  I saw this article today that explained how global warming might be responsible for its evolution. 

Deadly fungal infections may increase with global warming
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/deadly-fungal-infections-may-increase-global-warming-n1032366

"But C. auris didn't spread like a virus would, radiating out from one location. Instead, it popped up simultaneously in different parts of the world, including India, South Africa and South America.

"Casadevall and his team thought the fungus's emergence must have been the result of some kind of change in the Earth's environment — in this case, a gradual rise in temperature.

"That's odd for fungi, which generally like ambient, cooler temperatures, like a cool forest floor where you might find a toadstool. Indeed, most fungal infections in people are found on the coolest parts of the human body, including the feet and in nail beds. The fungus tends to stay on the skin and doesn't cause an internal infection because it can't survive the warmer temperatures inside the body, where it is around 98 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Candida auris is different. While it poses no threat to most healthy people, it can survive inside the bodies of very sick people with weakened immune systems and cause serious complications.

"The teams says it's evidence that fungi have begun to adapt to live at hotter temperatures. In theory, that makes them much more likely to make the jump from living on cooler skin, to warmer temperatures inside the body."

[Tom_Mazanec]

AGW could bring pathogens we don't even know yet:
https://www.newsweek.com/candida-auris-fungus-global-warming-diseases-1450418

[Tom_Mazanec]

Still more on Candida auris:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/fungal-infection-candida-auris-1.5222602

[kassy]

In 2009, officials in Japan identified the presence of a deadly ‘superbug’ fungus called Candida auris in a human patient for the first time. Other infections involving this fungus began popping up in hospitals around the world, including in the United States in 2016, according to the CDC. The sudden rise of C. auris as a human pathogen was surprising and a new study indicates that climate change may be the cause.

...
Most fungal species are adapted to living in relatively cool natural environments like the soil and trees. Humans, in comparison, are typically too warm for fungus infections to happen, making such cases rare and limited to only a small percentage of known fungal species.

...

C. auris‘s surprising appearance as a human pathogen appeared in multiple ‘distinct families’ of the fungus that existed separately in different parts of the world. This consistent change across continents and the fungus’ seemingly sudden ability to infect humans indicates that C. auris may be the first fungal species to adapt to a warmer climate and, as a result, become a threat to human health.

Bolded stuff.

That is such a slam dunk and it is going to be a problem. People just do not appreciate the different time scales we and pathogens work on. Also people do not appreciate the amount of them possibly out there. Then again compound interest is too hard too.

My ex once went to south american rain forests and they sort of chew through everything you bring from civilization. Not sure if that is apt as comparison but it is very different from what you are used to in Europe. Seems apt for our near future.


https://www.slashgear.com/as-planet-warms-a-superbug-fungus-has-started-killing-humans-27585415/

[Shared Humanity]

After a routine examination, the White House physician has announced the president's body has been overrun with Candida auris and the president can now best be described as a fungus with hair.

[SteveMDFP]

After a routine examination, the White House physician has announced the president's body has been overrun with Candida auris and the president could best be described as a fungus with hair.

Oddly, Stormy provided a description of Trump quite reminiscent of "fungus with hair."
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/stormy-daniels-trump-penis-mushroom-kimmel-732426/

[Tom_Mazanec]

Flesh eating bacteria like AGW:
https://www.wlrn.org/post/why-flesh-eating-bacteria-rise-some-point-climate-change

[Sigmetnow]

Naegleria fowleri

The Brain-Eating Amoeba Is a Nearly Perfect Killer
The single-celled menace rarely infects humans. That’s what makes it so hard to treat.

Last week, a North Carolina man became a notorious microbial killer’s first confirmed victim this year. The 59-year-old Eddie Gray had unknowingly come across a brain-eating amoeba while swimming in a man-made lake near Fayetteville in mid-July; 10 days later, he was dead.

Since the brain-eating amoeba was first recognized and named, in 1970, grisly reports of its disastrous attacks have made headlines nearly every year. About 97 percent of confirmed cases in the United States have been fatal. But the infection is also incredibly rare, and the small sample size leaves the epidemiologists who study it and the doctors who encounter it with their hands tied. It may be one of nature’s most perfect crimes.

Despite their gruesome moniker, most brain-eating amoebas never eat a single brain. The single-celled swimmer, formally known as Naegleria fowleri, passes its time resting in a dormant state or, when it’s warm enough, splashing around and munching on bacteria. Unlike most waterborne pathogens, it’s utterly benign if you drink it. It becomes dangerous only when, thanks to a person enjoying a day at a water park or a quick rinse in a stream, the amoeba is yanked from its bacterial buffet and swept into the dark recesses of the human nose. ...

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/how-brain-eating-amoeba-kills/594964/

[Tor Bejnar]

So you don't want someone telling an 'explosively' funny joke while you are drinking Naegleria fowleri-infested water.   

[vox_mundi]

Second Ebola Death in DR Congo's Goma
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-07-ebola-death-dr-congo-goma.html

"A patient who was confirmed with Ebola has died in Goma, Wednesday, heightening fears the disease could spread through the densely populated transport hub. ... His was really a hopeless case, because the illness was already at an advanced stage and he died overnight Tuesday." ...the virus death toll has risen to 1,803, according to figures published on Wednesday.

Goma, a lakeside city of more than two million people close to the Rwanda border, has an airport with flights to the capital Kinshasa, Uganda's Entebbe and Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, as well as a port that links to Bukavu and South Kivu province.

https://blog.wolfram.com/data/uploads/2014/10/EbolaAnimFINAL.gif

... Abedi urged the public to respond swiftly to symptoms of Ebola and "not hide suspect cases".

"The treatment centre is not a dying room—you have to bring the patient in early," he said.

In Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, the mood among many is frustration and despair.

https://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/photos/animated-map-med-january-2016.gif

[vox_mundi]

Kids and Dirt: Get Enough to Help, but Not Enough to Hurt
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-07-kids-dirt-doctor.html

Kids may need more exposure to dirt and microbes than previously thought.

The central tenet of the hygiene hypothesis is that we have gone a bit too far and inadvertently killed off our good bacteria along with the bad. As our society progressed from one that was chronically burdened with infectious diseases caused by poor sanitation, the thinking goes, we reduced our exposures to the things that gave our immune system an appropriate training and tolerance. Historically, our totally rational fear of dying from a cholera epidemic led to sewage and water management, but may have kicked off the allergy epidemic.

Our overuse of antibiotics and C-sections affects the set of organisms called the microbiome that an infant is exposed to growing up. Both have been shown to increase the risk of childhood allergic diseases.

Growing up in a rural area exposed to farm animals appears to confer a decreased risk of allergies and asthma for your entire lifetime, even among genetically similar populations. Studies in mice have shown that inhaling certain molecules from soil-dwelling bacteria can set off a beneficial cascade promoting an immune system which focuses more on threats rather than nonthreats, such as allergens.

At least 50% of patient-reported food allergies are only presumed. They have not been evaluated thoroughly enough to know for sure whether the patient is allergic. Research also demonstrates that, in many cases, we presume wrongly. The symptoms fit better with an intolerance than an allergy, or the events were coincidental. While 11%-12% of patients currently report a food allergy, only about 5% of adults and 8% of children likely have true food allergy. Around 8% of patients report a penicillin allergy, but fewer than five out of 100 patients who report a penicillin allergy can be shown to be allergic when tested.

Let your kids play outside, get dirty, try new foods and be exposed to a variety of things. Advocate for them to have outside recess time in school as much as possible. Use plain soap and water; you don't need to sanitize everything.

[DrTskoul]

I have been thinking/saying that to my family all along. Those damn antibacterial soaps

[TerryM]

I have been thinking/saying that to my family all along. Those damn antibacterial soaps

Ramen!!


Far more harm than good when used outside of a clinical setting.
Terry

[nanning]

<snippage>
Use plain soap and water; you don't need to sanitize everything.

And you shouldn't shower every day. A healthy skin organ is a great defence, having many beneficial microorganisms. I haven't showered in >3 months and my skin is healthy, soft and doesn't smell (clothes get smelly after a while). What kind of food you eat is also important. I had to go to hospital for a check on my ears, so for that occasion I washed my hair with soap. I tried to find a soap without any crazy additives and found "Aleppo soap".

[Sebastian Jones]

[/quote]
And you shouldn't shower every day. A healthy skin organ is a great defence, having many beneficial microorganisms. I haven't showered in >3 months and my skin is healthy, soft and doesn't smell (clothes get smelly after a while). What kind of food you eat is also important. I had to go to hospital for a check on my ears, so for that occasion I washed my hair with soap. I tried to find a soap without any crazy additives and found "Aleppo soap".
[/quote]
You should be aware that statements like this will lead many to assume that you do not wash at all.
Under the assumption that you do cleanse yourself from time to time, I'm curious about your preferred method- I live off grid so I have to be creative about bathing, and I've gone considerably longer than 3 months without showering, while washing most every day. I also love a weekly sauna.

[TerryM]

<snipped>

Under the assumption that you do cleanse yourself from time to time, I'm curious about your preferred method- I live off grid so I have to be creative about bathing, and I've gone considerably longer than 3 months without showering, while washing most every day. I also love a weekly sauna.

Any access to a local hot spring?
Hot springs themselves are sulfurous enough to do wonders for any many existing skin problems.


Much of my misspent youth was spent emulating Desmond Morris's Naked Ape.
Terry

[nanning]

Hi Sebastian,
I have been experimenting with 'new normals' in order to wash our insane civilisations' traditions from my conduct. Complete reanalysis. People in the old days hardly washed themselves and I have found that it is great for my skin and my smell gets better (I smell my poo and get information). I really don't like human artificial odors. In general I don't like most of the shit that came out of commerce and aristocracy in the past 150 years.
These days I don't wash at all, apart from my face for shaving. I make exceptions when I have to show respect for civilisations' customs, such as when I'm going sleep in another bed or go to the hospital.
In all of living nature, I think smell is the most important sense, yet humans have drowned that sense ever since we took the view of aristocracy as the civilised one. I am not supreme, I like to wash and clean like other animals do it but I live in a very clean human world and have almost no hair.
When cooking I am very hygienic. I have worked as a fishcutter (salmon) in a warm room and know a lot about hygiene. My bathroom and kitchen are clean, and in the other rooms there is nowhere food to be found, not a crumb. It's a bit dusty etc and other people would probably call it 'dirty' but it is clean. Hardly any insects here which is a shame for the spiders in my house.
Feel free to call me dirty. I like pigs. I like mud .

[DrTskoul]

Why Ebola cannot be tamed in Congo

...Each of the country’s previous nine outbreaks since 1976, when the virus was first identified, occurred in remote regions and were controlled within three months. This time, thousands of health professionals have been deployed and more than 170,000 people have received an effective trial vaccine. Yet May, the tenth month, was the deadliest so far, and a further 349 cases were confirmed in July....

[vox_mundi]

Ebola Crisis: Rwanda Restricts Border Crossing with DR Congo Amid Outbreak
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49191715

Rwanda has reopened its border with DR Congo, where an Ebola outbreak has killed more than 1,800 people in the past year.

The border was closed for several hours after the confirmation of a third death from Ebola in the Congolese city of Goma.



Goma, home to two million people, is the capital of North Kivu, one of the two provinces in DR Congo which have borne the brunt of the epidemic.

The city lies just across the border from the Rwandan city of Gisenyi, which has a population of around 85,000. Many residents cross the frontier for work and other activities - although illegal routes are also used.

The border had been closed "to avoid unnecessary crossings" to Goma, Gilbert Habayarimana, mayor of Rubavu district in western Rwanda which borders Goma, said earlier.

... There are still quite a few in Goma who still do not believe that Ebola exists but this might change now that another person has died.

-----------------

4th Ebola Case in Goma: Gold Miner Who Died of Ebola Contaminated Several
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/gold-miner-died-ebola-contaminated-drc-official-190802155742113.html

... Ebola response coordinator Jean-Jacques Muyembe said the wife of the miner, who died of Ebola in eastern DRC, tested positive for the disease - the fourth case confirmed in Goma, capital of North Kivu province which is where the outbreak started.

The miner's one-year-old daughter was confirmed on Thursday to have contracted the virus.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday said seven relatives of the gold miner have been placed under surveillance as a precaution in Goma,

... Muyembe said an estimated half of cases of Ebola - which has killed at least 1,823 people since the outbreak started a year ago - were going unidentified.

"If we continue on that basis, this epidemic could last two or three years," he told a news conference in Goma.

[Tom_Mazanec]

Warmer waters help flesh eating bacteria:
https://www.newsweek.com/flesh-eating-bacteria-could-claiming-more-victims-thanks-climate-change-experts-say-1452078

[DrTskoul]

Warmer waters help flesh eating bacteria:
https://www.newsweek.com/flesh-eating-bacteria-could-claiming-more-victims-thanks-climate-change-experts-say-1452078

Yum!! Bon appetit

[vox_mundi]

Military's Deadly Germ Lab Shut Down Due to Sloppy Work, Leaky Equipment
https://gizmodo.com/militarys-deadly-germ-lab-shut-down-due-to-sloppy-work-1836999279



The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shut down a leading military research facility for failing to meet established safety standards, halting important research into some of the world’s most dangerous pathogens and toxins.

Following an inspection in June, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a cease-and-desist order to the Fort Detrick biodefense lab, reports the Frederick News-Post. All research at the lab, run by the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), involving a select list of dangerous microbes and toxins is now on hold until further notice.

USAMRIID, conducts public and private research into some of the world’s most dangerous pathogens and toxins, including Ebola, anthrax, and the bacteria responsible for the plague.

Among the problems cited, the facility failed to have systems sufficiently capable of decontaminating wastewater, it lacked “periodic recertification training for workers in the biocontainment laboratories,” and it failed to meet standards established by the Federal Select Agent Program, among other deficiencies ... The CDC could not provide more specific details for “national security reasons.”

In May 2018, storms caused a flood at the Fort Detrick facility, seriously damaging its 10-year-old steam sterilization plant, which provides high-tech wastewater management. The plant was offline for months, and the incident resulted in upgraded biosafety procedures. But as Vander Linden told the Frederick News-Post, the new protocols significantly increased “operational complexity” at the facility. The CDC inspection found that the “new procedures were not being followed consistently,” along with the discovery of “mechanical problems with the chemical-based decontamination system, as well as leaks [inside the lab],” the New York Times reported.

[TerryM]

^^ talk about whiplash.


What could be better than shutting down a Bio Chemical Warfare lab - unless they're shutting it down for leaks. AAAggg
Terry

[Sigmetnow]

U.S.:  North Carolina.
Warmer waters increase the prevalence of blue-green algae.

Three dogs died within hours of playing in a pond due to toxic algae

Melissa Martin and Denise Mintz took their beloved dogs Abby, Izzy and Harpo to a pond in Wilmington on Thursday night to cool off. But within 15 minutes of leaving the pond, Abby, a West Highland white terrier, began to have a seizure.

Martin rushed her to a veterinary hospital, with Izzy and Harpo right behind her. Upon their arrival, Izzy, also a Westie, started seizing, and both terriers rapidly declined. Then Harpo, her 6-year-old "doodle" mix therapy dog, began to seize and show signs of liver failure.
By midnight Friday, all three dogs had died, she said.

Blue-green algae is most common in the summer
Toxic algae blooms are more likely to infest bodies of fresh water when the weather is warm and waters are stagnant, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
Some algal blooms leave a film of muck on the surface and make the water ruddy, but others are difficult to immediately detect, such as the blooms in the pond where Martin's dogs were exposed.
There's no cure for the poisoning, and exposure nearly always leads to death in dogs. Drinking from a body of water where blue-green algae lurks or licking it off fur can kill a dog within 15 minutes of exposure, according to Blue Cross for Pets, a UK animal charity. ...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/11/us/three-dogs-died-algae-trnd/index.html

[DrTskoul]

The south states waters become more toxic ...unfortunate..

[Tor Bejnar]

Florida Blue-Green Algae Task Force

You can sign up for weekly updates, etc. to see where blooms are occurring, etc.

[Tor Bejnar]

Florida's Algal Bloom Current (Weekly) Update

August 9 - 15, 2019 -  There were 20 reported site visits in the past week (8/09 - 8/15) with all 20 site visits resulting in samples collected. Algal bloom conditions were observed by the samplers at only 9 of those sites.
…

weekly report online
Algal Bloom Dashboard

[vox_mundi]

Deadly Superbug Outbreak in Humans Linked to Antibiotic Spike in Cows
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/deadly-superbug-outbreak-in-humans-linked-to-antibiotic-spike-in-cows/

Use of certain antibiotics in cattle increased 41% just before the outbreak.

A deadly outbreak of multi-drug resistant Salmonella that sickened 225 people across the US beginning in 2018 may have been spurred by a sharp rise in the use of certain antibiotics in cows a year earlier, infectious disease investigators reported this week.

From June 2018 to March of 2019, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified an outbreak of Salmonella enterica serotype Newport. The strain was resistant to several antibiotics, most notably azithromycin—a recommended treatment for Salmonella enterica infections. Before the outbreak, azithromycin-resistance in this germ was exceedingly rare. In fact, it was only first seen in the US in 2016.

... In a report published August 23 by the CDC, the investigators note that just a year earlier, the Food and Drug Administration recorded a spike in the use of antibiotics called macrolides by cattle farmers. From 2016 to 2017, cattle farmers increased their use of macrolide antibiotics by 41%. Macrolides are a class of antibiotics that includes azithromycin. Because antibiotics within a class work to kill bacteria in similar ways, bacterial resistance to one drug in a class could lead to resistance to other drugs in the same class.

The investigators suggest that the surge in macrolide use could have encouraged the rise and spread of the azithromycin-resistant Newport strain.

“Because use of antibiotics in livestock can cause selection of resistant strains, the reported 41% rise in macrolide use in US cattle from 2016 to 2017 might have accelerated carriage of the outbreak strain among US cattle,” they wrote.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6833a1.htm?s_cid=mm6833a1_w#contribAff

[vox_mundi]

We got your cure for over-population right here ...

----------------------

Big Pharma Nixes New Drugs Despite Impending 'Antibiotic Apocalypse'
https://dw.com/en/big-pharma-nixes-new-drugs-despite-impending-antibiotic-apocalypse/a-50432213

Even though doctors around the world are warning about the regular discovery of new superbugs, and saying that indiscriminate use of "last resort" antibiotics is threatening a major global health catastrophe, almost every major pharmaceutical company in the world has given up on research into new antibiotics.

According to an in-depth report from German public broadcaster NDR this week, the reason for this lack of preparation for the impending crisis is simple: antibiotics simply aren't profitable.

Antibiotics are only used for a few days once in a while, and are being prescribed less as doctors become more aware of the dangers of over-prescription. Instead, drug companies are focusing on lucrative medications for chronic conditions like high cholesterol, arthritis, epilepsy, and cancer.

Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Otsuka and many others have all gutted their antibiotic development teams and moved those budgets elsewhere. This is despite a 2016 pledge signed by over 100 companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Novartis, saying they would help prevent the next epidemic by investing in ways to combat the rise of antibiotic-resistant "superbugs."

... A report this week in the British publication New Statesman revealed that Chinese farmers are giving their cows colistin, known as the "last hope" antibiotic, to stave off future infections despite warnings that doing so is putting human lives in danger. The report details how this practice has led colistin-resistant bacteria to travel from cows and now to chickens, which means it is mobile and can transfer to humans.

Sally Davies, the UK's chief medical Officer, has warned that a "post-antibiotic apocalypse" is imminent, one that would spell "the end of modern medicine."

[kassy]

antibiotics simply aren't profitable.

Try selling really expensive cancer cures to people who died of sepsis or other bacterial nastiness and redo the analysis?

[morganism]

Rare Mosquito-Borne Disease That Kills 1/3 of The Infected Is Spreading Across The US

"At least a dozen cases of eastern equine encephalitis, a dangerous mosquito-borne illness, have been confirmed across the US so far this season. Two people have died from the disease.

https://www.sciencealert.com/previously-rare-deadly-mosquito-borne-disease-is-starting-to-spread-across-the-us

[nanning]

https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/index.html

Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest public health challenges of our time. Each year in the U.S., at least 2 million people get an antibiotic-resistant infection, and at least 23,000 people die.

[Hefaistos]

Hi Sebastian,
I have been experimenting with 'new normals' in order to wash our insane civilisations' traditions from my conduct. Complete reanalysis. People in the old days hardly washed themselves and I have found that it is great for my skin and my smell gets better (I smell my poo and get information). I really don't like human artificial odors. In general I don't like most of the shit that came out of commerce and aristocracy in the past 150 years.
These days I don't wash at all, apart from my face for shaving. ...

Thanks for sharing! Most people are so indoctrinated with a daily washing habit using chemicals (soap, shampoo etc).

I grew up in simple conditions, and except for rudimentary cleansing of the intimate parts, hands and face in cold water, we washed ourselves only once a week when we went to the village sauna.

Later, I found out that it's quite unnecessary to use shampoo/detergents in your hair. Hair actually becomes more healthy if you wash it only when it starts to irritate you. Same goes for showering, no need for soap there. As you say, it's the clothes that get smelly, and need to be changed frequently.

However, I also think this is age-related. Up to around 30 yoa the skin is more thick and produces more fat. Teenagers struggle to rid themselves of skin fat. An old person has a very thin skin in comparison, a skin that struggles not to dry out, to keep humidity.
A skin that isn't dried out by unnecessary washing stays more healthy and resistant to pathogens.

[nanning]

My turn to thank you for sharing Hefaistos .

Indoctrinated is the right word I think.

Personally as a teenager when we showered once a week and I cycled every schoolday, I had no struggles. It was normal to smell others. And I haven't been to café's and disco's and wasn't sexually active until I was 19 yo.

Further advantages: It saves time, it saves potable water, it saves energy, it saves money.

Smell is something else than stink. I observe these days that people from rich countries treat every human smell as stink, which is insane. That's the power of commercial indoctrination for you: The very effective evil of advertisements.

You can't make those people 'see' the truth if the whole group is indoctrinated.
That goes for every small and large truth I have found.
I have accepted that people just don't/can't see it.
Alien perspective indeed!

One more layer of insanity. Near the top of the pile. What's left of those brains I ask myself?

Have you been able to convince people of their showering/washing folly?

[Tom_Mazanec]

This deadly fungal disease could use climate change to mobilize
https://www.popsci.com/climate-change-valley-fever-fungus-weather/

The vast majority of the 10,000 cases of Valley fever diagnosed in the United States each year occur in Arizona and California. In those two states, the environment and weather—a dry desert with rainy seasons —create the conditions that the Coccidioides fungus, which causes the illness, needs to survive and thrive.

But as the climate changes, temperatures will increase and rain patterns will change—and along with those changes, by 2100, the fungus’s range will expand causing the number of Valley fever cases to increase by 50 percent, according to a new model published in the journal, GeoHealth. Right now, the fungus is restricted by rain and temperature to its current territory, but climate change will lift some of those environmental barriers.

[vox_mundi]

Bloodstream Infections in Central Africa Caused by Strains of Salmonella Resistant to Nearly All Drugs
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-09-bloodstream-infections-central-africa-strains.html

The first extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains of Salmonella Typhimurium, a pathogen which is responsible for millions of bloodstream infections per year in sub-Saharan Africa, have been identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Drug-resistance has increased in successive groups of S. Typhimurium over time. These new strains are resistant to all but one of the commonly available drugs in the DRC, with one sample showing reduced susceptibility to this final antibiotic.

Most Salmonella infections result in symptoms associated with food poisoning. While unpleasant, symptoms are not life-threatening in the vast majority of cases. But in sub-Saharan Africa, Salmonella such as S. Typhimurium can cause infections of the blood, known as invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella (iNTS) infections.

Every year, iNTS infections are estimated to affect 3.4 million people and result in 681,316 deaths globally, of which the majority are caused by S. Typhimurium. The containment and treatment of iNTS infections in places like the DRC is complicated by limited access to healthcare, infrastructure challenges and weakened immunity, with children under five years of age particularly at risk.

It is known that iNTS infections in sub-Saharan Africa are dominated by a type of S. Typhimurium known as ST313, which is associated with antibiotic resistance. Two groups of ST313 (named lineage I and II) split off independently and subsequently spread over the African continent. Antibiotic resistance has been growing over time, with lineage II now the primary cause of iNTS infections.

... "All antibiotic resistance genes contributing to "XDR' are present on the same plasmid. This is worrying because a plasmid is a mobile genetic element that could be transferred to other bacteria. While accumulating more antibiotic resistance, we discovered that the novel Salmonella Typhimurium line is also showing further genetic and behavioral changes which suggest ongoing evolution of the bacteria towards bloodstream infections."

Open Access: Sandra Van Puyvelde et al. An African Salmonella Typhimurium ST313 sublineage with extensive drug-resistance and signatures of host adaptation, Nature Communications (2019)

---------------------

Antimicrobial Resistance Rising Drastically: Study
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-global-antibiotic-resistance-food-animals.html

... A team of researchers led by Thomas Van Boeckel, SNF Assistant Professor of Health Geography and Policy at ETH Zurich, has recently published a map of antimicrobial resistance in animals in low- and middle-income countries in the journal Science.

The team assembled a large literature database and found out where, and in which animals species resistance occurred for the common foodborne bacteria Salmonella, E. coli, Campylobacter and Staphylococcus.

According to this study, the regions associated with high rates of antimicrobial resistance in animals are northeast China, northeast India, southern Brazil, Iran and Turkey. In these countries, the bacteria listed above are now resistant to a large number of drugs that are used not only in animals but also in human medicine.

The highest resistance rates were associated with the antimicrobials most frequently used in animals: tetracyclines, sulphonamides, penicillins and quinolones. In certain regions, these compounds have almost completely lost their efficacy to treat infections.

The researchers introduced a new index to track the evolution of resistance to multiple drugs: the proportion of drugs tested in each region with resistance rates higher than 50%. Globally, this index has almost tripled for chicken and pigs over the last 20 years. Currently, one third of drugs fail 50% of the time in chicken and one quarter of drugs fail in 50% of the time in pigs.

... It is of particular concern that antimicrobial resistance is rising in developing and emerging countries because this is where meat consumption is growing the fastest, while access to veterinary antimicrobials remains largely unregulated. "Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem. There is little point in making considerable efforts to reduce it on one side of the world if it is increasing dramatically on the other side," the ETH researcher says.

Open Access: T.P. Van Boeckel el al., "Global trends in antimicrobial resistance in animals in low- and middle-income countries," Science (2019)

also https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6459/1251

[sidd]

Stay indoors this fall in michigan: equine enchephalitis on the rise, mosquito borne

"people may not want to stay indoors as fall is the “prettiest time in Michigan." "

https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2019/09/michigan-advises-against-outdoor-activity-due-to-deadly-mosquito-borne-virus.html

sidd

[vox_mundi]

Philippines Confirms 2nd Polio Case After Declaring Outbreak
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-09-philippines-2nd-polio-case-declaring.html

Philippine health officials on Friday confirmed a second case of polio in a 5-year-old child a day after declaring the country's first outbreak in nearly two decades, and announced plans for a massive immunization program.

They said the polio virus has also been detected in sewage in Manila and in waterways in the southern Davao region, prompting plans for an immunization drive starting next month that is likely to include tens of thousands of children under age 5.

At least 95% of children that age need to be vaccinated to halt the spread of polio in the Philippines, according to the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund, which expressed deep concern over the disease's reemergence

----------------------------

Blast Rocks Russian Facility Storing Smallpox and Ebola Viruses
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/18/20870537/smallpox-ebola-russian-lab-explosion-pathogens-escape

According to Russian independent media, the laboratory was undergoing repairs when a gas bottle exploded, sparking a 30-square-meter fire that left one worker severely burned. Glass throughout the building was reportedly destroyed in the blast, and the fire reportedly spread through the building’s ventilation system. (... hopefully the smallpox wasn't in a glass container)

The lab is one of only two in the world known to still have samples of smallpox, which was eradicated from the wild in 1977. The other is in the United States.

... Monday’s incident was not the first at the Vector lab. In 2004, a researcher died at the complex after accidentally pricking herself with a needle carrying the Ebola virus. Russian media then claimed it was the only death from the virus in Russia’s history. Outbreaks of anthrax and smallpox were caused by Soviet weapons development programmes in the 1970s and subsequently covered up by the government.

-----------------------

UN Agency Says 124 Suspected Cholera Cases in Sudan
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-09-agency-cholera-cases-sudan.html

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released a statement Friday saying that the provinces of Sennar and the Blue Nile were among Sudan's areas with the highest risk of cholera outbreak, following flash floods that swept the country in late August and affected water sanitation.

The statement adds that the current fatality rate stood at 5.6% but could be brought down below one percent with "proper treatment."

The OCHA says the outbreak can be contained if there is immediate action and funding.

Earlier, the World Health Organization said that new malaria cases were reported in several Sudanese provinces.

-----------------------

Dengue Virus Becoming Resistant to Vaccines and Therapeutics Due to Mutations in Specific Protein
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-09-dengue-virus-resistant-vaccines-therapeutics.html

-------------------------

He's back.


Death on a Pale Horse ...

[Tom_Mazanec]

MAN VS. MOSQUITO: AT THE FRONT LINES OF A PUBLIC HEALTH WAR
https://publicintegrity.org/environment/man-vs-mosquito-public-health-war/

Mosquito-borne illnesses like Zika have increased almost tenfold nationally from 2004 to 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That’s put local governments at the front lines of a contentious public health war ― one that climate change will only worsen.

A 2016 report by Climate Central found warming temperatures coupled with more humid days have elongated mosquito seasons. The insect’s range has also expanded. Aedes aegypti, the species that transmits Zika, dengue, yellow fever and chikungunya, has moved northward in the U.S. by roughly 150 miles per year. By 2050, researchers predict, almost half the world’s population will be exposed to at least one of two major disease-carrying mosquitoes. Scientists are also concerned about the growing threat of resistance, which undercuts the effectiveness of insecticides.

[SteveMDFP]

Here's a quite worrisome development:


WHO accuses Tanzania of withholding information about suspected Ebola cases
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tanzanias-refusal-to-acknowledge-possible-ebola-casesrepresents-a-challenge-who/2019/09/22/70bf9a80-dd19-11e9-be96-6adb81821e90_story.html

"NAIROBI —  The World Health Organization accused Tanzanian authorities of withholding information about multiple suspected Ebola cases in the country this month, potentially hampering the containment of the deadly virus.. . .

WHO was made aware of the suspected cases in Tanzania shortly after one appeared this month in Dar es Salaam, the East African country’s massive capital. After that, the international organization was shut out of blood samples testing and told by the government that Ebola had been ruled out, it said.

Tanzanian authorities have not offered alternative diagnoses.. . .

WHO’s statement refers to a 34-year-old doctor studying in central Uganda who returned to her native Tanzania with Ebola-like symptoms and died Sept. 8 in Dar es Salaam. Her illness was apparently contagious, as numerous contacts also became ill."

Further worrisome information in the article.

Unlike the last large Ebola outbreak, we now have a seemingly effective vaccine, and fairly effective treatment.  But the vaccine must be administered well in advance of exposure, and the treatments must be started early in the course of the disease.  Neither of these is feasible if the disease spreads quickly in an under-resourced urban area.  Stay tuned.

[vox_mundi]

Possible Cover-Up of Ebola Outbreak in Tanzania Prompts Travel Warnings
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/possible-cover-up-of-ebola-outbreak-in-tanzania-prompts-travel-warnings/

US and UK government officials are warning travelers of the possibility of a concealed Ebola outbreak in Tanzania after the World Health Organization reported that the government there is withholding information about possible cases of the deadly virus.

On September 21, the WHO released an unusual statement outlining a series of unofficial reports from the country. The first was that a doctor who had recently traveled to Uganda had returned to Tanzania with a “suspected” case of Ebola. Testing performed by the Tanzanian National Health Laboratory reportedly indicated that the doctor was positive for the virus. She died on September 8 in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania, after traveling extensively throughout the country. Subsequent unofficial reports to the WHO indicated that there were several other suspected cases as well as contacts in quarantine in various sites in Tanzania.

The Tanzanian government has said that there have been no cases of Ebola and that no suspected cases are “admitted anywhere” in the country. But officials there have been remarkably slow to respond to the WHO’s requests for information, have failed to provide critical details about the cases, have not offered alternative explanations for the illnesses and death, and have refused to perform confirmatory tests to ensure that the disease is not spreading, according to the WHO.

The US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department updated their travel advisories for Tanzania late Friday, September 27.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/tanzania
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/tanzania/health

The UK’s warning notes that the WHO declared the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in July and that cases have spilled over to Uganda.

The outbreak, which began in August of 2018, has sickened over 3,000, killing more than 2,000 so far. It is the second largest Ebola outbreak on record, surpassed only by the 2014 West African outbreak involving more than 28,000 cases and 11,000 deaths.

[vox_mundi]

Researchers Find Just Two Plague Strains Wiped Out 30%-60% of Europe
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/researchers-find-just-two-plague-strains-wiped-out-30-60-of-europe/

The Black Death ravaged medieval Western Europe, wiping out roughly one-third of the population. Now researchers have traced the genetic history of the bacterium believed to be behind the plague in a recent paper published in Nature Communications. They found that one strain seemed to be the ancestor of all the strains that came after it, indicating that the pandemic spread from a single entry point into Europe from the East—specifically, a Russian town called Laishevo.

... Y. pestis proved to be so virulent that mice died after being infected with just three bacilli.

Phylogeography of the second plague pandemic revealed through analysis of historical Yersinia pestis genomes
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12154-0

[vox_mundi]

Multiple Factors Aligned to Establish Sustained Transmission of XDR-TB in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2019-10-multiple-factors-aligned-sustained-transmission.html

A study published today in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) examines the evolutionary and epidemiologic history of an epidemic strain of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) - called LAM4/KZN- in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This strain was first reported in a 2005 outbreak in Tugela Ferry, KwaZulu-Natal, where it was associated with 90 percent mortality among predominantly HIV infected individuals, and has since become widespread throughout the province. A new study identifies key host, pathogen and environmental factors that facilitated the success of this XDR-TB strain and steps that can be taken for early identification and containment of future epidemics. ...

Tyler S. Brown el al., "Pre-detection history of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa," PNAS (2019)

[vox_mundi]

Pig Infected With African Swine Fever Washes Up In Taiwan
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-pig-infected-african-swine-fever.html

A floating dead pig infected with African swine fever washed up in Taiwan last week, according to a UN report, which also recorded a fresh mainland China outbreak and an attempt to illegally transport infected pigs.

China's swine herd has been devastated by the outbreak of the disease, first reported by the government in August last year.

An update on the crisis from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations dated Thursday said the dead pig was found floating on November 6 near Taiwan's Xiaojinmen Island—also known as Lieyu—close to the mainland province of Fujian.

It said the pig tested positive for the same strain of swine fever that has unleashed havoc in mainland China.

... There was also a fresh outbreak in China's southwestern Yunnan province this month, the FAO said, totalling 163 outbreaks in 32 provinces and regions.

One pig farmer told AFP last month that some affected farmers were quietly selling or disposing of dead pigs rather than declaring them to the government.

A Rabobank report has warned China could lose 200 million pigs during the epidemic.

The UN has also documented cases of swine fever in neighbouring Asian countries, including three new cases among wild pigs in South Korea.

[vox_mundi]

Might come in handy later in the season ...

Ketogenic Diet Helps Tame Flu Virus
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-11-ketogenic-diet-flu-virus.html

A high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet like the Keto regimen has its fans, but influenza apparently isn't one of them.

Mice fed a ketogenic diet were better able to combat the flu virus than mice fed food high in carbohydrates, according to a new Yale University study published Nov. 15 in the journal Science Immunology.

The ketogenic diet—which for people includes meat, fish, poultry, and non-starchy vegetables—activates a subset of T cells in the lungs not previously associated with the immune system's response to influenza, enhancing mucus production from airway cells that can effectively trap the virus, the researchers report.

Specifically, the researchers found that the ketogenic diet triggered the release of gamma delta T cells, immune system cells that produce mucus in the cell linings of the lung—while the high-carbohydrate diet did not.

Open Access: E.L. Goldberg el al., "Ketogenic diet activates protective γδ T cell responses against influenza virus infection," Science Immunology (2019)

[vox_mundi]

A Fresh Case of Bubonic Plague Has Now Been Confirmed by China
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-fresh-case-of-bubonic-plague-has-now-been-confirmed-in-china

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Inner Mongolia reported a fresh, confirmed case of bubonic plague on Sunday, despite an earlier declaration by the country's health officials that the risk of an outbreak was minimal.

The patient in Inner Mongolia is now isolated and treated at a hospital in Ulanqab, the health commission said.

A total of 28 people who had close contact with the patient are now isolated and under observation, and the commission said there are no abnormal symptoms found in them.

Outbreaks in China have been rare, but large parts of the northwestern city of Yumen were sealed off in 2014 after a 38-year-old resident died of bubonic plague, known as "Black Death" in the Middle Ages and caused by the same bacterium as the pneumonic variant.

Rodent populations have risen in Inner Mongolia after persistent droughts, worsened by climate change. An area the size of the Netherlands was hit by a "rat plague" last summer, causing damages of 600 million yuan (US$86 million), Xinhua said.