May Persist on Feathers

Fallen from Domestic Ducks

ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2010) — Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) may persist on feathers fallen from the bodies of infected domestic ducks and contribute to environmental contamination. Researchers from the National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan report their findings in the August 2010 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Since the emergence of Asian avian influenza virus in 1997, it has spread to Europe, the Middle East and Africa causing significant mortality and economic loss in the poultry industry. Although the virus is mainly found in waterfowl and transmitted through fecal contamination in water, humans as well as other mammalian species have contracted the virus through close contact with infected birds.

A prior study showed that H5N1 could replicate in the skin cells of feathers and further suggested that those that drop off the body could potentially contaminate the environment. Here, researchers evaluated the environmental risk posed by contaminated feathers by inoculating domestic ducks with H5N1, collecting feathers, feces and drinking water three days following, and then storing them at 39 degrees and 68 degrees Fahrenheit for 360 days. Results showed that H5N1 persisted the longest in feathers at both temperatures.

“These results indicate that feathers detached from domestic ducks infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) can be a source of environmental contamination and may function as fomites with high viral loads in the environment,” say the researchers.

MIAMI (UPI) — Wading in the ocean to let salt water heal cuts and scrapes is not always a good idea, health experts say, as bacteria can proliferate in summer months.

A little known, deadly bacteria called Vibrio vulnificus can infect open wounds of beach goers and cause a life-threatening illness in those with weakened immune systems, The Miami Herald reported Friday.

he bacteria, which occur naturally in warm coastal waters, infected 138 people in Florida between 2005 and 2009 and 31 of them died, the Florida Department of Health said.

“The high mortality rate makes it a big deal,” Juan A. Suarez, an epidemiologist for FDH, said.

The bacteria proliferate in waters where temperature and salinity are increasing, particularly between the months of April and November, Suarez said.

“It’s a particularly difficult organism because it doesn’t affect everyone.” he said. “Most healthy people will not respond to the organism. They are probably not at risk.”

But he advised all people to heal their cuts and scrapes through other means, not ocean water.

“It’s probably not a good idea, even if you’re healthy, to go into the water with an open wound,” Suarez said.

Copyright 2010 by United Press International

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

The Cancer-Causing Sex Virus

Matthew Herper, 07.21.10, 04:15 PM EDT

HPV–known for causing cervical cancer–is

emerging as the leading cause of throat cancer in

men. Should they get the vaccine too?

Nine Things You Need To Know About HPV

Martin Duffy, a Boston consultant and economist, thought he just had a sore throat. When it persisted for months, he went to the doctor and learned there was a tumor on his tonsils.

Duffy, now 70, had none of the traditional risk factors for throat cancer. He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink and has run 40 Boston marathons. Instead, his cancer was caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is sexually transmitted and a common cause of throat and mouth cancer.

HPV tumors have a better prognosis than those caused by too many years of booze and cigarettes. But Duffy “is in the unlucky 20%” whose cancer comes back–despite rounds of chemotherapy and radiation that melted 20 more pounds off a lean 150-pound frame. Now the cancer has spread throughout his throat, making eating and talking difficult. “I made my living as a public speaker,” he says. “Now I sound like Daffy Duck.” Duffy believes he has only a few months left. “How do you tell the people you love you love them?” he asks.

Nine Things You Need To Know About HPV

Most strains of the HPV virus are harmless, but persistent infections with two HPV strains cause 70% of the 12,000 cases of cervical cancers diagnosed annually in the U.S. Other forms of the sexually transmitted virus can cause penile and anal cancer, and genital warts. The HPV throat cancer connection has emerged in just the last few years and is so new that the government doesn’t track its incidence. Researchers believe it is transmitted via oral sex. But top researchers estimate that there are 11,300 HPV throat cancers each year in the U.S.–and the numbers are growing fast as people have been having more sexual partners since the 1960s. By 2015 there could be 20,000 cases. For more surprising discoveries about HPV, read here.

These big numbers have some top researchers arguing that drug makers should test whether HPV vaccines now used to prevent cervical cancer in women can also prevent throat infections in boys. Two vaccines, Gardasil from Merck ( MRK – news – people ) and Cervarix from GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK – news – people ), are approved for preventing cervical cancer. Gardasil is approved for use in boys only to prevent genital warts.

Vaccinating boys could stop this meteoric increase in throat cancer. “Clearly, boys need to be vaccinated,” says Marshall Posner, the incoming medical director of head and neck cancer at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. “I want my kids to be vaccinated. I don’t see a downside to these vaccines.”

There’s only one problem: The vaccine manufacturers aren’t terribly hot on the idea. GlaxoSmithKline says it has no plans to study throat cancer. It adds that it is “committed to providing a vaccine specifically designed to protect against cervical cancer in girls and young women.”

Merck, the maker of Gardasil, seemed more interested a couple of years ago. In 2008 it funded Maura Gillison, the Ohio State University researcher who established the HPV-throat-cancer link in 2000, to do a pilot study to show that test could reliably detect HPV infection in the throat. The pilot study was successful. By early 2009 Gillison says that a larger study of the vaccine in throat cancer looked close to being green lit.

But after Merck agreed to buy rival Schering-Plough ( SGP – news – people ) for $41 billion in March 2009, interest in a big study seemed to evaporate, Gillison says. In a statement, Merck says that “due to competing research and business priorities, we decided not to move ahead with an efficacy study at this time.”

The drug makers’ reticence probably stems from a fear that a throat-cancer vaccine would be hard to get approved. Papilloma viruses usually cause cancer slowly, causing pre-cancerous lesions that take many years to blossom into full-fledged malignant tumors. Papilloma viruses cause the horn-like growths in rabbits that probably gave rise to myths of “jackalopes” in the American West. In the cervix, early abnormal growths can be picked up with a diagnostic test, the Pap smear. Clinical trials of Gardasil and Cervarix took advantage of this, measuring the number of pre-cancerous growths prevented by the vaccines.

But there are no easy-to-detect pre-cancers in the throat. Adolescent boys would have to be followed for decades to to see if the vaccine prevented throat cancer, an unlikely scenario. Short of this, studies could only look at the prevention of HPV throat infections, not cancer or cancer precursors directly. Approving a vaccine for wide use based on this type of short-term data would require a leap of faith that the Food and Drug Administration might not be willing to take.

Top researchers say the federal government needs to step in and fund the long study if drug companies cannot be persuaded to do it themselves. “I’m sorry Merck decided not to do it,” says Posner. “But in the end, this is a federal responsibility. It’s a public health issue.”

For his part, Martin Duffy thinks that drug companies’ complacent attitude toward throat cancer would be different if more of their employees were in his situation. “It will change real fast,” he says, “if one of their executives comes down with this disease.”

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

In New Twist To Pandemic

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2009) — The strain of influenza, A/H1N1, that is currently pandemic in humans has been shown to be infectious to pigs and to spread rapidly in a trial pig population.

In research published July 9 in Journal of General Virology, Dr Thomas Vahlenkamp and a team of virologists from the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut in Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany, experimentally infected five pigs with the strain of swine flu that is causing the current human pandemic. Within four days the virus had spread to three uninfected pigs housed with the infected ones and all pigs were showing clinical signs of swine flu.

“Although in the early stages of the swine flu pandemic there were worries that humans would catch the virus from pigs, this has so far not been documented and pigs and other animals have not been involved in the current spread of A/H1N1 influenza in humans,” said Dr Vahlenkamp, “However, with the increasing numbers of human infections, a spill over of this human virus to pigs is becoming more likely. The prevention of human-to-pig transmissions should have a high priority in order to avoid involvement of pigs in the epidemiology of this pandemic”.

Although the virus spread quickly to the non-infected pigs, it did not spread to five chickens that were housed together with the pigs. This may imply that while the virus can pass from human to pig it does not pass from pig to chicken. The experiments were done under strict containment conditions (Biosafety Level BSL3+), to prevent any further transmission of the virus from the infected pigs.

The scientists recommend that persons who are suspected of having swine flu should not be allowed to have contact with pigs and that regulatory bodies should agree on appropriate restriction measures for swine holdings where A/H1N1 infection is detected. Experiments are underway to determine whether currently available vaccines may be able to provide pigs with a certain immunity to stop a potential spread of the virus.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 21st April 2010

FAME Pharmaceutical, a local company based in Yangon, has successfully produced a A(H1N1) vaccine, Flower News reported on March 2.

The medicine was produced using Shikimic acid extracted from the Chinese star anise. The acid helps prevent the spread of the A(H1N1) virus, said U Tin Maung Aye, a director of Fame Pharmaceutical.

Roche, an international pharmaceutical company, produces the Tamiflu vaccine based on the Oseltamivir compound derived from the Chinese star anise.

“The [production] method will be different. But we are producing a similar formula to Tamiflu. It can be used even before A(H1N1) symptoms are diagnosed as a preventative measure,” U Tin Maung Aye said.

You Need to Know

IT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

SARS is one of the most dangerous viruses on the face of the earth. SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

It infects the lungs. It is one of the most dangerous and contagious diseases on the face of the earth because it is most often fatal.

The first appearance of SARS was discovered in China recently  in November of late 2002.

Within an extremely important period of time, only six weeks, the SARS virus had spread throughout the entire world. It was mainly spread by international travelers that did not know they had contracted the disease.

During that period of time the World Health Organization or WHO, said that close to 8,000 people were infected. Along with those infections a total of eight hundred people died of the SARS syndrome. During this initial outbreak the entire world was in a complete panic. The world was concerned over the fact that the virus could have turned into a global pandemic. The good thing is that this pandemic never occurred and there has not been an outbreak of SARS since 2004.

SARS has many signs and symptoms that are associated with it.

When someone first contracts SARS they have a low fever.

This symptom usually does not start until ten days after the virus is contracted. Some of the most obvious signs of contraction of the SARS disease is a headache and muscle soreness. Another symptom that some people get is chills or discomfort.

Many people develop a small, dry cough after approximately five days. Some cases of SARS can develop into bad cases of pneumonia resulting in depleted oxygen levels in the blood. If you do have SARS you should stay home because you don’t want to start a global pandemic! After symptoms go away, you should still stay home for approximately ten days to ensure that your illness is gone.

Knowing when to see a doctor can sometimes be difficult. If you have any of the signs or symptoms of SARS you should immediately seek medical assistance. Part of saving yourself from SARS is catching it early. If you let SARS go untreated for a long period of time then you may find that it becomes fatal. There is little chance that SARS will ever turn into another global pandemic. It is still important to monitor people for symptoms of SARS because there is always a possibility that the illness will resurface once again.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 24th August 2009

IS IT STILL WITH US?

Tuberculosis was a common and very deadly infectious disease that luckily is affecting fewer people since the world has available to it now a vaccine for it. Unfortunately, there are still a high number of people dying from this infection yearly. This disease, often abbreviated TB, is caused by mycobacteria such as Mycobacterrium tuberculosis. It most commonly attacks the lungs which is why it is associated and classified with other lung diseases and conditions. However, TB can also attack other parts of the body such as the central nervous system, circulatory system, bones, joints, skin and even the lymphatic system.

It may be shocking to know that over 1/3 of the world’s population has been exposed to the bacteria that cause TB at some time. However, not everyone who is exposed will contract TB. Some also have asymptomatic or latent tuberculosis infections. One in ten of these latent infections will develop into active TB. Untreated tuberculosis will kill more than half of people infected with it so if you know or suspect you have it, prompt treatment is crucial.

You should get to a doctor right away to be tested and treated for your TB infection before it worsens and causes death or severe, irreversible lung damage. TB also commonly affects people with AIDS, HIV and other immune-declining conditions. When the immune system is weakened, such as with these conditions, it makes it easier for the person to contract TB and harder for the body to fight it.

Symptoms of TB

Some symptoms of TB are chest pain, prolonged cough for more than three weeks, coughing up blood, fever, chills, night sweats, appetite loss, weight loss, pallor and fatigue. These symptoms are also common in other conditions and diseases and other lung conditions so if you think you may have been exposed to TB and are now showing these symptoms, you will need to see your doctor for a definite diagnosis.

How do you get tuberculosis?

There are different ways of contracting TB. It is contagious if you are around someone else who has it. The person with TB may expel the bacteria when they breathe, cough, sneeze, talk, kiss or spit. It can also be contracted from sharing needles with a person who is infected. People in high risk conditions such as health-care workers or those people on immune-suppressant drugs will need to be extra careful of contracting tuberculosis.

Treatment for tuberculosis involves an antibiotic to kill the bacteria that are causing the disease. You may also be given medications to ease your symptoms until the bacteria is gone. You many be quarantined until the active stage is passed and you are no longer contagious. Treatment is very important to ensure you can live a long and healthy life, even after you’ve had tuberculosis.

There have been numerous peoples who have fully recovered from this disease called TB.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 24th August 2009

]]> http://www.newcures.info/2009/08/tuberculosis-is-an-old-disease-with-a-comeback-issue/feed/ 0