Jonny Tickle – July 17, 2020

While the spread of Covid-19 is starting to slow down in Russia, the world’s largest country may have another outbreak on its doorstep.

An expert in Mongolia has warned that the bubonic plague may spread throughout the country on Russia’s border.

Bandikhuu Amgalanbayar, the deputy director of Mongolia’s National Center for the Study of Zoonotic Infections, has warned that over a hundred districts in 17 of the 21 provinces are at risk of a bubonic plague outbreak. Russia and Mongolia share an almost 3,500km border.

The potential of an outbreak first came to light on July 3, when Mongolian media reported that a man and a woman from Mongolia’s western Khovd region were suspected of having contracted the disease after eating raw marmot meat.

Less than two weeks later, on July 16, Mongolian doctors announced another suspected case of the plague, when a 16-year-old had a high temperature after eating marmot meat. Just days before, a 15-year-old died from the disease before getting to the hospital.

https://www.rt.com

Julie Celestial – October 14, 2020

Authorities reported Monday, October 12, 2020, that a new mass die-off of marine animals has been discovered off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka, where mysterious toxic pollution along a 40 km (25 miles) stretch recently killed 95 percent of seabed animals and caused health hazards among surfers since September.

Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov said he received reports from scientists and witnesses of dead marine creatures off the coast, following the initial discovery last week.

Divers who studied the waters reported that 95 percent of seabed creatures were found dead, including sea urchins, octopi, seals, and starfish. Greenpeace Russia called the situation an “ecological disaster,” which prompted authorities to investigate marine pollution.

“95 percent are dead,” said Ivan Usatov of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve in a meeting with other scientists and Solodov. “Some large fish, shrimps, and crabs have survived, but in very small numbers.”

Solodov noted that neighboring beaches were not affected, but the evidence showed that “the scale of the occurrence is extremely large.”

He added that the deaths were “almost certainly linked to climate change and other polluting effects we as humankind cause to the Pacific Ocean.”

“We can’t say that a local man-made object near [the port city of] Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky was the cause,” the governor said.

https://watchers.news

Ricky Scaparo – October 10, 2020

(ETH) – A deadly pathogen called scarlet fever was once the leading cause of death for children across the western world and was nearly eradicated thanks to 20th-century medicine but new outbreaks of it have surfaced in the UK and North East Asia over recent years suggesting we’ve still got a long way to go

The reason we are experiencing a resurgence of this deadly pathogen still remains a mystery. However, a new study has reportedly uncovered clues in the genome of one of the bacterial strains responsible, showing just how complex the family tree of infectious diseases can be.

According to the report from Science Alert, The species behind the illness is group A strep, or Streptococcus pyogenes; which is a ball-shaped microbe that can churn out toxic compounds called superantigens, that are capable of wreaking havoc inside the body. Especially in children. Results of this in the body can cause mild symptoms such as a bad rash and be as severe as causing a toxic shock that causes organs to fail.

With the invention of antibiotics, outbreaks could easily be managed before they got out of hand. By the 1940s, the disease was well on the way out but this looks to be changing. “After 2011, the global reach of the pandemic became evident with reports of a second outbreak in the UK,

beginning in 2014, and we’ve now discovered outbreak isolates here in Australia,” says the University of Queensland molecular biologist Stephan Brouwer. “This global re-emergence of scarlet fever has caused a more than five-fold increase in disease rate and more than 600,000 cases around the world.”

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Strange Sounds – October 9, 2020

Another threat from the East is invading America! And this time it’s not a virus but a giant spider!

Kathy Ramatowski is the kind of person who doesn’t scare easily, but some things can push a person to their limits.

“The first one was on the deck in the back. I was like, ‘What is that?’”

“That” was a spider outside her Dacula home. Not just any spider, but one that is more than four inches long.

In a year that already brought us murder hornets and giant lizards, more people are now seeing the Joro spider.

University of Georgia agriculture extension agent James Murphy says the Joro spider is traditionally found in China, Japan and Korea but it’s also apparently in north Georgia.

“If you fully stretch out those legs, maybe up to around five inches in particularly large individuals,” Murphy said.

Murphy says spiders may have stowed away in crates that came through Atlanta’s airport at some point.

The good news is they are not deadly. The bad news is a four-inch spider has large fangs and if they bite, it can hurt.

https://strangesounds.org

Guardian – September 26, 2020

Texas officials have warned residents of some communities near Houston to stop using tap water because it might be tainted with a deadly brain-eating microbe.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality warned the Brazosport Water Authority late on Friday of the potential contamination of its water supply by Naegleria fowleri.

The commission issued an advisory warning people not to use tap water for any reason except to flush toilets in Lake Jackson, Freeport, Angleton, Brazoria, Richwood, Oyster Creek, Clute and Rosenberg.

Those communities are home to about 120,000 people. Also affected are the Dow Chemical works in Freeport, which has 4,200 employees, and the Clemens and Wayne Scott state prison units, which have 2,345 inmates and 655 employees.

The Brazosport Water Authority’s water source is the Brazos river.

Naegleria fowleri is a microscopic amoeba commonly found in warm freshwater and soil, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It usually infects people when contaminated water enters the body through the nose, from where it travels to the brain and can cause a rare and debilitating disease called primary amebic meningoencephalitis.

The infection is usually fatal and typically occurs when people go swimming or diving in warm freshwater places such as lakes and rivers. In very rare instances, Naegleria infections may also occur when contaminated water from other sources, such as inadequately chlorinated swimming pool water or heated and contaminated tap water, enters the nose.

https://www.theguardian.com

Strange Sounds – September 20, 2020

Another outbreak in China has sparked a wave of concern among authorities after thousands of people in the northern part of the country tested positive for a bacterial infection.

The infection spread among people working in a state-owned biopharmaceutical plant in Lanzhou city, which produces animal vaccines after a leak occurred last year.

Here’s what you need to know about the new Brucellosis outbreak:
According to Chinese authorities, the biopharmaceutical plant had used expired disinfectants for producing Brucella vaccines for animals between July and August last year. This indicated that the bacteria was not eradicated in the factory exhaust.

Subsequently, the contaminated gas from the factory formed aerosols containing the bacteria, which was then carried by wind to a nearby Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute. This resulted in infecting close to 200 people there as well in December last year.

There are 3,245 people who have contracted Brucellosis, according to health officials in Lanzhou.

Another 1,401 people also tested as an early positive for the disease, news agency AFP reported.

The total positive cases also included 20 students and faculty members of Lanzhou University, some of whom had been to the institute.

https://strangesounds.org

Bethany Ao – September 14, 2020

Rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea are increasing among women ages 18 to 30 in the United States, a recent study by Quest Diagnostics suggests

The study, recently published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, analyzed more than 17 million laboratory samples taken between 2010 and 2017 from females ages 12 to 30. Researchers found that while there was a decline in cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea among adolescents ages 12 to 17, women of ages 25 to 30 experienced a 50% increase in positive test results. Women 18 to 24 had a 21% increase in positive test results over the period of the study.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends annual screenings for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among sexually active women under 25, said Harvey Kaufman, director of Quest’s Health Trends Research Program. For women 25 and older, the CDC recommends screenings only for those with specific risk factors, such as reporting that their sex partner may have a concurrent sex partner. Kaufman, a co-author of the study, said the findings suggest that sexual and contraceptive practices have changed since 2002, when the CDC guidelines were first published.

Kaufman pointed out that the CDC guidelines were largely influenced by a 1998 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found that the overall rate of chlamydia among female Army recruits was 9.2%. As a result, the authors of the study recommended a screening program for female recruits 25 and under.

https://www.inquirer.com

Strange Sounds – September 11, 2020

Experts in southwest Louisiana say clouds of mosquitoes have been so thick since Hurricane Laura that they’re killing cattle and horses.

According to first estimates, hundreds of cattle and a few horses have been killed in a five-parish area in southwest Louisiana.

Veterinarian Craig Fontenot of Ville Platte says the swarms drain animals’ blood and animals also become exhausted from constantly moving in an attempt to avoid the biting insects.

LSU AgCenter agent Jeremy Hebert said he has spoken to several cattle owners who have lost as many as eight animals. He had also heard of three mosquito-related deaths of horses.

Fontenot estimates that hundreds of cattle and a few horses have been killed in his five-parish area.

“There’s a lot on the verge of dying,” Fontenot said.

LSU AgCenter agents say spraying has begun to thin the hordes pushed out of marshes by the storm that made landfall Aug. 27.

https://strangesounds.org

Strange Sounds – August 9, 2020

A new infectious disease caused by a tick-borne virus has killed over seven people and infected 60 others in China, official media here reported on Wednesday, warning about the possibility of its human-to-human transmission.

More than 37 people in East China’s Jiangsu Province contracted with the SFTS Virus in the first half of the year. Later, 23 people were found to have been infected in East China’s Anhui province, state-run Global Times quoted media reports.

A woman from Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu, who suffered from the virus showed onset of symptoms such as fever, coughing. Doctors found a decline of leukocyte, blood platelet inside of her body. After a month of treatment, she was discharged from the hospital.

At least seven people have died in Anhui and East China’s Zhejiang province due to the virus, the report said. SFTS Virus is not a new virus. China has isolated pathogen of the virus in 2011, and it belongs to the Bunyavirus category.

Virologists believe that the infection may have been passed on to humans by ticks and that the virus can be transmitted between humans, it said.

Sheng Jifang, a doctor from the first affiliated hospital under Zhejiang University, said that the possibility of human-to-human transmission could not be excluded; patients can pass the virus to others via blood or mucous.

https://strangesounds.org

Aleksandra Serebriakova – August 18, 2020

A locust invasion has been sweeping parts of East Africa and South Asia since the start of the year, leading to food shortages across the region. But it appears that this isn’t the only insect plague the world is currently facing – and one no less severe than the former.

More than seven hundred million cubic metres of trees were wiped out in British Columbia between 2000 and 2015 by mountain pine beetles, a tiny species native to North American forests, according to Bloomberg, as decades-worth of lumber supplies are being eradicated across the world as a result of the pest’s invasion. With around 2.2 million hectares having already been affected by beetles, the outbreak is expected to continue for the next six years.

The tiny creature, just 5mm in length, was once part of the forest cycle, but as winters grew warmer due to climate change, the beetles were able to survive in greater numbers and chew through tree bark, with flowing resin attracting even more of them. As a result, with thousands of the insects eating on the trees and laying their eggs inside, hundreds of millions of pines across Canada’s timber-rich region were doomed to die.

British Columbia is Canada’s largest supplier of logs to the United States, Bloomberg notes, with the beetle plague eventually signaling potential shortages for both the American and global housing market. The pests have already destroyed 15 years’ worth of timber supplies in the province, material sufficient to build around nine million one-family houses. According to estimates by the Vancouver-based Spar Tree Group, the allowable production in British Columbia has been reduced by 40%, as it is believed that more than half of the region’s marketable pine trees will be dead by 2020.

https://sputniknews.com