Tag: (WHO)

Fresh outbreaks of highly contagious bird flu confirmed in Europe

RT – November 8, 2021

Several outbreaks of the highly contagious H5N1 avian flu have cropped up across Poland’s poultry farms, affecting over half a million birds, animal health officials have said. An outbreak was also confirmed in England on Monday.

The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) revealed the Polish outbreaks on Monday, saying that five were documented in the eastern part of the country alone. Four of the instances were at turkey-fattening facilities, and one at a chicken broiler farm. Meanwhile in western Poland, another outbreak was discovered at a turkey and geese farm.

Nearly 650,000 fowl at the country’s farms have been contaminated with the highly pathogenic bird flu, the OIE said.

In a statement released by Poland’s Chief Inspectorate Veterinary on Saturday, the body said that it implements disease control measures at farms which suffer bird flu outbreaks. These actions can include killing infected animals, deep cleaning and disinfecting contaminated areas, and establishing designated infectious zones.

Warsaw is not alone in facing a bird flu outbreak. A 3km protection zone, as well as a 10km radius for surveillance purposes, was established on Monday in the UK county of Warwickshire, following an outbreak of the deadly influenza strain at a small poultry unit.

Poultry owners in this zone will be required to record the details of any visitors, to stop the spread of the highly contagious strain. Meanwhile, any owners in the 3km sphere will have to isolate their birds.

H5N1 is estimated to have a mortality rate of around 53% in humans who contract the disease following contact with infected fowl. Between 2003 and October 2021, 863 human infections with H5N1 have been recorded globally, according to World Health Organization data, with 456 of these proving fatal.

https://www.rt.com

New “Pandemic Potential” Brain-Destroying-Virus With 75% Death Rate Spreading In India

Summit News – September 7, 2021

A different virus classified by the World Health Organisation as having ‘pandemic potential’ is spreading more than usual due to care shortages caused by COVID.

The London Telegraph reports that the Nipah virus, which attacks the brain and has an up to 75% fatality rate, has killed a twelve year old boy who was shunted around five different hospitals because of COVID.

It is believed that the boy came into contact with close to 200 people, with two health workers and the boys mother already in isolation after developing the symptoms, which are similar to those of COVID.

The Nipah virus has been known since 1998, but has been contained, with the worst outbreak occurring twenty years ago in West Bengal when 45 out of 66 people infected with the virus died.

The bat-borne virus was the inspiration for the movie Contagion, and while more deadly than COVID it spreads less efficiently.

Health authorities in Kerala where the boy died are urging people to get tested for Nipah, with lockdowns being implemented in the surrounding regions.

“People should continue to wear masks and practice social distancing to stop the Nipah virus from spreading. In hospitals, doctors and nurses can also wear PPE,” said Kerla doctor Arun N Madhavan.

The Telegraph notes that “There are currently no drugs available to treat Nipah, although the WHO has identified the virus as a priority disease for the development of a vaccine.”

In June, The Oxford University team of virologists who developed the COVID AstraZeneca vaccine announced that they had made a “big step forward” in testing the Nipah vaccine.

https://summit.news

West Africa placed on high alert as first case of deadly Ebola-like Marburg virus with 88% fatality rate detected

End Time Headlines – August 10, 2021

(ETH) – A highly infectious hemorrhagic virus similar to Ebola has been detected for the first time in West Africa, triggering a rush to identify potential contacts and squash the outbreak before it spreads.

According to the Telegraph, the Marburg virus was detected in a male patient in Guinea who has since died, according to the World Health Organization. The pathogen is from the same family of viruses as Ebola, but it has no known vaccines or treatments and a fatality rate as high as 88 percent.

The individual sought treatment in the Gueckedou province, a region in southeast Guinea close to both Sierra Leone and Liberia, raising some concerns that it could jump across the borders. “The potential for the Marburg virus to spread far and wide means we need to stop it in its tracks,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, adding that Guinea’s health workers had instigated “quick investigative action”.

According to Sky News, Symptoms include a high fever and muscle pain, but some patients later suffer bleeding from their eyes and ears. After the male patient sought treatment and died in Gueckedou, the case was confirmed by a laboratory in Guinea and again by the Institut Pasteur in nearby Senegal. Contact tracing is under way, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Gueckedou was the location of Guinea’s 2014 to 2016 Ebola outbreak, which went on to kill 11,325 people. According to the Guardian, There have been 12 major Marburg outbreaks since 1967, mostly in southern and eastern Africa. Guinea’s new case was first identified last week, just two months after the country was declared free of Ebola following a brief flare-up earlier this year that killed 12 people.

The patient, who has since succumbed to the illness, first sought treatment at a local clinic before his condition rapidly deteriorated, the WHO said on Monday. Analysts at Guinea’s national haemorrhagic fever laboratory and the Institute Pasteur in Senegal later confirmed the Marburg diagnosis.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Russia reports world’s first case of human infection with H5N8 bird flu

Polina Devitt, Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber – February 20, 2021

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has registered the first case of a strain of bird flu virus named A(H5N8) being passed to humans from birds and has reported the matter to the World Health Organization (WHO), Anna Popova, head of consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said on Saturday.

Outbreaks of the H5N8 strain have been reported in Russia, Europe, China, the Middle East and North Africa in recent months but so far only in poultry. Other strains – H5N1, H7N9 and H9N2 – have been known here) to spread to humans.

Russia reported the case of human infection to the WHO “several days ago, just as we became absolutely certain of our results,” Popova said on Rossiya 24 state TV. There was no sign yet of transmission between humans, she added.

Seven workers at a poultry plant in Russia’s south had been infected with the H5N8 strain in an outbreak at the plant in December, Popova said, adding that the individuals involved felt fine now. “This situation did not develop further,” she said.

In an email WHO’s European arm said it had been notified by Russia about a case of human infection with H5N8 and acknowledged this would if confirmed be the first time the strain had infected people.

https://www.reuters.com

Brain-swelling Nipah virus 75 times more deadly than coronavirus may be next pandemic, scientists warn of ‘The Big One’

Jamie Micklethwaite  – February 21, 2021

A brain-swelling disease 75 times more deadly than coronavirus could mutate to become the next pandemic killing millions, scientists have warned.

Experts told the Sun Online how a number of emerging diseases could trigger another global outbreak – and this time it could be “The Big One”.

The fruit bat-borne virus Nipah is a prime candidate for serious concern, they fear.

Severe brain swelling, seizures and vomiting are just some of the symptoms of this highly potent disease — which was first discovered in 1999 in Malaysia.

Outbreaks in south and southeast Asia show the virus to be extremely deadly, with a death rate of between 40 to 75 per cent.

COVID-19’s fatality rate is around one per cent, according to Imperial College, so a Nipah pandemic would kill many more people.

It has also been named by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as one of 16 priority pathogens for research and development due to its potential to trigger an epidemic.

And chillingly, Nipah is just one of 260 known viruses with epidemic potential.

https://www.news.com.au

Ebola outbreak: WHO puts six countries on urgent alert as deaths spread

Simon Osborne – February 16, 2021

HEALTH chiefs have warned of a looming Ebola crisis after fresh outbreaks were reported in Guinea and Democratic Republic of Congo.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has put six neighbouring African countries on alert after a resurgence of the deadly virus. WHO’s Margaret Harris said: “We have already alerted the six countries around, including of course Sierra Leone and Liberia, and they are moving very fast to prepare and be ready and to look for any potential infection.”

Guinea has recorded up to 10 suspected cases of Ebola and five people have died since the start of a new outbreak of the deadly virus in the southeast of the West African nation.

Guinea’s ministry of health said it had identified 115 contacts of the known cases in the city of Nzerekore in the country’s south east and 10 in the capital Conakry since the outbreak was confirmed on Sunday.

Unlike the deadliest known outbreak, which tore through West Africa between 2013 and 2016, Guinean authorities have said they are better prepared to stop the spread of the virus.

https://www.express.co.uk

UK Professor Who Warned WHO About COVID-19 Says ‘Disease X’ Pandemic is Around Corner

Sputnik News – January 28, 2021

The development comes a day after Bill Gates said that the world is not ready for the next pandemic. The Microsoft co-founder, who is at the forefront of the campaign to eradicate COVID-19, said the next outbreak could be ten times worse than the current one and called on the international community to prepare for future challenges.

A leading British scientist has warned that a pandemic of “Disease X” is around the corner, noting that it is not a matter of if, but when the world will face another daunting challenge. Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the Usher Institute at the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh, said he and his colleagues in 2017 approached the World Health Organisation, asking the agency to place something called Disease X on its list of priorities.

“We thought that the next emerging pandemic might be a virus that we don’t even know about yet – quite frankly we thought it was the most likely scenario”, Woolhouse said.

At a meeting with WHO officials a year later, Woolhouse and his colleagues thought about what Disease X could wind up being. One of their hypotheses suggested that it would be a novel coronavirus related to MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) or SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).

Asked whether the next Disease X could potentially be around the corner, the scientist responded “absolutely”. Woolhouse noted, however, that the mechanism by which the disease will break out is always unpredictable.

https://sputniknews.com

‘Super Gonorrhea’ is spreading like wildfire thanks to COVID-19

– December 23rd, 2020

2020 hasn’t been kind to anyone, but it’s almost over. Unfortunately, if you find yourself with a case of “Super Gonnorhea” you might feel the effects of this terrible year for an extended period of time. Doctors are now warning of the increasing spread of the antibiotic-resistant strain of STI, and they’re blaming the coronavirus pandemic for helping it gain momentum.

According to a report from The Sun, the problem has gotten so bad that the World Health Organization has taken notice. The issue is that as the coronavirus pandemic was ongoing, many clinics and hospitals used antibiotics in the treatment of patients and to prevent the cross-infection of hospitalized individuals. That overuse of antibiotics has given a boost to antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, according to WHO.

Antibiotics are great. They have saved countless lives and provided mankind with the incredible power to rid ourselves of problematic microbes. Unfortunately, as the decades began to pile up, the very microorganisms we fought using antibiotics began to find ways around them. Now, several types of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are known to exist, and these “superbugs” require more complex treatment that sometimes includes multiple antibiotics or newer versions of drugs that are not yet compromised.

In the case of gonorrhea, the bacterium that causes the infection has, over time, adapted to common first-line treatments. In particular, the new “super” strain of the infection doesn’t respond to treatment with azithromycin, which has long been the go-to medication option.

“Overuse of antibiotics in the community can fuel the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in gonorrhoea,” a WHO spokesperson told The Sun. “Azithromycin – a common antibiotic for treating respiratory infections – was used for Covid-19 treatment earlier in the epidemic.”

“During the pandemic, STI services have also been disrupted. This means more STI cases are not diagnosed properly with more people self-medicating as a result. Such a situation can fuel emergence of resistance in gonorrhea including gonorrhea superbug (super gonorrhoea) or gonorrhoea with high level resistance to current antibiotics recommended to treat it.”

The worst part is that the number of people reporting a new gonorrhea infection is growing year-over-year, to the tune of about 17%. That means more and more people are getting the infection, and the antibiotic-resistant strain of the bacteria has an even larger population of people to further its adaptation to medications and other treatments.

https://bgr.com

WHO urges govts to fight malaria as death toll from disease may exceed Covid-19 in sub-Saharan Africa

Baz Ratner – November 30, 2020

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday that gaps in access to life-saving tools are undermining efforts to curb malaria, as deaths from the disease will far exceed those killed by Covid-19 in sub-Saharan Africa.

In its latest World Malaria Report’, the WHO says progress against malaria continues to plateau. In some African states, the fight against the mosquito-borne disease has been set back due to gaps in access to life-saving tools, with disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic only aggravating the situation.

Last year, more than 409,000 people were killed by malaria globally, and most of them were children in the impoverished parts of Africa.

The toll may be higher this year. “Our estimates are that depending on the level of service disruption … there could be an excess of malaria deaths of somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 in sub-Saharan Africa, most of them in young children,” said Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO’s malaria program.

Even moderate disruptions in access to treatment could lead to a considerable loss of life, the WHO said. A 10 percent disruption in access to effective antimalarial treatment in sub-Saharan Africa could lead to 19 000 additional deaths, while disruptions of 25 and 50 percent could result in an additional 46,000 and 100,000 deaths respectively.Despite recent achievements, progress in fighting the disease in the region has stalled, Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, warned.

https://www.rt.com

Undiagnosed HIV rising in Eastern Europe, Central Asia: agencies

Terra Daily – November 26, 2020

The EU’s disease control agency and the WHO on Thursday called for better HIV testing to spot cases early following rising undiagnosed cases especially in Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia.

Early detection of the virus that causes AIDS mitigates the impact on the patient and prevents further spread.

A report by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional office for Europe showed that in 2019, more than 136,000 cases of HIV were diagnosed across the WHO European region, with 80 percent of cases in its eastern parts.

The WHO’s European Region comprises 53 countries and includes Russia and several countries in Central Asia.

The report did however not include data from member states Andorra, Belgium, Monaco, North Macedonia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Roughly half of the European HIV cases were diagnosed at a late stage of infection, “when the immune system has already started to fail,” the agencies said, calling it “a sign that testing strategies in the region are not working properly to diagnose HIV early.”

The authors of the report added that late diagnosis increased the risk of “ill health, death and onward HIV transmission,” and called for new strategies to improve testing.

“Despite the focus on Covid-19 right now, we must not lose sight of other public health issues like HIV. Earlier diagnosis of HIV is an urgent priority,” ECDC director Andrea Ammon said in a statement.

https://www.terradaily.com