Carol Sun Nov 27, 2011 10:46 am
November 26, 2011 – NEW GUINEA – The World Health Organization is warning of the potential for an untreatable form of tuberculosis to develop on Australia’s doorstep. It says infections of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) in Papua New Guinea’s remote south-west have reached crisis levels. The country’s health minister says tuberculosis is now a greater health emergency than HIV/AIDS. Dr Catharina Van Weezenbeek, from the World Health Organization, says it is now clear the problem is in a state of emergency. “If you just look at the numbers of MDR TB cases, it’s clear that we’re dealing with a crisis,” she said. “Children 14-years-old infected with MDR TB in a family with already five patients dying.” A research team from WHO found the rural health centers are rundown with very limited or no medical supplies. There is no TB coordinator in the region so no one is monitoring patients to ensure they stick to the lengthy treatment of drugs required to beat the disease, meaning many do not. WHO’s Dr Donald Enarson says that has led to the emergence of MDR TB. “Multi-drug resistance has passed from being created from bad treatment to now being established in a community by itself and spreading among community members,” he said. Local medical records show 94 people have contracted MDR TB in Western Province since 2005. But the records are incomplete and WHO suspects those cases are just the tip of a much bigger iceberg. The organization’s MDR TB expert, Dr Ernesto Jaramillo, says the situation has the potential to get much worse. “When treatment is delivered under the current conditions which many patients are having, then it’s a matter of months or years before we have forms of TB that cannot be cured,” she said. -ABC
November 26, 2011 – IOWA – A new type of flu virus has afflicted three children in Iowa. This virus has been linked to pigs in the past, but these new cases appear to have been spread from person to person. Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, medical director for the Iowa Department of Public Health, said that the children did not become seriously ill. The children live in rural Webster and Hamilton counties. There is concern about a potentially greater outbreak of the flu because the swine origin A/H3N2 virus was detected in patients who hadn’t had contact with animals. Quinlisk said, “We have pretty good evidence of person-to-person spread…None of the children or anyone around them had exposure to swine, turkeys or other sources.” The new H3N2 virus appears to have acquired a gene that might make it more transmissible from H1N1, the flu that sparked 2009′s so-called swine flu pandemic. Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had previously detected seven cases of this strain of the flu in humans. Genetic parts are often swapped by flu viruses. Officials suspect that the new virus was created when a pig became infected with the H1N1 virus and the H3N2 virus at the same time. The new virus combines elements of avian, human, H1N1 and swine flu viruses together into what scientists call a recombinant virus. Since the first new H3N2 case was found in a child in Indiana in July, there have been cases found in Pennsylvania, Maine and Iowa. Health officials stressed that there is no cause for panic over the Iowa cases of H3N2. Symptom of the H3N2 flu are similar to those of the regular seasonal flu, including cough, fever, fatigue, loss of appetite and body aches. –Imperfect Parent
