Outbreak News Today

Just a few weeks after 100 employees and customers at a Simi Valley, CA Chipotle restaurant were sickened with norovirus, Minnesota health officials are reporting a Salmonella Newport outbreak affecting dozens who ate at some 17 restaurants state-wide. Forty-five (45) cases of Salmonella Newport infection have been reported to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) since […]

Philippines Bureau of Animal Industry officials announced today that macaque exports have been suspended after reports of 11 monkeys dying, with at least one of the dead monkeys confirmed positive for Ebola Reston Virus (ERV). Last weekend, Department of Health (DOH) officials announced that monkeys in at least one facility tested positive for the virus, […]

The Taiwan CDC reported an additional 581 dengue fever cases Wednesday putting the country’s total to 7,453, according to recently released data. Tainan City reported more than 87 percent (507) of the new cases yesterday. As dengue activity continues to peak, the number of cases in Tainan City is increasing rapidly and the number of […]

A study published this week in Cell Host and Microbe from a research team out of China and the US has shown that in children, telltale oral microorganisms can be prognosticators for progression of dental caries, or cavities. Dental caries are the most common form of oral infection in children. Once established, the infection is […]

Brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to change both anatomically and functionally in response to changes in the body or in the environment. For many years, researchers believed that the brain did not suffer major changes after childhood. Although brain plasticity predominates in the first years of life, research done in the last […]

Multiple System Atrophy (MSA), a neurodegenerative disorder with similarities to Parkinson’s disease, is caused by a newly discovered type of prion, akin to the misfolded proteins involved in incurable progressive brain diseases such Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), according to two new research papers led by scientists at UC San Francisco. The findings suggest new approaches to […]

A man who died from rabies last May has now been laboratory confirmed, according to the Rospotrebnadzor, or the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing. The 49-year-old man from Lipetsk Oblast is believed to have contracted the lethal virus from his pet cat, according to a Medik Forum report (computer translated). He was […]

Illinois health officials reported today two additional deaths in residents of the Illinois Veteran’s Home – Quincy, bringing the total fatalities to nine. The case count stands at 53 since the outbreak began in late August. In California, last week administrators at San Quentin State Prison (SQ) restored visiting and normal showering for inmates last Friday. As of […]

Dozens of additional cases of Salmonella Poona infections have been reported in the past several days in the multistate outbreak linked to cucumbers from Mexico, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports today. The case count has jumped by 56 since Sept. 4 including a second death, this one reported in Texas in a person […]

A deadly parasite that causes Chagas disease is widespread in a common Texas insect, according to a new study by University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) researchers. The finding suggests that the risk of Texans contracting the disease may be higher than previously thought. The parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), which causes Chagas disease […]

Safeway has recalled field cucumbers and various in-store produced products that contain cucumbers purchased from Safeway due to possible Salmonella contamination. Consumers should not consume the recalled products described below. This recall applies to fresh field cucumbers sold in bulk, unwrapped and various in-store produced products that contain cucumbers, such as Greek salad, vegetable trays, […]

In the span of 24 hours, Taiwan reported another nearly 600 cases of locally acquired dengue fever cases on Tuesday as the total cases in the country barrels toward 7,000. On Monday, the Taiwan CDC put the case tally at 6,312; however one day later health officials put the count at 6,872, an increase of 560 […]

Health officials from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Public Health encourage residents and visitors to take precautions to prevent mosquito-borne illness following a death from West Nile virus infection. This is North Carolina’s first death and first confirmed case in 2015. Further details regarding the deceased are not available to protect […]

A coalition of Lyme patient advocacy groups will hold rallies and a candlelight vigil on October 9 and 10 during the IDWeek medical conference in San Diego. IDWeek is organized by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). IDSA publishes guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease, which are followed by many physicians and […]

The number of pertussis, or whooping cough cases reported during the first eight months of 2015 than during the entire year in 2014, according to a El Diario report (computer translated). The Instituto de Salud Carlos III reports 4822 new pertussis cases since the beginning of the year and this compares with a total of 3,123 cases reported […]

Breaking a nail is one thing. Breaking a nail-biting habit is another, say member dermatologists from the American Academy of Dermatology. Nail biting typically begins in childhood and can continue through adulthood, and the side effects can be more than cosmetic, say dermatologists. “Chronic nail biting can cause serious problems,” said board-certified dermatologist Margaret E. […]

More than half of Asian Americans and nearly half of Hispanic Americans with diabetes are undiagnosed, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their results were published Sept. 8 in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. Additionally, prevalence of diabetes for all American […]

Hillsborough County, FL has reported it’s fourth Vibrio vulnificus case of the year, according to state health officials. This brings the total in Florida 26 cases and 11 deaths. The first three cases reported from the county were fatal. Legionnaires’ disease has been a big story this year with outbreaks peppered throughout the country. In […]

El Dorado County health officials have been notified by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) that a California ground squirrel in the Tahoe area has tested positive for plague. The dead squirrel was found at the Kiva picnic area (Promenade) adjacent to the Tallac Historic Site in South Lake Tahoe on August 17, 2015. […]

The Vietnamese Department of Preventive Medicine under the Ministry of Health reported Monday that from Jan. through August of this year, 25,000 dengue fever cases have been reported. Of this total, 16 deaths have occurred. This is an increase of more than double the number of cases seen last summer. Cities in both the north and […]

Two additional cases of measles have been identified in Brisbane, bringing to 10 the total number of cases reported since mid-July. Metro North Public Health Unit (MNPHU) Physician Dr James Smith said that unlike previous cases, neither of the two latest cases was a student at the University of Queensland, but both have links to […]

Since the last week of July, Executive North Regional Health officials have reported up to 16 Legionnaires’ disease cases in the second largest city of Porto, or Oporto, according to a health ministry press release (computer translated). The press release states 12 cases confirmed; however, local media put the case count at 16. According to […]

Indonesia is the second most common destination for Australian travelers, with 1.01 million journeys in the 2013–14 financial year. This is a 266% trend change compared with the 2003–04 financial year. Why is this significant? According to a case report published earlier this year in the Medical Journal of Australia, researchers describe cases of the […]

The oldest data available concerning Legionnaires’ disease (LD) in Hong Kong goes back to 1997 and the most cases reported in any single year was 2014 with 41 cases; however, that has changed with the report of an additional case in 2015 this weekend. Hong Kong health officials Sunday said they were investigating an LD […]

The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are ramping up measures in the battle against dengue fever, particularly in the south of the country, as the case tally continues to rise. Health officials established a forward command post to support the local governments in battling the ongoing dengue outbreaks. The purposes of establishing the forward command […]

The surge of dengue fever cases continue in Delhi as health officials report 430 cases during the first week of September, bringing the tally to 1,259 in the national capital. This includes two dengue-related fatalities. This is a huge increase compared top recent years in Delhi when the number of cases from January 1 to […]

The UK The Food Standards Agency announced that Morrisons supermarket has instituted a product recall of it’s Morrisons Savers Cooked Ham due to the risk of Listeria monocytogenes contamination. The recall applies to 200g packs of Saver Cooked Ham with a ‘Use By’ date of 11 September 2015. The Company has said that no other products or date […]

Writing today about the eco-terrorism threat to the society we live in seems to remind us of environmental activists, right-wing or left-wing extremists, who used to make plots against the government through vandalism for their radical attempt to make public and system to address specific issues as animal rights, pro-life and anti-nuclear policy. Those people are […]

Legionnaires’ disease has been in the headlines frequently of recent with outbreaks reported in the Bronx, Illinois, San Quentin and Ohio among others in just the past month or so. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says between 8,000 and 18,000 people are hospitalized with Legionnaires’ disease in the U.S annually. One scholar says […]

Last September, a Liberian man named Thomas Eric Duncan went to the Emergency Department of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas (THD) presenting with several non-specific symptoms and notified staff of his recent arrival from West Africa, where the world’s largest Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak was growing by leaps and bounds. As we know now, Mr […]

The West African country of Mali is on high alert after a circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) was detected in a child in the capital city of Bamako, according to health officials. This is the first case in the country since June 2011. Officials not that the case is a 19-month-old child from neighboring Guinea whose […]

In a follow-up to recent reports here on Outbreak News Today concerning the plague outbreak in Madagascar HERE and HERE, the World Health Organization (WHO) released an update Sunday with more details on what’s happening on the world’s 4th largest island. The Ministry of Health of Madagascar has notified WHO of an outbreak of plague. […]

Despite Taiwanese health officials saying they see the “end of the tunnel” with the dengue fever outbreak that has swept the country, particularly the south, the case count continues to climb by the hundreds daily. With an additional 400-plus cases reported yesterday, the total case count is nipping at the 6,000 mark. According to the Taiwan […]

In a follow-up report on a outbreak of pneumonic plague in a village near Moramanga, Madagascar, a ProMED report Saturday (computer translated) reveals there have been 12 cases of the very dangerous disease have now been reported in the village, overwhelming local physicians. During the first two days of diagnosis, eight of the 12 patients have […]

Health officials in the Philippines have seen a significant,in fact a three-fold increase in the number of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) cases reported during the first half of 2015, compared to the same period in 2014. The Epidemiology Bureau of the Department of Health reported 563 HFMD cases through the end of June […]

During the first eight months of 2015, Colombian health officials have reported nearly 650 cases of Chagas disease, more than 330,000 chikungunya cases, more than 60,000 dengue fever cases and nearly 5,000 cases of leishmaniasis. Below is more details on each of these disease categories. Chagas disease The Instituto Nacional de Salud reports that through […]

In a follow-up to a report last week concerning an outbreak of a gastrointestinal illness in the Person County Schools in North Carolina, health officials report laboratory testing results on samples analyzed. Since Wednesday, September 2, the Person County Health Department has been working closely with the Person County Schools, the North Carolina Division of Public […]

According to the Instituto Nacional de Salud in Colombia, there were more than 400 suspected meningitis cases reported in week 34 (Aug. 23-29); however, after discarding and ruling out cases, 245 laboratory confirmed (59%) and probable (41%) cases remained. The distribution by the types of bacterial meningitis is as follows: Neisseria meningitidis 59 (24.1%), Streptococcus […]

Fiji health officials are always on a constant watch for three infectious diseases– leptospirosis, dengue fever and typhoid fever, and now the concern is especially on leptospirosis. The Fiji Times says the island has recorded 148 cases of the bacterial disease so far, with most detected in the Western and Central divisions. “Leptospirosis is endemic to […]

Dr. Karen Smith, California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Director and State Health Officer, is advising health care providers to ‘Think measles’ when encountering patients showing the symptoms of rash and fever as the contagious viral disease is ever present around the world and can be imported into the state via international travel. “Measles continues to circulate […]

In a follow-up to the mumps outbreak in Illinois, state health officials now report 146 cases statewide, with 114 cases associated with the outbreak at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Last week, Robert D. Palinkas, MD, Director of the McKinley Health Center at UI said the number of new cases daily varies between two and four. In addition, two […]

A facility in the Philippines is housing monkeys that tested positive for Ebola Reston Virus (ERV) and the Department of Health (DOH) is trying to quell unnecessary fears. Health Secretary Janette P. Loreto Garin explained that ERV can be transmitted to humans, without resulting into illness. The threat to human health is likely to be […]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is reporting a human infection with a novel influenza A virus was reported by the state of Michigan. The person was infected with an influenza A (H3N2) variant (H3N2v) virus and was hospitalized in June 2015 as a result of their illness, but has fully recovered. No human-to-human […]

An individual from the Town of Salina, just outside of Syracuse, NY has contracted the mosquito borne viral disease, Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), the Onondaga County Health Department announced this week. According to Onondaga County Health Commissioner, Indu Gupta, MD, MPH, “The individual is currently hospitalized and is in critical condition. To protect the privacy of this […]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced today the investigation of a multistate Salmonella Poona outbreak linked to imported cucumbers from Mexico and distributed by Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce. Since July 3, 2015, 285 people infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Poona have been reported from 27 states. 53 ill people have been […]

In the final stages of a months-long public health collaboration in response to the diagnosis of serogroup B meningitis in two students last February, third doses of Trumenba vaccine will be administered to members of the Providence College community on Saturday. The clinic will be held in Peterson Field House from 9:30 a.m. to 6 […]

An update on the dengue situation in areas of Asia with heavy activity: Taiwan The island country has seen an extraordinary past 4 months with dengue fever. Since the start of the summer, Taiwan has reported 4,667 cases of the mosquito borne viral disease, with 88 percent (4,115) of them reported in the southern municipality of […]

Manitoba health officials are reporting the first case of human West Nile virus (WNV) in the province this year in a female in her 50s from the Southern Health–Santé Sud region. The patient did not experience neurological symptoms and was not hospitalized. She is believed to have been exposed during the week of July 26. Prior to […]

The E. coli O157 outbreak linked to Los Chilangos, a Bellevue, WA-based food truck has grown to 10, according to officials with the Seattle and King County Public Health Department Thursday. Los Chilangoes reopened Wednesday after they took all actions that the health department has required to resume safe operations going forward to include: Disposed of all food that […]

School officials in Person County, North Carolina say nearly 700 students (about one out of seven) did not come to school today and a number left school early due to an outbreak of a gastrointestinal disease with symptoms resembling norovirus, according to local media outlets. Officials do clarify that its not clear how many are […]