What's Next? Bacterial "Carpooling"?

This article informed readers of what the new term "backpacking bacteria" means in the medical community. To read the complete article, click here.

"Cargo-carrying bacteria" may solve the problems of nano-technology in the future years to do things such as to "prevent, diagnose and treat disease." Nano-technology presents itself with the major problem of making devices small enough. It is extremely difficult to create a self-sustaining motors and propulsion mechanisms at the right size (one-million on a pin head).

At the 243rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in San Diego, Dr. David H Gracias explained the advancements they have made in the "backpacking bacteria" technology.

"Currently, it is hard to engineer micro-particles or nano-particles capable of self-propelled motion in well-defined trajectories under biologically relevant conditions," said Gracias. "Bacteria can do this easily and we have established that bacteria can carry cargo."

There are several benefits to using bacteria. Bacteria respond and react to particular signals. This means that it is feasible to master the direction in the body so when they reach their destination they can "deposit" their "cargo" and grow naturally. Also, bacteria are not abnormal beings within the human body. "The total population of bacterial cells we harbor outnumbers the population of our human cells by 10 to 1." Using bacteria is safe and harmless.

Gracias has testes the bacteria with various forms (shapes and sizes) of the "cargo." "For example, they have used them to ferry nano-wires, beads and lithographically fabricated nano-structures."

Other scientists and teams have worked to create what are called "bacterial carpets". These bacterial carpets are large numbers of bacteria that move tiny bits of material.

Gracias and his team are individually focusing on transporting nano-cargoes. They call these "bio-hybrid devices." The devices move about freely attached to their cargo.

Although they are still in the "exploratory stage," they are experimenting with different types of methods to discover what may possibly prove useful in the backpacking bacteria technology.

"Our next steps would be to test the feasibility of the backpacking bacteria for diagnosing and treating disease in laboratory experiments. If that proves possible, we would move on to tests in laboratory mice."

According to Gracias, the completion of this technology may take several years.

Marine Microorganisms to Cure Malaria?

The article I read was about a possible new "cure" or vaccine for malaria. If you want to read the whole article, you can click here.

Malaria is a difficult disease to try to cure in many regions because it has adapted and become resistant to many of the vaccines previously used. So researchers in Florida have been trying to find a new molecular compound in marine microbes found deep under the ocean's surface.

A scientist at the University of Central Florida, Dr. Debopam Chakrabarti, recently received a grant to research marine microorganisms in a hope to develop an anti-malarial drug. Chakrabarti and a team of researchers have formed alliances with a few oceanographic institutes in order to aid in acquiring the marine microorganisms for their experiments.

Based on past research, they've already found 250 compounds that could be effective in combating malaria and hope to find more what with the extreme diversity of sea life.

However, finding the compounds in the first place is not the only obstacle these researchers will face. They then need to test each compounds, not only for effectiveness against malaria, but also to ensure the compound won't kill the person or cause other harmful side effects. And once that's finished, they need to develop a drug that is easy to manufacture and cheap to make, so it has to follow a few rules outlined in the article.

All of it has been a long but very important process already, and it's just getting started. The statistics stated at the bottom of the article just go to show how very important this mission is for many regions of the world, but some people believe that it might be impractical seeing as how many of the regions still facing epidemics of malaria are impoverished.

Overall, the article was pretty hopeful in my opinion. Even though malaria has been eradicated in the US, many countries like Africa still face epidemics and the drug resistance is a huge problem for them. If these researchers do find a compound in marine microorganisms that is effective against malaria, it could be a huge step in creating a vaccine that might not be so susceptible to resistance.

This article connects to our class because it relates to immunology and vaccinations, which we recently and currently are talking about. We've been talking about vaccination almost since the beginning, like when we talked about inoculation with small pox. Also, malaria has mutated, which is how it has become resistant to many anti-malarial drugs, which we talked about when we did influenza and that antigenic shift activity. Lastly, it deals with an infectious epidemic disease that has been eradicated within the US, like polio, but still runs rampant in other countries.

Drug Resistant Malaria

Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite through the bite of a fly. The small parasite multiplies quickly inside your red blood cells and you can start seeing symptoms sometimes within days. The disease has always been a major problem because proper care and medicine was not being given to those in third world countries who were getting this disease. But with the right care and treatment malaria is fairly treatable.

It was not until recently that a new from of Malaria has been discovered. The World Health Organization has declared this new strain a drug-resistant falciparum malaria. This new malaria has spread to new territory in Thailand and is increasingly not responding to treatment. The WHO fears that in the future the common drug, piperaquine, will no longer have any effect on the disease and the amount of cases will start to rise.

This frightening story reminds me of the story Mountains Beyond Mountains, and how Dr. Farmer had to deal with the fear of the new strain of TB that was also drug resistant. Hopefully the WHO can come up with a new treatment for the malaria before it turns into a pandemic.

http://www.promedmail.org/

New Strain of Whooping Cough

This Article published March 22^nd by MyHealthNewsDaily stated that a new strain of whooping cough has increased its prevalence now. Whooping Cough known as “Pertussis” is a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable coughing. The coughing can make it hard to breathe.

A new study conducted said that cases of whooping couch caused by this new strain have increased from 31% to 84% in the past ten years. Researches believe they must make changes in the vaccine, or increase the number of boosters.

Australia has had a Whooping Cough epidemic since 2008; most extremely affecting children age’s five to nine. Doctors believe this new strand is affecting this age group because in 1997 they switched over to a purified vaccine with fewer antigens, which contain proteins to develop immunity. One doctor named Lan said "If the ACV is less effective against these new strains, we need to ask what other strategies can be used to combat the epidemic, which is ongoing,"

This article relates to the unit we did for the flu. That is because Whooping Cough has developed into a new strain more immune to vaccines, and that’s what also happened with the flu. This caused the development of a new vaccine. Also they are both respiratory diseases. I thought that this article was very interesting because it shows the ability for a virus to develop immunity to a vaccine that is supposed to be preventing it from us. Also it’s an important disease that we need eradicated because infants are the ones most at risk for dieing from it.

http://www.myhealthnewsdaily.com/2382-whopping-cough-strain.html

Cases of Tuberculosis Hit Record Low in U.S.

This was an interesting article on the state of Tuberculosis in the U.S. TB is a disease spread person to person by germs in the air. Symptoms include fever, weakness, and coughing. Left untreated the disease can potentially be fatal.

Although cases were down by 6.4% from 2010 to 2011 but it is important to note that infection rates in certain ethnic groups have raised significantly. A service officer for the CDC commented on the situation, "Despite the fact that TB is declining it is important to be vigilant about TB and the hardest-hit communities." Asians specifically experienced a 25% increase in the number of cases now with the highest number of cases of TB.

Strangely enough it was also found that there is a 12% higher risk of getting TB for those who are born out of the country. Also, people with HIV are at a great risk of contracting the disease. Some 8% of HIV victims also become infected with TB.

The article also emphasizes the fact that although the numbers overall are decreasing, there is still a potential for TB to become pandemic. This is due to the fact that drug resistant TB is becoming a world-wide problem. To fight off this new strain it is important to have a better diagnostic test so that treatment can start as soon as possible. But on the downside, the drugs used to treat this TB are more expensive, more toxic and take almost twice the amount of time as the usual TB drugs.

Originally there had been a goal to eradicate TB by 2010. Obviously that didn’t happen. As is now it doesn’t look like eradication is even plausible in the next 90 years. But, the CDC is working to decrease the span of that goal. So, the good of increased awareness has to be taken with the bad of the drug resistant cases of TB that are becoming more frequent.

This article is important because it highlights the important issues of TB while also putting it all in context. It was also really interesting to see how differently ethnic groups can be affected by the same disease. It brings up the same question that we have looked into a few times in class.

The article: U.S. Tuberculosis Cases Hit Record Low, CDC Says

A Real Life Zombie Disease

Only in movies and television shows has an infectious, “zombie”, disease existed. However, in the African country of Uganda, a real life one seems to exist. No this disease does not turn people into flesh eating zombies. Instead, the disease gives its victims epileptic type symptoms, leading to severe mental and physical handicaps. This disease is known as the “Nodding Disease.”
After a child is infected, they become restless and have trouble thinking. They then begin to have constant head nods which eventually lead to seizures. These symptoms leave many of the children unable to think, or move correctly. Many children can only use their arms to drag themselves. In many cases, children have to be tied up for their own safety. “Reportedly the children gnaw at their fabric restraints, like a rabid animal.” Thus, the children are like zombies, unable to think and move correctly.

“Nodding Disease” gets its name from the intense nodding of the head it gives its victims. Over 3,000 children in Uganda are affected by this disease. No cure or origin has been found for this disease. However, scientists believe that the disease might come from a parasitic worm found in black fly bats called Onchocerca Volvulus.

The disease affects the child’s nervous system, much like polio. After damaging the nervous system, the disease attacks the brain, stopping it from developing and eventually stopping the child’s growth. No one has yet to recover from this disease.

The disease causes its victims to have difficulty thinking which can lead to death. 200 secondary deaths have been reported due to the disease. Unfortunately, doctors can only cure the epileptic symptoms since there has been no cure discovered.

This article reminded me of our current polio unit. The fact that the children affected from this disease are unable to physically function properly relates to polio crippling its victims. There are also similarities between the two diseases in how they affect the victim. Both diseases attack the nervous system, which leads to the handicapping of the person affected in a mental or physical way. Also, infants were at high risk of developing polio. So far, the nodding disease has high rates of infection within the early childhood years as well.

I think this article is important because it seems to me like“modern polio.” Though this disease is only found in Uganda, its effect on its victim is very similar besides the seizures and mental handicaps. I think it is also important to note that no child has recovered from this disease. People were able to recover from polio, but this disease is permanently crippling. It is sad to see children in already horrid living conditions having to worry about something as overwhelming as this.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/19/world/africa/uganda-nodding-disease/index.html

Caution US Citizens: London Olympics may bring Rise to the Measles Epidemic

Apparently the Olympics are not all fun and games...

This article titled "London Olympics 2012 may spark measles outbreak, US warns" was written by Rosa Prince of New York, on March 20, 2012 and published online to a site called The Telegraph.

article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/9156762/London-Olympics-2012-may-spark-measle-outbreak-US-warns.html

image: http://blog.case.edu/james.chang/2007/06/07/favorite_2012_logo.jpg

This article talks about how America is at risk of a measles outbreak, caused by all the tourists that will be returning home from the summer games in London this year. Measles is common in Europe and can spread quite easily because "diseases know no borders", according to the CDC.

Just last year "there were eight deaths and 26,000 cases of measles across Europe." Meanwhile, America only experiences around 50 cases a year. The reason these numbers are so much higher in Europe is due to the fact that in 1998 there was a British autism scare, in which parents became skeptical of vaccinating their children from diseases such as measles and mumps. (But that was later proven false.) However, as a result, the measles epidemic is more prevalent in Europe.

The CDC is "concerned about Americans coming back from the Olympics this summer and unknowingly infecting others." This is because the measles epidemic has an incubation period of around 8-12 days, so tourists that look healthy when returning may actually be infected by the potentially deadly virus already.

Measles is a disease similar to a few others we have learned about this year in the sense that it has a fairly long incubation period. Smallpox and typhoid are a few examples. This is dangerous because infected people can easily spread the disease in this time without even knowing.

On another note, this article shows how important is it to get vaccinated from a disease. Although there may be some side effects, the pros far outweigh the cons of getting vaccinated. If Europeans choose not to, that is there loss, but Americans should be smart enough to make sure they have their measles vaccine before heading over to London.

It is important to do a little research before leaving the country because as we know traveling often leads to the spread of disease.

Measles vs Morals: Exemption from Vaccinations

"Where Could the Next Outbreak of Measles Be?”, published in the Wall Street Journal, was written on March 20, 2012 by Valerie Bauerlein and Betsy McKay, and can be found by visiting: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303863404577284001227981464.html

In this article, Bauerlein and McKay describe the worries of public-health officials, who fear that outbreaks of illnesses such as measles and diphtheria may be looming and ready to strike as deadly epidemics. Public health officials are particularly worried about regions in the Northwest, which are notorious for having low vaccination rates. In parts of Oregon, Washington state, Idaho and Montana, overall vaccination rates are under 80 percent, which makes the people living in these areas much more susceptible for contracting and spreading diseases. In order to ensure herd immunity, health experts claim that 95 percent of the population most be vaccinated.

Bauerlein and McKay state that the reason for such low vaccination rates is due to exceptions made on the base of philosophical and/or religious regions. Lorraine Duncan, immunization manager in the Oregon Health Authority’s Public Health Division, bluntly states “The Northwest is a black hole for religious exemptions [from vaccinations]” The rate of exceptions for vaccinations are rapidly growing. Last year, 5.6 percent of Oregon kindergartners alone were exempt from vaccinations due to religious reasons, which is up 2 percent from ten years ago.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is currently working with Oregon health officials in order to prevent an anticipated outbreak of diseases such as measles. Bauerlin and McKay write that “Measles is a highly contagious respiratory condition that can lead to encephalitis, pneumonia and death.” I found this quote to be particularly interesting because it relates to polio in that pneumonia can result from the disease.

Overall, more US parents are having their children vaccinated than in recent years. However, vaccination rates are much lower for new immunizations, such as the HPV vaccine targeted at teens. Moreover, in a 2010 survey conducted by the CDC, over 33 percent of parents of children aged 6 years or younger claimed they were concerned about the amount of vaccinations their children were receiving before they were 2 years old. This was mainly because of concerns regarding a link between vaccines and autism, despite the fact that it was refuted by scientific studies.

The dangers of not getting vaccinated were unveiled when two people were infected with the measles last month after attending the Super Bowl. The total outbreak of measles in this case only affected 16 people, but the total cases of measles in the US last year was 222.

Another frightening measles outbreak was in 2008 in San Diego and was traced to an unvaccinated 7-year-old boy who got the disease in Switzerland. The boy later spread measles to 11 other unvaccinated children in his family, school, and doctor’s office

In my opinion, I think vaccinations should be mandatory for children. Some exceptions should be allowed, however when too many exceptions are made, problems being to arise. While I understand and empathize with people who do not want to receive vaccinations due to religious or philosophical reasons, I think that the health of the general population is very important as well. I believe that it is unfair for a child to spread a disease when he/she had the ability to get a vaccination.

This article reminded me of the unit on smallpox where we discussed the inoculation debate. Many people were against inoculation because they were afraid of dying from complications of it. However, only about 2% of inoculated people died from such complications. I think this resonates with the article because some people believe that giving too many vaccines to young children can lead to autism. If enough people are vaccinated (around 95 percent of people within a certain area), herd immunity allows for about only 5 percent of people to be exempt from vaccinations, which is helpful if people do not want to be vaccinated for religious reasons.

Moreover, this article made me think back to the unit on typhoid fever, where we learned about the civil liberties that every American has a right to. The government technically cannot force a person to take medicine or get vaccinated, however, this sparks debate when other people become at risk as a result.

Picture: http://oregonimminews.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/rates-rerising1.png?w=437&h=261 Oregon Religious Exemption Rates

AVIAN Influenza Virus (H5N1) Coniutes to Infect Humans!

The World Health Organization's website has released a series of Global Alert and Responses (GARs) in the past few days. There seems to be several cases of Avian Influenza, specifically H5N1, in four separate locations. Avian Influenza Viruses normally don't infect humans, however recently there has been a string causing concern that the virus could mutate and become more easily passed from birds to humans.

In most of the cases, the people infected had been in close contact with infected poultry or with objects contaminated by their feces. I summarized three of the most recent cases here:

Most recently, a 40-year old female from Dakahlia Governorate began getting symptoms on March 6, was hospitalized on March 12, and was in critical condition until she died on March 15, 2012.Her case states that she was exposed to "sick backyard poultry".

The next case was a 24 year-old female from Bengkulu Province. She began getting sympotoms on February 23, and was hospitalized the following day. It is said that she had breathing difficulty, her condition deteriorated and she died on March 1, 2012. She was "exposed to a potentially contaminated environment where sudden deaths of poultry had recently occurred".

Another case of a H5NI victim is a 31 year-old male from Dak Lak province. He developed symptoms on February 29 but got medical treatment that same day. He was brought to a hostiptal on March 4 and diagnosed with viral pneumonia. He is still being treated their today. This mad was "the man was involved in the slaughter and consumption of sick poultry".

This specific disease H5N1 is described as being a "highly pathogenic avian influenza". Because this disease is so potentially dangerous, the World Health Organization has been tracking all of the cases to make sure it doesn't spread and more people don't get infected.

Right now in Egypt there have been 164 cases confirmed, in Indonesia187 cases (since 2005), and in Vietnam 123 cases.

H5N1 viruses can currently be found in poultry in parts of Asia and northeast Africa. This specific strand has been causing human disease and deaths since 1997. Other avian influenza subtypes, including H7N7 and H9N2, and although they have found a way to affect humans too, they are less common and less severe.

Avian Influenza is a topic we just recently finished learning about in class. To see that there are some cases of people getting Avian Influenza is very scary to think about. Because this gene so easily mutates, who knows how deadly it can become. The best step right now is to keep tracking the disease and make sure people are educated about Avian Flu, and that they stay away from potentially harmful situations. The WHO and animal health sector partners are working in countries where birds are an important source of food, and direct contact can be found. Hopefully they can help reduce animal health and public health risks to stop an Avian Pandemic from breaking out.

To read more about this topic you can go to:

http://www.who.int/csr/don/en/

OR

http://www.who.int/topics/avian_influenza/en/

Does homeopathic medicine work?

The article I read was called “Life-threatening infectious disease responds better to homeopathy than allopathic medicine” by Carolanne Wright on Feburary 22, 2012. http://www.naturalnews.com/035030_homeopathy_infectious_disease_medicine.html

In this article it talks about how homeopathic medicine has a long history of prevention and treatment of illness without harmful side effects. Samuel Hanhemann, the father of homeopathy, did not believe in bloodletting or purging so he started to make medicines with mercury, lead and arsenic. Homeopathic medicine has been used in many epidemics: the Russian Cholera Epidemic of 1831, the European Typhys Epidemic of 1813, and the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918. Continuous testing, along with results from previous epidemics show that “homeopathy is beneficial in preventing and treating many of the most dangerous communicable diseases known to man.” I chose to pick this quote because it really stood out to me. This is the ending quote of the article and it really ties together the piece. You can see that people infected with meningitis, smallpox, flu, and cholera have all benefited from this treatment. It shows you how remarkable the field of science, and medicine, truly is.

This article has many of the diseases we study in this class. The H1N1 flu, polio, cholera and smallpox are all diseases we have covered in this class. This article is also about treatment to these diseases. We talk about the many different ways of treatment for each and every disease. This article also showed that Samuel Hanhemann did not believe in the 4 humors theory of bloodletting and purging. We have learned all about that belief system in class.

I thought this article was really interesting. I have never heard about homeopathy medicine before. This really opened my eyes to a new type of treatment. This treatment treats many people around the world and saves many lives. One thing that stood out to me was the fact that in this article they said that homeopathic medicine does not give harmful side effects. I figured every medicine had some harmful side effects. It is encouraging to think that if you were to catch an infectious epidemic disease there would be a way to treat it.

HFMD: An Epidemic of The Future

Hand, foot and mouth disease has already infected 5,500 children this year in Singapore. Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is not deadly very often, but it causes throat ulcers, fevers, and rash among young children. Rarely, severe cases of HFMD occur and can result in organ failure or even death. Recently scientists have come up with a vaccine that seems to prevent HFMD. It has been tested on adults with great success and the next step will be to test it on children. The vaccination testing was made possible through a cooperative effort between the Singapore National University Health Program and the Duke University Medical School.

Doctors and scientists are unsure why HFMD is so much more common in Asia than it is in America. One suggestion is that the disease just hasn't spread to America yet. They will continue to track the spread of HFMD for the next few years to see if they notice it spreading to other parts of the world. They will continue to do research on the HFMD vaccination and continue to test the vaccination for the next few years. The scientists and doctors think that HFMD is an emerging disease among children and fear that it could one day spread to America. They hope to

have the vaccination available for mass production by 2015 hopefully before HFMD spreads around the world.

Disease and meat

The article I read was called High Levels of Resistant Bacteria on Meat (Again) it was written by Mary McKenna on March 3^rd 2012 and shows us the horrible diseases that can come from eating meat. I found this article through Google news. The article breaks down different types of meat and what diseases can be spread throughout the meats. I think this article stuck out a lot to me because it showed how easy something can spread from a type of food to humans.

The article shows the testing of 5,280 meat samples collected in 2010 in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. I thought it was very interesting because the foodborne diseases that were found were not just in one state. These different diseases were found all over the United States and are still here today.

While reading the article they split it up into the different types of disease and meat. They show how the disease has spread.

•A highly statistically significant trend in ampicillin resistance was seen among ground turkey with 52.6% resistance in 2010, up from 31.3% in 2002.

This quote stuck out to me because it shows how much the disease has spread in 8 years. I thought this article can relate to our class because it shows fluctuation in a disease. Just like many other diseases we have learned about a lot of them fluctuate. Also I thought this related to our class because these different foodborne diseases can be easily spread to people and none of the antibiotics that people have been using will work to cure them.

All in all I thought this article was a very well written article. I thought it gave a lot of information to people who didn’t know a lot about these diseases and how many foodborne diseases are still being spread today. This article helped me learn more about the spread of them. Before reading this I had no idea what Campylobacter was and now I do.

Acorns: Dangerous Disease Spreader?

In Acorns And Mice Driving Unusual Lyme Disease Risks by Maryn McKenna, posted on March 13 2012, the author examines the reason why the northeastern half of the U.S. faces what could be the worst year yet for Lyme disease and other tic born infections.

The reason for it as Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld explains is, "that a heavy crop of acorns in 2010...fueled a 2011 population bloom in white-footed mice[seen above], which stash acorns for winter food and begin breeding

earlier in years when they are well-fed."

Dr. Ostfeld goes on to explain, that the boost in the mice population could lead to an abundance of infectious tics. These infected tics could easily attach themselves to lager mammals like deer, or an unsuspecting hiker.

This part of the article can be related back to the influenza outbreak that the class studied not too long ago. Like influenza, Lyme disease goes from one species to the next.

Just like the wild birds that carry the flu, the white-footed mice carry Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterial cause of Lyme disease, without being infected. In the case of Lyme disease it will go from the mouse, to the tic, and to any animal the tic latches on to.

McKenna writes that Dr. Ostfeld is working with health departments in the northeast area to ensure that the word gets out to hikers and other nature enthusiasts, to take extreme caution when going through woodsy areas in order to prevent tic bites and the Lyme disease that could follow.

I found it very interesting that a small change in nature, in this case an abundance of acorns, could lead to an infectious disease outbreak. The way this disease is spread is very interesting too; the infected mice eat the acorns, leading to a boom in infected mice population as well as in the population of the tics that feed off of them. This all leads to a surplus of infected tics looking for a new host, which will end in the spread of disease.

For further reading, see here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/acorns-mice-lyme/

Picture: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/03/Cotinis-WFmouse.jpg

Guidelines for HIV

The article I read was called “HIV Guidelines Issued for Care of those Newly Diagnosed” written by David March on March 12, 2012.

AIDS professionals at Johns Hopkins and other institutions have released new guidelines to help prevent and raise awareness of HIV care. These guidelines focus on how to get newly diagnosed people with HIV into treatment plans. It states that around 50,000 Americans each year are diagnosed with this infection and more than one million are known to be HIV positive.

Experts are worried that barely two thirds of Americans with the disease have used antiretroviral drug therapy, or ART to keep viral levels in the blood low. This is important because research shows that those who do not have follow up visits after they begin drug treatment die at twice the rate of those who keep their appointments. If people keep using ART they reduce their risk of developing drug resistance, they slow disease progression and it is less likely for them to transmit the virus. People must be actively involved with their treatment.

The article states that an estimated 10 million of the 34 million infected with HIV receive drug treatment for their infection. It is important for the people who don’t to do so.

While reading this article it reminded me of the short clip we watched in class about Dr. Farmer. It reminded me of the civilians in Haiti who go around to make sure people were taking their medication. This goes to show how important it is to get treatment to reduce the risk of spreading disease and saving yourself.

To see full article: http://gazette.jhu.edu/2012/03/12/hiv-guidelines-issued-for-care-of-those-newly-diagnosed/

Picture it: The Next Influenza Pandemic

The article I read was titled What Will the Next Influenza Pandemic Look Like, and it was published on the Scientific American website on September 9, 2011 by Katherine Harmon. The article seems to have spurned from the release of the movie Contagion, also released in 2011. The article was exceedingly straight forward and easy to comprehend for those not versed in scientific jargon.

The article began by referencing the Flu epidemic that the movie Contagion had; citing a mortality rate of 60%, a grotesquely high number. It noted that the influenza outbreak in 2009 (H1N1), was milder than expected for the strain, incurring some 14,000 deaths worldwide. It emphasized that researchers began speaking to the public and urging caution not to cause widespread panic, but to alert others about the potential dangers of the flu virus.

The author went on to talk about the fact that the virulence of the virus sprung from it's ability to mutate quickly. Researchers showed that the virus could change at an alarming rate when changed in the respiratory cells of certain mammalians.

'To help answer this question, Ron Fouchier, also of Erasmus Medical Center, and his team "mutated the hell out of H5N1" and looked at how readily it would bind with cells in the respiratory tract. What they found is that with as few as five single mutations it gained the ability to latch onto cells in the nasal and tracheal passageways, which, Fouchier added as understated emphasis, "seemed to be very bad news."'

Needless to say, the H5N1 flu is clearly one of scientist biggest worries at the moment. They found that after giving the virus to Ferrets (apparently the best animals to use to observe the virus), after a measly ten mutations, the strain became as easily to transmit as the seasonal flu.

Aside from how worrisome that last bit is, I found it interesting to note that the article mentions scientists placing emphasis on the flu in the media in order to get more funding. To have it said in print is amazing, given how often we at times overreact to such things. I also find it clever, as I'm sure they got a lot more funding that year in the research facility when H1N1 broke out again. Though, I will say that it does make a good point when it talks about our lack of preparedness worldwide for such events on a large scale. Should we ever actually need to react incredibly we may not be able to. I imagine this would be especially difficult in places where they are still considered a third world country. What do you guys think, would we be prepared?

Campaign to Raise Awareness in the Cases of HIV in African American Women

http://blog.mywonderfulworld.org/assets_c/2011/12/aids-thumb-475x398-4262.jpg

In the Article New CDC Campaign Aims to Stem HIV Crisis Among Black Women, posted in the Bradenton Herald, written on March 8th 2012, by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, they discuss their efforts to lessen the cases of HIV in black women. You can read this article at: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/03/08/3925937/new-cdc-campaign-aims-to-stem.html

This article is about the CDC's action to launch a new campaign called Take Charge. Take the Test. They have created a website and continue to reach out to communities and spread advertising to get African American women to get tested for HIV. This group is specifically being targeted for testing because 1 in 30 black females will get HIV; 60% of the current HIV cases amongst women are black females. This initiative will be launched on National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day in the ten cities that have the highest amount of African American women with HIV. The cities are; Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Memphis, Newark, New Orleans, Hattysville, and St. Louis.

The goal of this campaign is really to "emphasizes the importance of HIV testing as a gateway to peace of mind and better health." They really just want people to be happy and healthy so they are hoping that this campaign can do that and catch it in women so they can be properly taken care of.

I think that this whole movement is very important. Awareness is a very big part of any epidemic disease so spreading the word and trying to reach out will be a big help in keeping the community healthy. One of our very first units was about hand washing and all the ads and posters that went along with it to inform the public on proper health precautions, and that's what the CDC is doing now. Spreading the word and informing the public will allow for more people to hear about the issue and be able to do something about it.

I think it is smart that this campaign is going after only African American women because of course the campaign for HIV is already huge, but Take Charge. Take the Test. will help a specific group and hopefully get more women to speak up and go out to get tested. It makes it more personal and I think it would make you feel more open to talking about it or getting help.
Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/03/08/3925937/new-cdc-campaign-aims-to-stem.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/03/08/3925937/new-cdc-campaign-aims-to-stem.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/03/08/3925937/new-cdc-campaign-aims-to-stem.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/03/08/3925937/new-cdc-campaign-aims-to-stem.html#storylink=cpy