ZKEA

Biological Warfare : Biological Terrorism : Emerging Diseases

Archived News
Week ending December 11th, 2005

Two reports highlight the emergence of a new, highly toxic strain of the bacterium Clostridium difficile that is resistant to fluoroquinolone antibiotics, such as Cipro (ciprofloxacin) and Levaquin (levofloxacin), and is causing geographically dispersed outbreaks.

The reports were released early by The New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with this week's report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention C. difficile infections in low-risk patients.

C. difficile is a microbe that can be a member of the normal bacterial colonies that live in the intestines. Problems occur, however, when neighboring bacteria are disturbed allowing an overgrowth of C. difficile, which typically results in a foul-smelling watery diarrhea. Overuse of certain antibiotics is one common cause of such disturbances.

The CDC has received an increased number of reports from health care facilities of cases of severe C. difficile-associated disease, according to one of the papers. Dr. L. Clifford McDonald, from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues say this suggests the emergence of an epidemic strain with increased virulence, antibiotic resistance, or both.

To test this hypothesis, the research team collected 187 C. difficile samples from outbreaks since 2001 in eight health care facilities in six states, and compared their characteristics with those of 6000 samples obtained between 1984 and 1990.

More than half of the recent samples were of one strain, termed BI/NAP1. Testing showed that this strain was particularly resistant to fluoroquinolone antibiotics.

By contrast, just 14 of the 6000 isolates obtained in the past were of this strain, the report indicates. "If this epidemic strain continues to spread and to contribute to increased...

Fruit bats may be acting as reservoirs of the killer Ebola virus, responsible for several deadly outbreaks in central Africa, research suggests. Three bat species captured during outbreaks between 2001 and 2003 in Gabon and the Republic of Congo show evidence of symptomless infection.

Writing in Nature, researchers in Gabon say this means the animals may play a key role in spreading the virus.

They say local residents should be encouraged to refrain from eating bats. The first human outbreak of Ebola was recorded in 1976, but scientists have still to pin down which species harbour the virus. If bats are among the culprits, they are more likely to pass the virus on to great apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees, which have been badly affected.

However, it is also possible that bats could infect humans directly.

Researchers from the Centre International de Recherches Medicales de Franceville trapped and tested more than 1,000 small animals in Ebola-affected areas.

They found fruit bats of three species - Hypsignathus monstrosus, Epomops franqueti and Myonycteris torquata - had either genetic sequences from the virus or evidence of an immune response to it. Traces of the virus were found in the animals' liver and spleen - two organs specifically targeted by Ebola...

Known as the "war room" or the "bunker," it is the world's nerve-center for tracking deadly diseases from Ebola hemorrhagic fever to bird flu. Each day, officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) use its sophisticated communications systems to monitor suspected disease outbreaks and contact experts in the field.

The screen-filled room will become a global command center if the H5N1 bird flu virus, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003, mutates into a form which spreads easily among humans, sparking an influenza pandemic which could kill millions in months.

"This room is the eyes and ears of the global epidemic response. The technology in the room takes us to another level," said Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO's director of epidemic and pandemic alert and response.

The Strategic Health Operations Center (SHOC) is a $5 million state-of-the-art facility in a former cinema at the WHO's Geneva headquarters. Shortly after opening a year ago, it was used to help coordinate medical teams during Asia's tsunami.

Funded by donors led by the United States, it has screens for video-conferencing and displaying Web sites and satellite feeds. Round-the-clock, computers transmit audio, video and data from some 66 offices connected to the hub so far. "The world will look to the WHO for immediate information, for risk assessment, for the world's weather system when it comes to where the flu is and where it is going," he said. Ryan said the war room gave the WHO a single point of coordination to try to contain outbreaks of diseases like cholera, dengue fever, Ebola, SARS, malaria and bird flu...

The world must face the inevitability of a bio-terror attack by al-Qaeda, the head of Interpol has warned. Police and health authorities around the world were underprepared for such an attack, Ron Noble told a bio-terror conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

An attack could see smallpox, anthrax, botulism or Ebola-style viruses released into Western cities. Addressing delegates from 41 African nations, Mr Noble said al-Qaeda's track record of deadly, unexpected terror attacks put the threat into focus.

Evidence collected from sympathetic websites also pointed to an avowed intention to stage bio-terror attacks if operatives gained the capability, he added.

"Al-Qaeda has openly claimed the right to kill four million people using biological and chemical weapons," he said.

"Al-Qaeda is willing, able and patient enough to plan and prepare to execute terrorists acts that [once] would have been considered unrealistic or fantasy."

Interpol says several pathogens and viruses most likely to be used in any bio-terror attack, Mr Noble told delegates. Tactics could vary - as well as a traditional detonation, attackers could turn themselves into a "suicide bio-weapon", Mr Noble said, travelling around while highly infectious...

Zinc supplements are a safe and effective way to reduce illness in children with HIV, US researchers say. Evidence shows that they cut the chance of diarrhoea and pneumonia without any risk of worsening the HIV infection, according to a report in The Lancet.

Questions had been raised over the use of zinc because HIV thrives on zinc for its structure and to help it penetrate immune cells and reproduce. Zinc also activates the body cells that are targeted by HIV - T lymphocytes.

Zinc supplementation could be a simple and cost-effective intervention to reduce morbidity and mortality in children with HIV-1 infection.

But the work by Dr William Moss and colleagues at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, in Baltimore, suggests any safety fears are unfounded.

They recruited 96 children, aged between 6 months and five years, from Grey's Hospital in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, and randomly assigned the children to receive zinc supplements or a dummy drug each day for six months.

The zinc supplements did not result in an increase in blood HIV viral load - a measure of HIV severity - but the children receiving zinc did have less diarrhoea. Dr Moss said: "Few interventions are available to reduce morbidity in children with HIV-1 infection in resource-poor ..

Chickens ranged freely down the single mud lane of Wu Yuegou village, pecking at stray seeds and scattering with excited clucks when the dogs came barking. Nobody knows of any plans to vaccinate them against bird flu, their owners said, despite the clarion calls in Beijing for a nationwide campaign to check the feared disease.

"Nah, there's been nothing like that here," scoffed Li Jiwei, 27, a farmer who keeps 10 chickens in the brick-enclosed compound where he lives with his wife and their 4-year-old son.

Li Jiwei, a 27-year-old farmer in Wu Yuegou village, watches as chickens in his compound peck for food. Farmers in remote villages across China have made a tradition of keeping a few chickens around the barnyard.

In this small community in the plains of northern Henan province, and across the rest of China, farmers in remote villages have made a tradition of keeping a few chickens around the barnyard. Fowl provide eggs and meat for the family and, if times get tough, can be sold off for a little cash until the crops come in. But they also constitute a daunting challenge for China in its efforts to ward off avian flu by a massive vaccination campaign.

Much of China's poultry industry -- the largest in the world -- is large-scale commerce, and thus easy to enlist in preventive measures. But more than half the country's 1.3 billion residents live in the countryside, presenting health officials with an atomized and hard-to-reach target as they try to curb the spread of bird flu among tiny flocks raised by farmers ...