Virus that shrinks brains of infants causes declaration of state of emergency in Brazil

From Huffington Post

This serious development was seen as early as 2014. It was a relatively rare disorder called microcephaly but is now spreading fast in the country.

Here are a few links that cane provide more information

From Science Alert

From the NY Times

Information about Ebola Cases in the US

There are some concerning news about the Ebola case in Texas.

Thomas Eric Duncan who is the first person to contract the disease on US soil has died already and there are now 2 health care workers who are infected with Ebola as well. These are the first 2 cases of transmission in the US.

Both nurses treated Duncan which has led to mounting concerns about the effectiveness of the protocols in place to control Ebola.

The second case was just reported today and since this is potentially a very serious event, this post will be pinned and updates posted.


SECOND EBOLA CASE TRAVELED ON FRONTIER AIRLINES WHILE POSSIBLY CONTAGIOUS

CDC Advisory regarding the Flight which the second Ebola patient took

CASE IS FIRST REPORTED

Report on CNN about the second Ebola case in Texas

EBOLA INFORMATION RESOURCES FOR A GLOBAL CRISIS

For a long time, while Ebola was dreaded by the Western world the impact on the general populace was quite minimal mainly because the consensus was that the disease was confined mainly to Africa.

This however is no longer the case because not only has Ebola spread with a tenacity never seen before, but it has gone far beyond its borders, reaching the US and European shores as well.

Just a little over 24 hours ago, all the news agencies in the United States went crazy with the news that the US had its first Ebola patient and that the CDC was about to hold a high priority news conference.

After the conference, this much is clear; the US Ebola patient was basically walking around for 4 days sans isolation during which the patient was highly contagious. This is an epidemiologists nightmare and has exposed the potentially lethal chinks in the purported US armor against the disease.

In view of this very serious development, the next 2 weeks will be critical in showing the direction of Ebola in the US. Consequently, it is best to be on top of the situation by monitoring key sources of information.

Here are some valuable resources for the current Ebola crisis:

CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Ebola Resources

United Nations WHO Global Alert and Response Resources for Ebola

US Department of Health and Human Services Ebola Outbreak 2014 Resources

The Lancet Ebola Resource Center

The New England Journal of Medicine Ebola Outbreak page

Link to the Ebola Response Roadmap download page from the World Health Organization 

 Ebola Educational Materials from International SOS

Information Graphic from the National Post

H5N6 Warning

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization or FAO has issued a warning regarding a new variant of bird flu that is emerging.

Called H5N6, it is considered virulent among animals but the bulletin stressed that the danger to humans is low.

Despite these assurances, if you are located in Asia, it is best to monitor the virus given the demonstrated ability of the bird flu virus to mutate. There are several variants now as well as many cases with the different strains. In the virus world, it takes just one roll of the genetic dice to come up with a variant that jumps species and becomes virulent among humans.

Click here for the article on the FAO

MERS COV - A very serious concern

The Philippines just had a bad scare recently with the entry of an OFW who was diagnosed in UAE as infected with MERS COV.

This resulted in a massive operation by the DOH to recall all the passengers who rode the plane with said OFW.

As of this writing, more than a hundred passengers have yet to be contacted for testing but since all tests administered so far have been negative, the Philippines remains MERS free as per the DOH advisory.

Here are some links to the news stories about the MERS scare in the Philippines:

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/global-filipino/04/21/14/why-etihad-flight-passengers-need-take-mers-cov-test

http://www.doh.gov.ph/top/node/11654.html

http://www.president.gov.ph/gov_at_work/important-health-advisory-mers-corona-virus/

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/regions/04/19/14/doh-tracking-14-passengers-mers-cov-testing


** THIS IS THE LINK TO THE LIST OF PASSENGERS THAT HAVEN'T BEEN CONTACTED YET**

If you know anyone on this list, please ask them to contact the DOH immediately via the numbers shown in the document

http://www.doh.gov.ph/sites/default/files/List_of_Passengers_that_Cannot_be_Contacted.pdf

Since MERS is a very serious threat to the world now, I will be posting more information about this deadly coronavirus in my next posts.

The MERS Coronavirus

Its been around for sometime now and for a while it seemed as though it had faded away but it seems that it was just lying in wait to reappear again.

What I am referring to is the MERS or Middle East Respiratory Virus which as the name implies originated from the Middle East.

The scary thing about this virus is aside from attacking people with seemingly healthy immune systems, the mortality rate is 50% or 1 of every 2 people who get it will die.

There have been 114 documented cases so far on the CDC website and 54 of these have died.

For more info check out the CDC page on the MERS Coronavirus