Trans-species diseases

waltky

Wise ol' monkey
Feb 6, 2011
26,211
2,590
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Okolona, KY
Granny says it's just like dem plagues in Revelation - we all gonna die...
:eek:
Animal-Related Diseases Concern Scientists
January 04, 2012 : Health researchers and wildlife biologists say the number of infectious diseases that have jumped the boundary from animals to humans and between animal species is on the rise. Scientists believe the increase may be a result of more frequent contact between humans and wild animals, as well as the growing trade in wild animals, both legal and illegal.
Towards the end of the 1990s, several Asian countries lived one of their worst health nightmares. A new, highly pathogenic, strain of Avian Influenza known as H5N1 killed hundreds of people. Over the next years, more than 9-million chickens were destroyed in an effort to stem the epidemic. Scientists believe the H5N1 virus was transmitted from wild birds to domestic poultry and pigs, which then passed it to humans. H5N1 is just the latest of various influenza strains that have killed up to 100 million people over the last century.

Now scientists are concerned about the appearance of new illnesses. Jonathan Sleeman is the director of the National Wildlife Health Center at the U.S. Geological Survey. "Human health, wildlife health and domestic animal health are all interconnect within the context of the environment," said Sleeman. "And environmental changes and changes in environmental quality will have negative impacts in all 3 groups."

Experts say there are many causes: the increasingly rapid movement of people and animals around the world, increasing human contact with and consumption of wildlife, and the legal and illegal trade in wild animals. "It's no longer a wildlife conservation issue, it's no longer a separate human issue. It's a combination. It's both a conservation and human health issue," added said Sleeman. Scientists from a variety of disciplines met recently in Washington to share their concerns about pathogens spreading from animals to humans.

It's not a new problem. The AIDS virus, HIV, is now known to have originated from a similar virus in African chimpanzees. An estimated 30-million people have died of AIDS since the early 1980s. Other human diseases with animal origins include SARS, Ebola hemorrhagic fever and West Nile encephalitis. New animal illnesses generally originate in invasive species. Zebra mussels that have spread throughout the U.S. Great Lake introduced a type of botulism that has killed some 100,000 birds in the last decade. A fungus spread by the trade in amphibians has led to the extinction of about 120 species of frogs around the world. Many other imported, exotic animals escape or are released into local ecosystems. They disrupt native ecologies, out-compete native species and potentially spread new diseases.

Jonathan Epstein, with the EcoHealth Alliance, says 13 million animals have been confiscated in the past few decades, as part of the illegal trade in exotic species. "The global illegal wildlife trade is second only to the trade in narcotics and weapons," said Epstein. "Just between 2000 and 2006, we had about 1.5 billion animals imported into the U.S." Experts say more attention must be paid to the human disruption of wildlife and ecosystems to avoid the emergence of other infectious diseases with deeper and even more severe consequences.

Source
 
Two years ago California was going to be depopulated by half from one of these animal jumps to man critters....not that that would have been a problem....
 
Granny says, "Just like it says in Zechariah 14 - we all gonna die...
:eek:
SARS-related virus linked to bats, camels and other animals
September 28, 2012 - Britain's Health Protection Agency has published an early genetic sequence of the new respiratory virus related to SARS that shows it is most closely linked to bat viruses, and scientists say camels, sheep or goats might end up being implicated too.
So far, officials have only identified two confirmed cases and say the virus isn't as infectious as SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed hundreds of people, mostly in Asia, in a 2003 global outbreak. In Geneva, World Health Organization spokesman Glenn Thomas told reporters Friday that so far the signs are that the virus is "not easily transmitted from person to person" -- but analyses are ongoing. The agency said it's too early to tell how big a threat the new virus will be since it is unknown how exactly it spreads and whether it will evolve into a more dangerous form.

Global health officials suspect two victims from the Middle East may have caught it from animals. "It's a logical possibility to consider any animals present in the region in large numbers," said Ralph Baric, a coronavirus expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Biologists now need to go into the area and take samples from any animals they can get their hands on, including camels and goats," he said. Baric said it was crucial to find out how widespread the virus is in animals and what kind of contact might be risky for people. Baric suggested bats might be spreading the virus directly to humans since the two confirmed infections happened months apart. "If there was an established transmission pattern from other animals, we probably would have seen a lot more cases," he said.

WHO said it is considering the possibility the new coronavirus sickened humans after direct contact with animals. The agency is now working with experts in the Middle East to figure out how the two confirmed cases got infected but could not share details until the investigation was finished. One patient was a Saudi Arabian man who died several months ago while the other is a Qatari national who traveled to Saudi Arabia before falling ill and is currently in critical but stable condition in a London hospital. Earlier this week, WHO issued a global alert asking doctors to be on guard for any potential cases of the new respiratory virus, which also causes kidney failure.

Saudi officials have already warned that next month's annual Muslim Hajj pilgrimage, which brings millions to Saudi Arabia from all around the world, could allow the virus to spread. As a precautionary measure, they are advising pilgrims to keep their hands clean and wear masks in crowded places. Experts said knowing where a virus comes from provides clues on how to stop it. "This means we could prevent the fire before it starts instead of rushing towards it with fire trucks and water hoses afterwards," said Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota.

Osterholm said it was possible bats had simply passed on the virus from other animals and that there could be a complicated transmission chain that ultimately ended in humans. Viruses reproduce as they infect animals and people, giving them more chances to evolve into a deadlier version. "We don't know enough about coronaviruses to predict which mutations might make them more lethal or transmissible," Osterholm said. "But you don't want to tempt genetic fate with microbes because you're bound to lose most times."

Source
 
New SARS virus causes kidney failure, death...
:eek:
New 'Sars-like' virus not easily transmitted says WHO
28 September 2012 - In both cases to date, the infection was acquired in the Middle East
A new respiratory illness - from the same family as the Sars virus - appears not to spread easily, experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) say. A Qatari man, 49, with the virus is being treated in London. The first person known to have had it, in Saudi Arabia, died. The WHO said on Friday that it appeared the new virus "cannot be easily transmitted from person to person."

The Sars virus, which emerged in China in 2002, killed hundreds of people. Both Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and the new, un-named, virus - as well as the common cold virus - belong to the coronavirus family But this new virus is different from any coronaviruses previously identified in humans. Both of the patients known to have had the virus experienced kidney failure.

Zoonotic

The WHO said it would continue to monitor the situation but was not recommending any travel restrictions for Saudi Arabia or Qatar. However it said it was working closely with Saudi authorities in advance of the forthcoming Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The WHO also announced diagnostic tests were being developed by scientists around the world as quickly as possible.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the European Union, said initial findings suggested the virus may have originated in animals - diseases known as zoonotic. Writing in the journal Eurosurveillance, they said: "It is quite probably of zoonotic origin and different in behaviour to Sars."

BBC News - New 'Sars-like' not easily transmitted says WHO
 
Well SARS virus might not transfer from one person to another easily but still it is a very dangerous virus. Too deadly.
 
Granny says inna meantime, don't be kissin' no monkeys...
:cool:
Researchers Develop Antibodies to Treat Ebola Virus
October 18, 2012 - Researchers say they're making progress toward a treatment for the dreaded Ebola virus, which recently caused outbreaks in equatorial Africa. Experiments with monkeys using laboratory-engineered disease-fighting agents called monoclonal antibodies show promise in treating infection with the highly lethal disease.
U.S. government and private industry researchers have developed a drug that contains a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies against Ebola. A monoclonal antibody is a disease-fighting protein engineered to target and disarm a specific virus, bypassing natural antibodies produced by the body’s immune system. Dubbed MB-003, the anti-Ebola cocktail contains three monoclonal antibodies that attach themselves to three different sites on the surface of the deadly virus. The pathogen, unable to evade the multiple attacks, withers away.

Larry Zeitlin is president of Mapp Biopharmaceutical, which helped develop MB-003. Zeitlin says researchers were originally interested in the monoclonal antibody formulation for bio-defense, should terrorists concoct a biological weapon using Ebola. But Zeitlin says there is an urgent need for a drug to treat the disease during outbreaks. In experiments, rhesus macaques were infected with lethal doses of Ebola and then given the monoclonal antibodies up to 48 hours after exposure. With the treatment, two-thirds of the monkeys survived, according to Zeitlin. “And one thing we were excited about is the animals showed very little evidence of disease," said Zeitlin.

Ebola causes a sudden onset of severe headache, vomiting, muscle aches, diarrhea, and bleeding. The disease is fatal in up to 90 percent of cases. Zeitlin says virologists originally produced the MB-003 proteins in mice, but now use a plant called nicotiana, a relative of tobacco. By infecting it with portions of the Ebola virus, Zeitlin says nicotiana can be tricked into producing the needed monoclonal antibodies. “Using these plants, we can manufacture pretty significant quantities of antibody very quickly, much quicker than traditional manufacturing systems. So if there were an outbreak of Ebola or some new virus, you could rapidly scale up production of antibodies using this system to address that threat," he said.

Zeitlin says researchers hope to move to human safety trials soon, after conducting more animal studies to confirm the antibodies are safe. It’s not known precisely where the highly infectious virus comes from, but scientists suspect it originated in non-human primates. Outbreaks typically occur every one to two years in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Sudan, the Ivory Coast, Uganda, and the Republic of Congo. An article on the development of plant-derived monoclonal antibodies to treat Ebola is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source
 
I think this is highly interesting. Especially if they are using plants to generate antibodies. Usually scientist (as far as I know) buy antibodies like Bioss and go from there to enhance them for different treatments. I think this is a great progress.
 
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New ebola outbreak in Uganda...
:eusa_eh:
Scores isolated after new Ebola outbreak in Uganda
Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012, Scores of Ugandans were isolated on Thursday to prevent the spread of a new outbreak of Ebola which has already killed three people.
Uganda has experienced increasingly regular outbreaks of deadly hemorrhagic fevers that have left health officials grappling for answers. The new Ebola outbreak was confirmed Wednesday in a district 60 kilometers (40 miles) from the Ugandan capital, Kampala. The outbreak comes roughly a month after Uganda declared itself Ebola-free following an earlier outbreak in a remote district of western Uganda. Last month at least five people in a southwestern district of Uganda were killed by Marburg, a hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola.

The latest Ebola outbreak, officials say, is of the Sudan strain of Ebola and not linked to the previous one, of the Congo variety, which killed at least 16 villagers in July and August in the western district of Kibaale. In addition to the three dead in the latest outbreak, up to 15 are being monitored for signs of the disease, officials said. They advised against panic after it was revealed that two possible Ebola patients had since checked into Kampala's main referral hospital. "The Ministry of Health once again calls upon the public to stay calm as all possible measures are being undertaken to control the situation," Christine Ondoa, Uganda's minister of health, said.

Ebola is especially feared in Uganda, where multiple outbreaks have occurred over the years, and news of it can cause patients to flee hospitals to avoid infection. In 2000, in one of the world's worst Ebola outbreaks, the disease infected 425 Ugandans and killed more than half of them in the country's north. Another outbreak in 2007 killed 37 people in Bundibugyo, a remote district close to the Congolese border. Ebola is highly infectious and kills quickly.

More Scores isolated after new Ebola outbreak in Uganda - Yahoo! News

See also:

Growing concerns over 'in the air' transmission of Ebola
15 November 2012 - The infection is thought to get into humans through close contact with bodily fluids
Canadian scientists have shown that the deadliest form of the ebola virus could be transmitted by air between species. In experiments, they demonstrated that the virus was transmitted from pigs to monkeys without any direct contact between them. The researchers say they believe that limited airborne transmission might be contributing to the spread of the disease in some parts of Africa. They are concerned that pigs might be a natural host for the lethal infection.

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Ebola viruses cause fatal haemorrhagic fevers in humans and many other species of non human primates. Details of the research were published in the journal Scientific Reports. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the infection gets into humans through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs and other bodily fluids from a number of species including chimpanzees, gorillas and forest antelope. The fruit bat has long been considered the natural reservoir of the infection. But a growing body of experimental evidence suggests that pigs, both wild and domestic, could be a hidden source of Ebola Zaire - the most deadly form of the virus.

Now, researchers from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the country's Public Health Agency have shown that pigs infected with this form of Ebola can pass the disease on to macaques without any direct contact between the species. In their experiments, the pigs carrying the virus were housed in pens with the monkeys in close proximity but separated by a wire barrier. After eight days, some of the macaques were showing clinical signs typical of ebola and were euthanised. One possibility is that the monkeys became infected by inhaling large aerosol droplets produced from the respiratory tracts of the pigs.

More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20341423
 
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Encephalitis outbreak in northern India...
:eek:
Especially grim encephalitis toll feared in India
Jun 18,`13 -- A mosquito-borne disease that preys on the young and malnourished is sweeping across poverty-riven northern India again this monsoon season in what officials worry could be the deadliest outbreak in nearly a decade.
Encephalitis has killed at least 118 children so far this year and authorities fear the death toll could reach about 1,000, said Dr. R.N. Singh of the Encephalitis Eradication Movement, an Indian nonprofit. While India's efforts against polio and tuberculosis get plenty of attention, the poor farmers and day laborers of eastern Uttar Pradesh state face an almost-silent emergency, battling a disease that has killed thousands of children over the past eight years. Many families have taken out crushing loans for treatment. The children who survive often cannot communicate because of brain damage. They stare off listlessly, unable to recognize friends they played with just months before. Some are so severely disabled that their impoverished parents are told to abandon them.

Sangita Devi's 4-year-old son Anup Kumar has been in a hospital for four months. "We have mortgaged our house for our son's treatment. But there is no improvement in his condition. He cannot even stand now," she said. The disease is predictable and preventable. The annual monsoon fills parched paddy fields, which bear the mosquitoes that spread Japanese encephalitis from pigs to humans, devastating malnourished children with low immunity. Another strain of the disease - acute encephalitis syndrome - spreads through contaminated water. Residents defecate in the fields, contaminating the ground water. A vaccine has long been available, but the state government - which spent tens of millions of dollars building monuments to its last top politician - has failed to muster the sustained political will to focus on the communities hardest hit by the illness.

The disease killed more than 1,500 children in 2005, the worst recent year, Shocked by the deaths, Uttar Pradesh's highest court in 2006 asked the state and federal governments to declare encephalitis a national health emergency. "A concrete action plan must be drawn," it said. That year the government started vaccinating children against Japanese encephalitis. The government vowed to immunize every child in the worst-affected areas and to launch a massive drive to improve sanitation. For a couple of years, the numbers dropped. In 2006, the disease killed 431 children. But the crowded hospital wards of the tiny town of Gorakhpur reflect how the immunization drive has fizzled. Last year, more than 700 children died.

Amid the cloying smells of ether and disinfectant, 7-year-old Amit jostled his mother. His words were slurred and, every time he tried to break free of her grip, he fell to the floor. She kissed his dry and dirty cheek. "He cannot stand on his own any more. He cannot speak. Cannot say whether he wants food or water. He has no control over his bladder," said his mother, Kunti, as she held him close. Like many poor Indians, they use one name. Her husband, a laborer on a construction site in neighboring Bihar state, earns about 180 rupees, or $3, a day. He had to borrow $850 from a money lender to pay for his son's treatment and had to sell his only cow.

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This is not something I sit and worry about. But I went to the TN Governor's Conference on Pandemic Flu a few years ago. If avian flue becomes transmissible human to human, we are fucked!
 

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