Emerging Infectious Diseases

Based on the our October paper "A Generalized Viral Infection Mathematical Model Derived from Covid-19 Simulation", at a conceptual level higher than the classic SIR/SEIR model, we have established the 6 laws of infection regarding the final infection ratio within any given population without any artificial intervention and have shown the final infection ratio in a natural, non-interfered pandemic must fall within a specified lower and upper bound as 1 − 1 R 2 0 ≤ F R ≤ 2 (1 − 1 R 0). Whereas R 0 is the intrinsic R 0 value of the disease. In this paper, we show how human intervention strategies alter the previous assumptions based on 2 factors. First, artificial intervention with cycles of restricting measures and relaxations. Based on our May paper "The Predictions on Worldwide Covid-19 Pandemic Cases Based on Historical Data", we have already demonstrated the dynamic falling R 0 (t) curve during lock down measures. With more historical data and observation, we now expand the scope to include a dynamic rising R 0 (t) curve following the relaxation of measures, completing the cycle of restriction and relaxation. Second, the introduction of vaccination at a steady rate introduced a new variable into the existing infection model, we denote it as function V (t). We demonstrate the optimal strategies of vaccination interpreted within our existing established framework.

Artemisia based medications are used the world over for anti-malarial activity.  Their pharmacology and safety are well studied and published in the scientific literature.  The use of these agents in the patient with cancer and their effectiveness against cancer cell lines are newer areas of scientific research, but also published in the literature.  Experience in our clinical research of over one thousand parenteral doses of Artesunate have shown this agent to be safe in patients with advanced cancers, infectious diseases and autoimmunity.  While specific human clinical data needs to be collected our experience and the basic pharmacology of artesunate in cancer lead us to the conclusion that this agent is worthy of further investigation in oncology and chronic illness practice.

The seroprevalence of three bacterial re-emerging diseases namely brucellosis, leptospirosis and melioidosis was investigated in farmers and technical staff of Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. The study found that the highest seroprevalence for both Selangor and Negeri Sembilan was among the farmers with seroprevalence of 5.05% ± 2.15 and 5.88% ± 3.7 respectively. Among the technical staff, the highest seroprevalence for the disease was observed among the staff in Negeri Sembilan. Antibodies against Leptospira spp was the most commonly detected among the three pathogens. Knowledge of the mode of transmission of zoonotic infections may have been an advantage for the technical staff in preventing exposure to these pathogens.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI) strain H5N1 has had direct and indirect economic impacts arising from direct mortality and control programmes in over 50 countries reporting poultry outbreaks. HPAI H5N1 is now reported as the most widespread and expensive zoonotic disease recorded and continues to pose a global health threat.
The aim of this research was to assess the potential of utilising Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP) assessments in providing a framework for a rapid response to emerging infectious disease outbreaks.  This novel approach applies a scientific process, widely used in food production systems, to assess risks related to a specific emerging health threat within a known zoonotic disease hotspot.
We conducted a HACCP assessment for HPAI viruses within Vietnam’s domestic poultry trade and relate our findings to the existing literature. Our HACCP assessment identified poultry flock isolation, transportation, slaughter, preparation and consumption as critical control points for Vietnam’s domestic poultry trade. Introduction of the preventative measures highlighted through this HACCP evaluation would reduce the risks posed by HPAI viruses and pressure on the national economy. 
We conclude that this HACCP assessment provides compelling evidence for the future potential that HACCP analyses could play in initiating a rapid response to emerging infectious diseases.
Keywords:
HACCP, EID rapid response, avian influenza H5N1, Vietnam, poultry trade

I worry about caves. I’ve been worrying about them ever since reading about the role played by Kitum Cave in the known history of Marburg virus disease. In the 1980s, two separate visitors to this “elephant cave” in Mount Elgon National Park were infected and subsequently died. Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) have since been identified as a reservoir host for marburgviruses, and it may well be that the inhalation of microbes from bat guano was the means by which these unfortunate tourists contracted the deadly disease.

I’m also fascinated by caves: they’re contagious in more ways than one. The islands of the Zanzibar archipelago, with their extensive limestone reef terraces, are riddled with caves and sinkholes. They’re a distinctive feature of the coral rag or karst landscape of both Unguja and Pemba, though often hidden from sight by thick vegetation, especially along the forested scarps in the south and east of the main island. Many of the caves have cultural significance as mizimu, the abodes of spirits that are regularly propitiated by the local guardians who have inherited this responsibility.

The origins and global spread of two recent, yet quite different, pandemic diseases is discussed and reviewed in depth: Candida auris, a eukaryotic fungal disease, and COVID- 19 (SARS-CoV-2), a positive strand RNA viral respiratory disease. Both these diseases dis- play highly distinctive patterns of sudden emergence and global spread, which are not easy to understand by conventional epidemiological analysis based on simple infection- driven human- to-human spread of an infectious disease (assumed to jump suddenly and thus genetically, from an animal reservoir). Both these enigmatic diseases make sense however under a Panspermia in-fall model and the evidence consistent with such a model is critically reviewed.

Echinostomiasis is a food born infection caused by an intestinal trematodes belonging to the family Echinostomatidae. We report a first case of echinostomiasis from Nepal in a 62 years old male patient who presented to Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH), Kathmandu with a complain of abdominal pain and distension with vomiting on and off for 3 to 4 months. He had history of consumption of undercooked fish and snail. During endoscopy, an adult flat worm was seen with mild portal hypertensive gastropathy and erosive duodenopathy. The adult worm was identified as Echinostoma species based on its morphology and characteristic ova found on stool routine microscopic examination of the patient. Patient was treated with praziquantel 40mg/kg (single dose) by which he got improved. An epidemiological survey is required to know the exact burden of Echinostoma species infection in the place where people have habit of consumption of undercooked fish and snails.

In the new millennium, the centuries-old strategy of quarantine is becoming a powerful component of the public health response to emerging and reemerging infectious diseases. During the 2003 pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, the use of quarantine, border controls, contact tracing, and surveillance proved effective in containing the global threat in just over 3 months. For centuries, these practices have been the cornerstone of organized responses to infectious disease outbreaks. However, the use of quarantine and other measures for controlling epidemic diseases has always been controversial because such strategies raise political, ethical, and socioeconomic issues and require a careful balance between public interest and individual rights. In a globalized world that is becoming ever more vulnerable to communicable diseases, a historical perspective can help clarify the use and implications of a still-valid public health strategy.

Most of the articles in this volume involve biosafety and biosecurity and strict biosafety and laboratory biosecurity protocols and whether current standards sufficiently assure the safety of both the public and the overall ecosystem. This chapter suggests that developments occurring in mosquito vector control using synthetic biology will introduce new genetic bugaboos into the debate over releasing genetically altered species, both accidentally and purposefully.

Tuberculosis (TB) mortality declined after the 1918 pandemic, suggesting that influenza killed those who would have died from TB. Few studies have analyzed TB as a direct risk factor for 1918 influenza morbidity and mortality by age and sex. We study the impacts of TB on influenza-like illness (% of population sick) and case fatality (% of cases dying) by age and sex through case-control comparisons of patients (N = 201) and employees (N = 97) from two Norwegian sanatoriums. Female patients, patients at Landeskogen sanatorium, and patients aged 10-39 years had significantly lower morbidity than the controls. None of the 62 sick employees died, while 15 of 84 sick patients did. The case-control difference in case fatality by sex was only significant for females at Lyster sanatorium and females at both sanatoriums combined. Non-significant case-control differences in case fatality for males were likely due to small samples. Patients 20-29 years for both sexes combined at Lyster sanatorium and at both sanatoriums combined, as well as females 20-29 years for both sanatoriums combined, had significantly higher case fatality. We conclude that TB was associated with higher case fatality, but morbidity was lower for patients than for employees. The results add to the study of interactions between bacterial and viral diseases and are relevant in preparing for pandemics in TB endemic areas.

La tripanosomosis bovina es una enfermedad del ganado bovino que es producida por el protozoarlo flagelado Trypanosoma vivax, organismo importado a Sudamérica desde África y que se mantiene mediante transmisión mecánica por tábanos. En el artículo se revisan componentes del conocimiento acumulado sobre la epidemiología de la enfermedad en la ganadería del trópico sudamericano. Aquí se manifiesta principalmente por la aparición de oleadas de abortos, caídas súbitas y drásticas en la producción de leche y mortalidad de terneros. Sin embargo, el organismo ocurre de forma subclínica e insidiosa en la ganadería de trópico bajo. Se discuten estrategias de diagnóstico y perspectivas de investigación.

Adroher-Auroux, F.J., Benítez-Rodríguez, R., 2020. Res. Vet. Sci. 132, 535–545. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rvsc.2020.08.003Anisakiasis or anisakiosis is a human parasitic infection caused by the third-stage larvae (L3) of nematodes of the genus Anisakis, although the term is also used in medical literature for the much less frequent (<3% of cases) infection by L3 of other genera of anisakids, particularly Pseudoterranova. These parasites have a marine lifecycle. Humans are infected by the L3 through ingesting of fish and squid, the intermediate/paratenic hosts. The live larvae generally penetrate the wall of the stomach or intestine causing, among other symptoms, intense pain or allergic symptoms. These are emerging, cosmopolite illnesses. Diagnosis and treatment is usually by endoscopy and extraction and identification of the larvae. Allergic forms are usually diagnosed by prick-test and/or allergen-specific IgE detection and treated with a suitable anti-allergy treatment. The patient is also warned against further consumption of marine fish or squid, as these may be infected with Anisakis. The most common method of prevention is thermal treatment of the entire fish or squid prior to consumption (>60 °C, >1 min or − 20 °C, >24 h). Useful measures for the control of anisakiasis would be to establish a national register of cases, to initiate educational campaigns for the general public and consciousness-raising and training campaigns for health professionals. These would be complemented by control measures for the relevant sectors of the economy: fish operators, fish farming, fishermen, fishmongers, fish industry and catering facilities. Possible genetic predisposition for allergy to Anisakis and the possible relationship between anisakiasis and cancer would also require further investigation.

Climate and environmental change can have a diverse set of impacts on human health, longevity, and vulnerability to disease. In the present day, the health impacts of global warming on human health are already very evident (Gislason, 2015;Watts et al., 2019). However, this is not a novel relationship.There is a diverse range of available evidence to indicate that humans have been impacted by environmental and climatic shifts from the origin of our genus in the Pleistocene (c. 2.58 mya–c. 11.7 kya) through to the current geological epoch, which is known as the Holocene (c. 11.6 kya–present) (Behrensmeyer, 2006) (Figure 3.1). These shifts have ranged from extreme weather events (EWEs), such as floods, to small but sustained climatic changes, such as in global average temperatures (McMichael, 2012). In the Holocene, these shifts have had a variety of impacts on human societies, including sustained socio-cultural change in asso- ciation with slow and incremental climatic changes.These impacts have also included significant alterations to agricultural production, infectious disease epidemics, and levels of conflict, among other phenomena (Chambers, 1993; McMichael, 2012).
Here, we survey human disease ecology, specifically relative to infectious diseases, in the context of environmental and climate change in the Holocene.To do so, we employ an interpretive model derived from public health as a backbone to the chapter.This is because the vast majority of scholarship has focused on the impacts of climate change on modern societies.We then flesh out this framework through a discussion of the time scales on which environmental and climate change can impact human health and disease, enriching it with examples from the historical, archaeological, and bioarchaeological record. Our goal is to grant readers a concise understanding of the impacts and mechanics of environmental and climate change on human health and patterns of disease in past societies. Throughout, we highlight both insights that may be beneficial to scholars, especially bioarchaeologists, investigating the history of disease in the context of environmental change, as well as those potentially useful to human populations experiencing the impacts of climate change in the Anthropocene.

Bangladesh, like many transitional nations is straddling the demographic and epidemiological transition. It is now experiencing the late expanding stage of demographic transition where fertility is getting lower to reach the decreased level of mortality that means it has already decreased its mortality. Again Bangladesh is now also experiencing the third stage of epidemiological transition which is age of degenerative & man-made diseases. The changing pattern of diseases & causes of death are raising new challenges which are essential to provide need based healthcare delivery to the population. This paper will focus the trend & changing pattern of morbidity & its impact on mortality, health & epidemiological transition in the context of Bangladesh

This online symposium--organised by The Global War Against the Rat and the Epistemic Emergence of Zoonosis project in collaboration with Monica H. Green--is centered around the recent findings of the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within white-tailed deer populations in the United States. The ability of the new coronavirus to transmit within captive animal populations (mink and zoo animals) was already documented in 2020. Transmission into wild animal populations, however, raises issues of broader consequence, both for present disease management and surveillance and also long-term control of the disease.

Entitled "From Zoonotics to Anthroponotics: The Past and Present of Disease Transmission between Animals and Humans," the symposium will feature a keynote by Professor Suresh Kuchipudi (Penn State University), and a panel and roundtable that will bring together and discuss evidence of documented cases of disease spread from humans into wild animal populations (and back again) from the perspectives of history, anthropology, and virology.

Date: 14 Dec 2021. Times: 14:00 to 18:45 GMT.
To register: The event is free but requires registration. To register, please contact Lynn Hynd at wwrat@st-andrews.ac.uk by December 9 15:00 GMT. Please use “From Zoonotics to Anthroponotics” as the subject of your message.

This is the abstract for Monica H. Green, “The Four Black Deaths,” American Historical Review 125, no. 5 (December 2020), 1600-1631, DOI: 10.1093/ahr/rhaa511, plus Supplemental Material, “Marmots and Their Plague Strains,” which was published online.

The full PDF of the article along with the marmot supplement can be accessed at my Humanities Commons page, with this DOI:  https://doi.org/10.17613/7020-8j08.

Questions: feel free to write me: monica.h.green@gmail.com.

The course is designed for clinicians who wish to
acquire basic skills in ultrasound of the abdomen and
a general overview of Ultrasound in Tropical
Medicine. Imaging specialists who want to acquire
knowledge in the field of Infectious Diseases and
Tropical Medicine can benefit from this course as
well.

Beginning in the early 1990s, a new manner of articulating the threat posed by epidemics of infectious diseases took shape. ‘Global health security’ (GHS) emerged as a novel epistemic space as a response to the perceived threats posed by circulations and appearances of ‘global’ diseases. Marked throughout the 2000s by major events both political and pathogenic, GHS has undergone profound changes; from primarily a policy-legal framework to a forum for reconfiguring global health 'action'. This research examines how the problems that emerged in the 1990s are changing since the 2014 West African Ebola crisis and the announcement of new global health security projects and initiatives. How might these transformations constitute a new manner of thinking about, and acting on, epidemics as a ‘global’ problem?
  Contrasting genealogical-archival research with a series of field-based episodes, this dissertation explores how public health experts and technicians worked to define new problems and design the interventions aimed at addressing them. It juxtaposes a historical account of the emergence and transformation of GHS across the 2000s and 2010s against field-based ethnography of GHS during 2016 and 2017. Based on over a year working with a global health non-profit, the text’s episodes attend to day-to-day work that translated diffuse concepts of ‘threat' and ‘risk' into discrete technical practices and projects to mitigate and minimize those threats. Working with experts through the early stages of project development, attention is paid to the relational processes that went into making global health security a workable concept. Together, the episodes illustrate the routines and technical artistry that made GHS into a space not only to reimagine a ‘safer’ or ‘healthier’ world, but to build the means to realize it.
  The text also examines how communities of experts reworked their projects and programs during great destabilizations and disruptions, including both the 2016 US Presidential election as well as an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It explores how global health organizations and experts attempted to better 'prevent, detect, and respond' to public health emergencies after Ebola in 2014. Unpacking various understandings of the ‘global’ in GHS, it examines how experts worked to build novel 'global assemblages’ and reposition ‘reciprocal obligations between nations'. The research looks at novel techniques and technologies designed to ensure a ‘global’ community of healthy nations—ones able to live up to their responsibilities to care for and protect their vulnerable populations.
    In 2014, Ebola set the stage for dramatic changes to global health as new actors and organizations came to understand a pressing need for change. ‘GHS' emerged as a response to these calls for reform and improvement, an urgent effort to improve vulnerable health systems in developing countries. This research explores how GHS and some of its technicians became entangled with these emerging and evolving mix of policies, practices, and possibilities for global health practice.

The SARS-CoV-2pandemic has created a global health crisis that has had a deep impact on the way we perceive our world and our everyday lives. On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak a global health emergency and on March 11, 2020, as a global pandemic. Since the initial outbreak,
SARS-CoV-2, has spread to 216 countries around the world. It has been responsible for millions of infections globally, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. The disease is more likely to cause symptoms in older adults and those with underlying health conditions. Researchers are currently working on creating a vaccine specifically for this virus, as well as potential treatments for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). There is some evidence that certain medications may have the potential to be effective with regard to preventing illness or treating the symptoms
of COVID-19.An outbreak related to SARS-CoV-2 was first reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019. An extremely high potential for dissemination resulted in the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020. A worldwide virus attack has shut
down cities, big and small, and even entire countries. A vaccine for the novel coronavirus will help deal with the global health crisis. We need to create simple, cheap, more accessible testing for SARSCoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, both in humans and on various surfaces. We have to develop a faster way to identify antibodies that neutralize the virus. Researchers have to generate lung tissue models called organoids to test candidate drugs for COVID-19 and harness the power of individual genomes to identify variants that raise or lower people’s risk of serious illness when infected by
SARS-CoV-2. Global solidarity during crisis period is need of the hour.Now is the time to work all together to defeat COVID19.

Gale Encyclopedia of Emerging Diseases, A unique source of information on infectious diseases that have either lately appeared for the first time in a population or rapidly increased in incidence. Provides authoritative, balanced information that addresses the pathogens that are causing and threaten to cause significant health crises. Ebola, Lassa Fever, MERS, Rift Valley Fever, and Zika virus are among the diseases covered.

By critically analysing and exploding the key foundation myths that have arisen around the origin, mode of spread and immunity on COVID-19 we lay out the evidence and critical arguments supporting an immediate end to all COVID-19 justified lockdowns. These emergency laws, invoked by many previously free and democratic societies, involve social distancing, obligatory wearing of masks, limited crowd sizes and gatherings (funerals, weddings, religious gatherings, sporting fixtures etc), the closures of schools and many small and large businesses not deemed necessary to containing the virus, border closures, and thus free travel movements, domestic and international. The basic premise in all these dictums is that the primary mechanism of spread of COVID-19 is assumed via person-to-person contacts only. We show this premise to be false. Our recommendations are anchored in the key relevant evidence and observations of the past two years gathered by us and published in a series of papers through 2020 and 2021. Our analysis documents the plausible putative first cause to the arrival of COVID-19 from space in a carbonaceous meteorite bolide the in stratosphere over China on October 11 2019; and then its blanket China-wide viral-laden meteorite dust contamination through November-December 2019 followed by further global dispersal of these viral-laden meteorite dust clouds by prevailing stratospheric and tropospheric wind systems, including human passaged virus aerosol-plumes adding to lower level (tropospheric) viral laden clouds. We explain why all lockdowns of any type cannot possibly work in principle against viral dispersal and transportation of this type – emergence of new clusters of disease, with poor evidence of connectivity through contact, clearly does not support person-to-person infections as the primary cause of spread. The initiation of mass infective events (“Mystery Cases”) in each regional and localised COVID-19 epidemic is caused by unsuspecting victims most likely catching the virus by rubbing up against a virus contaminated environment. We also deal with the efficacy of current vaccination roll outs on population-wide scales. It is most unfortunate that currently available mRNA expression vector vaccines, delivered by the intramuscular route (“Jab in the Arm”), may not only be dangerous in inducing many putative adverse reactions as their human safety is untested, they also cannot protect in principle against common cold and other respiratory pathogen infections like COVID-19 that arrive via the oral-nasal route. That evidence is discussed along with our recommendations for mankind’s preparedness for future suddenly emerging pandemics of this type.

NOTE: This course was last taught in 2017. Much new work has come out on the history of plague and the late medieval pandemic since then, some of it overturning long-held truisms. Please consult my "Plague Studies" tab and the general bibliography, "The Mother of All Pandemics" for the most recent work in the field.

Herewith is the final version of my syllabus for my undergraduate course, "The Black Death: Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World." The course actually teaches the whole global history of plague, from the earliest period it effected human societies (currently, the Bronze Age) up to its global presence in the world today. The course combines the latest scientific knowledge on plague, including molecular retrievals of *Yersinia pestis* from historical remains, with traditional historical documentation to understand the full impact of the pandemic waves of plague.

Further details on my teaching method can be found in this blog post from 2015: https://mip-archumanitiespress.org/blog/2015/08/27/teaching-the-new-paradigm-in-black-death-studies/.

The volume, *Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death*, inaugural issue of The Medieval Globe 1, no. 1-2 (Fall 2014), is available open-access here: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/1.