Also confirmed in MN. They claim no danger to the State, the people came back from a trip.

 

Hopefully they get this contained before warm weather hits and the other MN state bird wakes up.

UN to decide if Zika virus is a global health emergency

http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/un-to-decide-if-zika-virus-is-a-global-health-emergency/ar-BBoOzvx?ocid=spartanntp

I saw that headline and thought, yup I read about that on arfcom...

“I think we’re in for real trouble in the United States,” Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told The Washington Post.

Brazil is currently undergoing a major epidemic of Zika epidemic, which was first reported in that nation in May 2015.

Zika “will certainly come to the United States, and I think it will come fairly rapidly,” Lawrence Gostin, the director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, told USA Today.

Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization’s director-general, said the “level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty.”

“We need to get some answers quickly,” she said.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0EPA0sCUzg&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

The Gulf Coast is the region of the US most likely to see a Zika outbreak because the Aedes aegypti mosquito — which spreads the virus — is already found there, Gostin said. Areas with stagnant water and lots of garbage will be most susceptible, as will poor neighborhoods.

“These mosquitoes have adapted very well to our throw-away society,” Michael Osterholm, the director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy told USA Today. “It’s not in the swamps, where the mosquitoes that spread malaria live. But that discarded fast food wrapper in the ditch could be a very important source of Aedes.”


Even something as seemingly harmless as trash on the side of the road can become a breeding ground for the Aedes mosquito if it gets filled with water. The mosquito can breed year-round in warm, wet places like Florida and during the spring and summer in areas further north.

Zika is likely to spread through the Americas and affect every country in the region except Canada in the far north and Chile in the south, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned.

There is also some evidence that Zika could spread through other ways, including sexual contact, WHO experts told The Guardian.

“Zika has been isolated in human semen, and one case of possible person-to-person sexual transmission has been described,” a WHO press release stated. “However, more evidence is needed to confirm whether sexual contact is a means of Zika transmission.”

ZIKA VIRUS SPREADS THROUGH INTERCOURSE!

In DALLAS!

Yup.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dallas-county-reports-first-us-case-of-zika-virus-transmission/ar-BBp261K?ocid=spartandhp

And looks like this may be a man-made problem. Genetically modified mosquitoes could be to blame

If there's any evidence of it, nobody has published or broadcast it yet.

The Mirror had a nearly identical piece. The gist of it was: "Scientists released genetically modified mosquitoes, and then a few months later this happened."

Typically bullshit media fear-mongering.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has declared a health emergency in four counties of the state because of the Zika virus.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-governor-declares-emergency-due-to-zika/ar-BBp5rl4?ocid=spartandhp

True or not, we do get a lot of folks that travel to 3rd world countries.

Of course, mosquitoes are a year around problem down here.





 

Nurse in Europe that was sent back with Ebola is back in the hospital for the third time.... I've always wondered what's the odd of transmission with someone like that walking around "cured" only to find out later it's still there.

Rare blood inflection spreading

Semi close to my neck of the woods..... to make it more interesting, the news app I uses has a health section that brings in three random stories from around the world. One was this, one was about Ebola flaring up again, and the other was about listeria.

eventually
 

Interesting.  Thank you for posting that.

Just ran across this, left cold, interesting;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3502778/Virus-TRAP-help-prevent-flu-Fabric-coating-masks-air-filters-isolates-particles-spread-illness.html

Some of us are closer than others.



 

 

Health officials are still searching for the source of a serious blood infection linked to at least 18 deaths in the Midwest.

The bacteria, called Elizabethkingia, does not usually cause illness in humans, but in recent months it has sickened dozens and killed 17 people in Wisconsin and one in Michigan.

"This is not a new bacteria, although the strain that seems to be spreading now in Wisconsin is a slightly different one than we're used to seeing," CBS News medical contributor Dr. Holly Phillips explained. "It can cause serious blood infections or meningitis, but generally we see five to ten cases in every state in every year."

However, since November more than 50 cases have been reported in southern Wisconsin, many of them fatal.

The bacteria got its name from the microbiologist Elizabeth King, who discovered it in 1959. Symptoms of infection include fever, chills, headache, neck pain, and skin infections. Those most at risk for complications are newborns, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems.

"For people who don't fall into those groups or are otherwise healthy, you'd probably be fine if you contracted it," Phillips said. "But still we need to be extraordinarily vigilant. The average age of the people who have died in Wisconsin is about 77, so it's affecting the older population."

Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are still searching for the source. The bacteria typically spreads in health care settings, such as nursing homes, hospitals, and assisted living facilities, but the current outbreak is different.

"We're seeing people who have been in their homes get it, as well as some people who have also been in clinics," Phillips said.

Elizabethkingia can not be transmitted from person to person. Typically, it's spread through water sources.


More cold:  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/questions-remain-over-mystery-bacteria-killing-elderly-in-midwest/

Transmitted through water sources.

 

This is the type of stuff I worry about with bioterror. Why we filter our water, never drink water we didn't process ourselves, which is from our own well.

Via Fox news;

The Illinois Department of Public Health said on Wednesday that five more people had died after being infected with Elizabethkingia, a disease linked to the deaths of 15 people in neighboring Wisconsin.

The cause of death was not identified as Elizabethkingia because many of those people had underlying health conditions, the department said. Ten Illinois residents have been diagnosed with Elizabethkingia, and six have died.

Damn!

This sounds worse than...

Salmonella Fitzgerald

Same here...

We're not adverse to drinking whatever is available...

90% or better is RO water we process ourselves...

No more KIDNEY stones...


Love not having to crawl on the floor with horrible dry heaves thinking my eyes will pop out any moment...

The sleep after the pain --is incredible too...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-superbug-that-doctors-have-been-dreading-just-reached-the-us/ar-BBtwrwg?ocid=spartandhp

So the LA Times had this today...     Hollywood Ebola?

Very little detail.

Man, where's the fun in that!





 

http://www.vox.com/2017/3/2/14478400/deadly-bird-flu-china-h7n9

Been watching this here in Iowa.

Im sure it will spread here soon

BirdFlu Alert


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Damn, How do you imbed Youtube videos?  It shows up in the preview but not in the post!!

"An unusually deadly seasonal outbreak of plague has gripped the island nation of Madagascar. As of Friday, 258 have been sickened and 36 have died just since August, according to Madagascar’s Ministry of Public Health."

"It’s also spreading in two different ways—by fleas and by people—which some have dubbed a "double plague." Usually, plague infections arise as bubonic plague, spread by flea bites. In this case—the Black Death scenario—Y. pestis moves from the site of a flea bite on a human to the lymphatic system, taking up residence and inflaming a lymph node. This causes a painful swelling called a bubo, where the infection gets its name. If it’s left untreated, the infection can spread to the blood, causing septicaemic plague, or the lungs, causing pneumonic plague.

Pneumonic plague is the most severe form. It can become a life-threatening situation in just 24 hours and can begin to spread from person to person in droplets, coughed or sneezed.

Most of the people infected in the current outbreak in Madagascar have the pneumonic form."



Madagascar in panic amid raging “double plague”

Evidently digging up dead relatives for a dance party is a poor idea.

Who'da guessed?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/

Interesting article in this months Smithsonian magazine, including  the role the government had in 1918 in the spread of the pandemic through suppression and outright lies about the truth of what was happening

Madagascar plague death toll rises to 165 as scientists fear deadly virus WILL reach US, Europe and Britain and could mutate to become UNTREATABLE

This can't be good

I just read this.  Good lord, I can only imagine the panic back in 1918.

Interesting tidbit in that article was the theory that Wilson rationality was affected by  the flu and that's why he rolled over so bad in the treaty negotiations.
The (in)actions of his administration in handling or failing to properly react to the pandemic, really get raked over the coals by the author of the article.

This way of thinking reflected in this quote doesn't belong in this nations government:

"What proved even more deadly was the government policy toward the truth. When the United States entered the war, Woodrow Wilson demanded that “the spirit of ruthless brutality...enter into the very fibre of national life.” So he created the Committee on Public Information, which was inspired by an adviser who wrote, “Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms....The force of an idea lies in its inspirational value. It matters very little if it is true or false.”


Not covered in that article, but I've read in the past that they never preserved good specimens of that flu, so they have no way to really examine it with modern techniques?
I recall a couple of years ago they got excited at digging up some victims of the 1918 flu whose bodies were believed to still have a good specimen of the flu for examination....

Or if the 165 had a k after it.

Brevig Mission, Alaska - 1918 flu was bird flu

Sooo is it normal to be setting up tents outside of hospitals and closing school districts for the flu?

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-flu-demand-20180116-htmlstory.html

https://thetruth24.net/2018/01/17/flu-patient-spikes-cause-texas-school-district-closure-tents-at-california-hospital/