Articles related to OUTBREAKS

The outbreak of blastomycosis was first noted in early March when several individuals from the plant were diagnosed with atypical pneumonias. The mill was idled for several weeks to be disinfected, but the source of the infection was never located.

Infection patients reported using more than ten different brands of artificial tears, and some patients used multiple brands. The majority of patients who used artificial tears said they used EzriCare Artificial Tears, an over-the-counter, preservative-free product packaged in multidose bottles. The outbreak strain was found in opened EzriCare bottles with different lot numbers collected from two states, according to CDC laboratory testing.

A detailed summarization of the clinical presentation of 197 individuals with PCR-confirmed diagnosis of monkeypox in the UK. The summary documents a highly variable prodrome in terms of prodromal symptoms and timing to eruption of visible lesions. Systemic illness was seen in 86% of patients. After mucocutaneous lesions, seen in 100% of patients, fever was the next most common manifestation, seen in 62% of patients.

“The original misnomer for HIV—gay-related immune deficiency (GRID)—looms large in the consciousness of many gay men and offers a cautionary lesson for monkeypox and other infectious disease outbreaks.”

Burkholderia pseudomallei bacteria showed up in four patients in Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, and Texas in 2021, despite the bacterium typically associated with travel to tropical and subtropical areas like Thailand and Malaysia. The case was cracked when researchers found an essential oil spray that contained B. pseudomallei in the home of a 4-year-old boy who died from complications of the melioidosis outbreak.

Monkeypox has never before appeared more or less simultaneously across different countries and now continents. So this current outbreak is both puzzling and concerning public health workers. Unlike the previous cases discovered outside Africa, the current outbreaks have occurred in people with no travel history, suggesting that human-to-human transmission is driving the spread. And in the current outbreak, the illness appears to be presenting atypically, without its normal prodrome. Read more about the hypothesized connection with smallpox eradication, available vaccinations, and public health response from the outbreak.