Free Republic

Doctors are worried Brazil’s yellow fever outbreak could be as devastating an epidemic as the Zika virus, the New England Journal of Medicine reported. More than 100 people have already died from the virus, which is spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Initially, doctors weren’t concerned the few instances of yellow fever would turn into an outbreak because the majority of the cases, which were first reported in December, were among people living away from heavily populated urban cities and closer to Brazil’s jungles. However, the number of people contracting the virus is rising sharply, the report said.

One of the worst epidemics in human history, a sixteenth-century pestilence that devastated Mexico’s native population, may have been caused by a deadly form of salmonella from Europe, a pair of studies suggest. In one study, researchers say they have recovered DNA of the stomach bacterium from burials in Mexico linked to a 1540s epidemic that killed up to 80% of the country's native inhabitants. The team reports its findings in a preprint posted on the bioRxiv server on 8 February1.

Florida health officials who have been testing thousands of residents for Zika virus said Wednesday they found another infection: dengue virus. The health department said it confirmed a case of locally acquired dengue virus, the second this year in the state and the first in Miami. Dengue is a close relative of Zika and it is spread by the same mosquitoes. Health experts say anywhere you find dengue, you are likely to find Zika. It's so closely related that tests often mix up the two viruses, as well as a third relative: chikungunya. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

Singapore reported another big batch of Zika virus cases Sunday, bringing its total count in just a week to 215, and World Health Organization officials said the spread of the virus definitely still constitutes a global health emergency. Zika's apparent quick spread out of Latin America and in Asia and Africa has WHO officials worried. They have no idea if the virus will spread as explosively as it has in the Americas, and they cannot predict if it will cause a fresh wave of birth defects and side-effects such as the paralyzing Guillain-Barré syndrome. They don't even know if they...

**SNIP** It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America's elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let's be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism. **SNIP**...

This is what "European values" now look like. The millions of Muslim migrants invading Europe under the guise of refugees are making the abuse of children into the new normal. If you want to know where the Muslim sex grooming scandals of the UK in which thousands of young girls were raped come from, it's down to religion and culture. ... Dutch asylum centres are reportedly housing 20 child brides aged between 13 and 15, while three a week on average are arriving to the country. The brides were granted legal permission to join their older partners after the country...

The bodies of juveniles, young adults and middle-age adults were packed together in the house...before it burnt down. Anthropologists who studied the remains say a "prehistoric disaster," possibly an epidemic of some sort, killed these people. The site, whose modern-day name is "Hamin Mangha," dates back to a time before writing was used in the area, when people lived in relatively small settlements, growing crops and hunting for food. The village contains the remains of pottery, grinding instruments, arrows and spearheads, providing information on their way of life ... An anthropological team at Jilin University in China is studying the...

The United States has an epidemic brewing within our borders, and the problem is much more serious than most people realize. Lyme disease is spreading fast, and it only takes the bite of a poppy-seed-size tick to contract. Even after treatment, symptoms can be difficult to shake. Those infected can develop severe, rheumatoid arthritis-like joint and muscle pain. Fatigue and neurological disorders — such as numbness, tingling, weakness, and cognitive impairment — can set in too. Left untreated, infections can lead to brain inflammation or heart problems. At least a handful of such cases have proven fatal. A recent study...

Liberia’s last Ebola patient was discharged on Thursday after a ceremony in the capital, Monrovia, bringing to zero the number of known cases in the country and marking a milestone in West Africa’s battle against the disease.

(English translation) Given the alarming number of persons infected with the disease, Health Secretary Ana Rius declared yesterday that Puerto Rico is facing an influenza epidemic. The decree was released given the number of cases reported in January which totaled 3,124, a figure very close to the one reported for the last six months of 2014. Most of the hospitalized patients have been pregnant women, children under 19, and elderly, [which are] the highest-risk populations. In fact, an 85-year-old woman already died of the disease. Along with the declaration, the Secretary signed an administrative order for health-insurance companies to cover...

Random thoughts on the passing scene: Who says President Obama doesn't promote bipartisanship? His complicity in Iran's moving toward nuclear bombs has alarmed some top Senate Democrats enough to get them to join Republicans in opposition to the Obama administration's potentially suicidal foreign policy. Before the current measles outbreak, measles was once almost wiped out in the United States. But an article in a medical journal more than a decade ago had many parents afraid to have their children vaccinated, for fear that the vaccine causes autism. After scientific studies refuted that claim, the medical journal repudiated the article, and...

U.S. experienced record number of cases last year. A measles outbreak whose spread originated at Disneyland has grown to 95 cases. ... 79 of those in infections are in California and 52 of them can be linked directly to Disney Parks. The rest are in Michigan, Arizona, Utah, Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Nebraska and Mexico. ... The U.S. experienced a record number of measles cases last year, with 644 infections from 27 states despite being largely eliminated in 2000.

"We don't know exactly how this outbreak started but we do think it was likely a person infected with measles overseas," Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters. "We assume that someone got infected with measles overseas, visited Disneyland park, and spread the disease to others."

Health officials in Arizona, host state of Sunday's Super Bowl, have asked people who may have been exposed to measles to isolate themselves ... Seven cases have been confirmed and 1,000 people across three counties may have been exposed .. Two of the seven confirmed cases are in Maricopa County, which is hosting the NFL championship game, the county's health department confirmed Tuesday. Because the highly contagious virus can linger in the air for two hours, health officials have asked those who may have been exposed to avoid doctors' offices, emergency rooms or urgent-care centers

President Obama signed into law $5.4 billion in funding for what was already a phantom epidemic “It was impossible to predict the decline in the Ebola caseload last September, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggested a worst-case scenario of 1.4 million victims in West Africa.” That from the Washington Post, January 18, in an article on Ebola treatment centers standing empty even as new ones are being built. Fewer than 22,000 cases have been reported and new cases are approaching zero. “Impossible?” I predicted it and repeated it over and over, in multiple major publications....

Near the hillside shelter where dozens of men and women died of Ebola, a row of green U.S. military tents sit atop a vast expanse of imported gravel. The generators hum; chlorinated water churns in brand-new containers; surveillance cameras send a live feed to a large-screen television. There’s only one thing missing from this state-of-the-art Ebola treatment center: Ebola patients.The U.S. military sent about 3,000 troops to West Africa to build centers like this one in recent months. They were intended as a crucial safeguard against an epidemic that flared in unpredictable, deadly waves. But as the outbreak fades in...

Hospitals and medical centers in western Colorado are limiting visitors because of a serious flu outbreak. ... The Veterans Affairs Medical Center's community living center still is not accepting visitors after 11 patients showed signs of having the flu. All of those patients will remain in isolation until two or three days after the last one recovers. The Centers for Disease Control said influenza has reached epidemic proportions. There have been 15 pediatric deaths nationwide

In the span of four months, at least 94 children in 33 U.S. states have developed a devastating form of paralysis with symptoms similar to polio. Some require a ventilator to breathe. And some of the greatest government health minds in the country say they have no idea what’s causing it. At the same time, during the past four months, at least 12 children have died after falling ill with a respiratory virus called Enterovirus D-68 (EV-D68). Again, federal health officials are at a loss to explain the origin of the epidemic. Are the mysterious outbreaks linked? The Centers for...

Tyler Durden 11/06/2014 The recent spread of Ebola has led to a tragic loss of human lives and stands to devastate West African economies. As the situation has evolved, and despite the equity market's apparent belief that it's all over, Goldman has examined the global economic and market implications of the outbreak. It would appear Ebola is a thing of the past... But implications remain as Goldman Sachs explains, We survey our economists and equity analysts to provide a sector-by-sector breakdown of the disease’s impacts to date and, drawing on past episodes of pandemic threats, its potential effects. We find...

The number of people infected with the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone each day is nine times higher than it was two months ago, according to new data. The rate appears to be accelerating particularly in the rural areas surrounding the capital Freetown, the London Times reports. Compared with an average of 1.3 Ebola cases a day at the start of September, there were 12 new cases a day in late October, says the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), an organization set up by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.