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Loren Grush, Popular Science August 18, 2014The Lone Star tick. Mike Abley will always remember the last hamburger he ever ate. It was more than 20 years ago, and he recalls the meat being particularly juicy and delicious. But a few hours after dinner, Abley started itching like mad. He burst into hives, his tongue swelled, and he eventually passed out, prompting his wife to call 911. At the hospital, doctors determined he had gone into anaphylactic shock—a potentially deadly allergic reaction. Fortunately, Abley pulled through, and he later met with an allergist to determine what had caused the terrifying...

Sierra Leone's president has declared a public health emergency to curb the deadly Ebola outbreak.,p. Ernest Bai Koroma said the epicentres of the outbreak in the east would be quarantined and asked the security forces to enforce the measures. The UN says 729 people in West Africa have died of Ebola since February - 233 of them in Sierra Leone.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is calling on the Obama administration to impose a travel ban on three West African nations in response to a growing Ebola virus outbreak. The House Foreign Affairs Committee member wants the State Department to bar citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from entering the United States, including any foreign travelers who have visited those countries in the previous 90 days. He also requested that the ban be expanded to any nation that reports an originating case of the virus, and that restrictions only be lifted 90 days after the last reported case.

Fears of a global Ebola pandemic are 'justified' an expert has said as Nigerian health officials try to trace 30,000 people at risk of contracting the deadly disease following the death of Patrick Sawyer. The U.S. citizen boarded a flight in Liberia carrying the disease to Nigeria, potentially infecting 'anyone on the same plane'. It comes as Nigerian actor Jim Iyke sparked outrage, posting a picture of himself wearing an Ebola mask while sitting in a first class airport lounge as he fled Liberia. The 'Nollywood' star posted a message on his Instagram page saying he had cut short a...

""The likelihood of this outbreak spreading beyond West Africa is very low," admitted Stephan Monroe, deputy director of the CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases."

Ebola virus disease is sweeping across West Africa in the largest outbreak of the virus to date. Mortality rates are currently at 60% in a disease where up to 90% of infected people can die. But despite this lethality there remain no licensed treatments or vaccines available, nearly 40 years after the disease was first discovered. In March, Ebola was reported for the first time in Guinea, West Africa, in districts that border neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. This proximity meant that unlike previous outbreaks in other parts of Africa, the usually remote Ebola virus had the opportunity to cross...

Liberia's president has closed all but three land border crossings, restricted public gatherings and quarantined communities heavily affected by the Ebola outbreak in the West African nation. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf described the measures late Sunday after the first meeting of a new task force she created and is chairing to contain the disease, which has killed 129 people in the country and more than 670 across the region. A top Liberian doctor working at Liberia's largest hospital died on Saturday, and two American aid workers have fallen ill, underscoring the dangers facing those charged with bringing the outbreak under...

If the rate stays on track, 2014 could break 2010's record high of 1,179 casesSan Diego County has seen more than double the number of pertussis cases this year compared to last, according to the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA). Nine new instances of whooping cough, which may have left others exposed, brings the county’s total to 895. Just 120 cases were reported by this time last year, and for the whole of 2013, 431 cases were confirmed. “The county and state are experiencing an epidemic of pertussis,” said Wilma J. Wooten, M.D., a county public...

Health authorities at a Navy base in Southern California took steps last weekend to curtail an outbreak of pneumonia and swine flu among illegal immigrant children housed at the facility, according to U.S. officials. The outbreak of disease among several of the nearly 600 immigrant children at the Naval Base Ventura County, located north of Los Angeles, initially was thought to be caused by deadly bacterial streptococcal meningitis, according to one official close to the issue. However, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said he was not aware of any cases of meningitis at the...

Health authorities at a Navy base in Southern California took steps last weekend to curtail an outbreak of pneumonia and swine flu among illegal immigrant children housed at the facility, according to U.S. officials. The outbreak of disease among several of the nearly 600 immigrant children at the Naval Base Ventura County, located north of Los Angeles, initially was thought to be caused by deadly bacterial streptococcal meningitis, according to one official close to the issue. However, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said he was not aware of any cases of meningitis at the...

**SNIP** Drug-resistant tuberculosis also appears to have spread, with several counties in southern Texas reporting twice the usual average number of cases. TB is a disease that needs to be carefully monitored and screened for, a prospect that is not possible under the current circumstances. Dengue fever, a potentially deadly mosquito-borne disease that causes fatigue, pain in the bones and muscles, and fever, and infects close to 100 million people worldwide every year, has been detected this year in southern Texas for the first time since 2005. Illegal immigrants, possibly from Mexico, are a likely source. If infected mosquitoes begin...

Officials believe the wide footprint of this outbreak is partly because of the proximity between the jungle where the virus was first identified and cities such as Conakry. The capital in Guinea has a population of 2 million and an international airport. People are traveling without realizing they're carrying the deadly virus. It can take between two and 21 days after exposure for someone to feel sick.

BENTON COUNTY, Ark. —The Benton County Health Department is cracking down after a food-poisoning outbreak at the Walmart home office cafe

Extremely Deadly Virus will Come from the Muslim World By Shoebat Foundation onMay 10, 2014 inFeatured, General Exclusive by Walid Shoebat When it comes to MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) it kills nearly a third of the people it sickened. Most people still haven’t twigged to the existence of MERS but that may be changing, with new MERS infections popping up recently in Malaysia, Greece, the Philippines, Egypt, and late last week, the United States became the 16th country to detect MERS in an American who has been living and working in Saudi Arabia. Some potential explanations for the...

"The spread of polio around the world has become so serious it is now an international public health emergency, the World Health Organization warned today. The agency said the problem could grow in the next few months and unravel the nearly three-decade effort to eradicate the crippling disease. It described current polio outbreaks in Asia, Africa and the Middle East as an 'extraordinary event' that required a coordinated international response. It was the first-ever international alert on polio. 'Until it is eradicated, polio will continue to spread internationally, find and paralyze susceptible kids,' Dr Bruce Aylward, who leads WHO's polio...

Though officials at the World Health Organization are feverishly working to stop the spread of the Ebola virus in what is now seven African nations, their efforts may be for naught. In Guinea, a hot spot for the deadly contagion, government health officials have said that the outbreak is nearly under control. Yet, Reuters reports that the government “planned to stop publicly releasing the death toll to avoid causing unnecessary panic.” But panic may be in order. Despite the best efforts of emergency health workers it appears that virus may have crossed out of Africa into Europe.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (CDC) is reporting that the mosquito borne illness, Chikungunya Fever, has the potential to be imported to the southern United States, areas with temperate climates and large mosquito vectors. Chikungunya Fever is a viral disease, a mosquito-borne pathogen, similar to Dengue Fever. The disease is transmitted by mosquitoes of the Aedes genus, the same type of mosquitoes that transmit the Dengue Fever Virus. Chikungunya Fever is endemic to Asia, Africa and the Indian Subcontinent. A large outbreak was reported in 2006-2007 in India, and several other countries in southeast Asia....

Doctors in California say as many as 25 children are suffering from a mysterious, poliolike virus that is leaving them with paralyzed limbs... The cause of most of these cases is not known, health officials say. The average age of the children is 12.

Dr. Keith Van Haren, a pediatric neurologist at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital who has worked with Glaser’s team, will present the cases of five of the children at the American Academy of Neurology’s upcoming annual meeting. He said all five patients had paralysis in one or more arms or legs that reached its full severity within two days. None had recovered limb function after six months. “We know definitively that it isn’t polio,” Van Haren added, noting that all had been vaccinated against that disease. Glaser wouldn’t provide the number of illnesses. Van Haren said he was aware...

Bayonne officials are planning to have several health officials on hand and local emergency services available tomorrow when a Royal Caribbean cruise ship which recently cut its trip short due to a gastrointestinal breakout overseas arrives at the Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne.