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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a new fatal case of the rare disease melioidosis in Georgia that is linked to three previous cases in different states, including Texas. The cases have included adults and children. Two of the four patients had no known risk factors for melioidosis; two died. Melioidosis, also called Whitmore’s disease, is an infectious disease that can infect humans or animals. The disease is caused by the bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei. Whole genome sequencing at CDC shows the bacterial strains that sickened the patients – one each in Texas, Kansas, Georgia and Minnesota –...

A DEADLY terrorist weapon could be buried in the backyards of Darwin's northern suburbs, US scientists fear. US authorities say melioidosis - commonly known as Nightcliff Gardeners Disease - is a potential bioterror threat. The US Government believes the tropical disease, caused by soil-dwelling bacteria, could become the next anthrax-style bioterrorism threat.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Even though the explosive spread of the Zika virus has been met with a new level of international response, thanks to lessons learned from the Ebola crisis, experts warn they are only beginning to grasp the damage the mosquito-borne virus can do. Doctors speaking at a U.N. meeting on Global Health Crises said Monday that the Zika virus has already affected 60 countries on four continents, and a major outbreak on the Atlantic Ocean island nation of Cape Verde suggests the disease is now poised to enter continental Africa. Zika has already become epidemic in Latin...

A mysterious illness at a Del Rio detention center that has killed two inmates and hospitalized two others within the past month has baffled health authorities, who have asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for help. All four men — three of them foreign nationals from Honduras and Mexico held on immigration charges, the fourth a Val Verde county prisoner who was one of the dead — were described as in their 20s and 30s, and apparently healthy when they arrived at the Val Verde Correctional Facility and County Jail. The privately operated 850-bed medium-security facility is under...

Lymphatic Filariasis, Found in 80 Countries, Rarely Kills but Destroys Lives by Causing Deformities One of the first things that Marc S. Micozzi did when he became director of the National Museum of Health and Medicine in the early 1990s was to move the elephantiasis leg. Grotesquely swollen and covered with folds of thickened skin, the leg was probably the most notorious item displayed in what was once called the Army Medical Museum. For several generations of Americans, it was a vivid memory of the customary childhood trip to Washington. Even children who had only been told about it could...