Be Alert! ...and in various places plagues and famines

...and in various places plagues and famines... - Luke 21:11b Additional articles Superbug Scare: Virginia District's Schools Scrubbed; Teen Not First to Succumb to Deadly Infection FOX NEWS [News Corporation/Murdoch] - October 17, 2007 All 21 school buildings in Bedford County, Va., were being scrubbed and sanitized Wednesday after the death of a 17-year-old high school student from a powerful drug-resistant strain of staph bacteria. The schools, all in Bedford County, Va., were closed after students there launched a protest over unsanitary conditions Monday, using text messages and social networking sites. - - - One of its students, Ashton Bonds, died Monday after being hospitalized for more than a week from Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, a strain of staph bacteria that does not respond to penicillin and related antibiotics. Blevins subsequently ordered the schools closed for cleaning. - - - - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C302605%2C00.html Weston Student Diagnosed With Resistant Staph Infection ASSOCIATED PRESS [Cooperative] - October 17, 2007 WESTON - At least one Weston High School student has been diagnosed with a potentially deadly antibiotic-resistant staph infection, schools official said Tuesday. The school sent a letter home to parents informing them that one case of the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus infection, or MRSA, has been confirmed at the school. Health officials are waiting for results of tests on another student. - - - - http://www.courant.com/news/custom/topnews/hc-westonstaph-1017%2C0%2C7632428.story?coll=hc_tab01_layout UN report cuts AIDS infection estimate AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - November 20, 2007 The United Nations sharply reduced its estimate of HIV-AIDS sufferers in an annual report Tuesday, saying a revision of statistics from India meant there were seven million less than previously thought. Revised figures in the latest UNAIDS study slashed an estimate for total infections this time last year to 32.7 million from 39.5 million cases, the number given in the agency's 2006 report. "The single biggest reason for the reduction in global HIV prevalence figures in the past year was the recent revision in India after an intensive reassessment of the epidemic in that country," UNAIDS said in its report. The number of people worldwide infected with HIV in 2007 totalled 2.5 million people 32.2 million are now living with the virus, the report said. More than two million people died from the disease in 2007. - - - - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071120082258.pmvwp8f9&show_article=1 AIDS virus invaded U.S. from Haiti: study REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - By Will Dunham - October 29, 2007 WASHINGTON - The AIDS virus invaded the United States in about 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected immigrant who set the stage for it to sweep the world in a tragic epidemic, scientists said on Monday. Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist, said the 1969 U.S. entry date is earlier than some experts had believed. The timeline laid out in the study led by Worobey indicates that HIV infections were occurring in the United States for roughly 12 years before AIDS was first recognized by scientists as a disease in 1981. Many people had died by that point. "It is somehow chilling to know it was probably circulating for so long under our noses," Worobey said in a telephone interview. The researchers conducted a genetic analysis of stored blood samples from early AIDS patients to determine when the human immunodeficiency virus first entered the United States. They found that HIV was brought to Haiti by an infected person from central Africa in about 1966, which matches earlier estimates, and then came to the United States in about 1969. The researchers think an unknown single infected Haitian immigrant arrived in a large city like Miami or New York, and the virus circulated for years -- first in the U.S. population and then to other nations. - - - - http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2954500820071029?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true Low-Key Recall of AIDS Drug Hits World’s Poor NEW YORK TIMES - By Elisabeth Rosenthal - July 23, 2007 ROME, July 21 - A total recall of an important AIDS drug widely used in developing countries has disrupted treatment for tens of thousands of the world’s poorest patients, with no clear word from the manufacturer on when shipments will resume. The recall of the drug, Viracept, by Roche Pharmaceuticals of Switzerland, went largely unnoticed in the developed world when it was announced in early June, after the company had discovered that some batches made at its Swiss plant contained a dangerous chemical. But the recall has caused growing concern among global health officials and in AIDS programs in many poor nations. They say the company did an inadequate job of informing patients and officials about the potential risks and helping them find affordable access to newer alternative drugs. Roche said that it had been actively working with health officials across the globe and that the risk from the affected batches was low. The scope of Roche’s recall is extraordinary, if not unprecedented, in the battle against the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, global health officials say. Dr. Lembit Rago, an official at the World Health Organization, said tens of thousands of people take Viracept worldwide, many of them poor people with H.I.V. in developing countries. The recall has left those patients with the painful choice of discontinuing a lifesaving medicine, or using a drug that might contain a dangerous contaminant. - - - - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/health/23recall.html?ex=1342929600&en=6c21e59cc7aba718&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink Mexican Migrants Carry H.I.V. Home NEW YORK TIMES - By Marc Lacey - July 17, 2007 PUEBLA, Mexico - Cres has spent almost half his 32 years working in the United States, in the fields of California and Texas and the factories of Chicago and New York. His wife and three children were with him some of the time. But he was alone for long spells, and it was during one of those periods that he figures he contracted H.I.V. - - - Migrant workers like him go to the United States with dreams of new prosperity, hoping to bring back dollars. But some are bringing back something else as well, H.I.V. and AIDS, which they are spreading in the rural parts of Mexico least prepared to handle the epidemic. - - - - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/world/americas/17mexico.html?ex=1342411200&en=0e3edc2b6bc5018a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink Major Ebola outbreak in Congo confirmed, up to 166 deaths could be linked AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - September 12, 2007 The World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed a major outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and said 166 deaths there since April could be linked to the disease. The outbreak of the highly-contagious Ebola haemorrhagic fever, in the Western Kasai province, was confirmed by specialist laboratories in the US and Gabon, the WHO said in a statement on its website. The tests have also confirmed the presence of Shigella dysentery type 1, another but less deadly disease. "As of 11 September 2007, WHO is aware of 372 cases and 166 deaths associated with the ongoing event in the province. Additional samples have been taken for further laboratory analysis," the WHO said in a statement. - - - Ebola causes the patient to bleed under the skin and in severe cases, from the mouth, ears and eyes. The virus, which has no known cure, is highly infectious for those who come into contact with a victim's body fluids. - - - - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070912115643.hr0135hq&show_article=1 Fast Facts: Brain-Eating Amoeba Naegleria Fowleri The following is information about Nagleria fowleri, amoebas that kill humans by eating their brains: ASSOCIATED PRESS - September 27, 2007 THE CULPRIT: A species of amoeba known as Naegleria fowleri is found around the world in water and soil. In rare cases, they can latch onto the nasal cavity of people swimming in water where the amoeba live and will eat away the person's brain tissue. DANGER: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Naegleria infected 23 people from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials say they've noticed a spike in infections, with six Naegleria-related cases so far - all of them fatal. PREVENTION: Health experts say people should stay away from warm, standing water. If they go swimming in such places, people should wear nose clips. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298339,00.html New York sushi tainted with mercury Researcher says next significant source could be China WORLDNETDAILY - August 30, 2007 Eating tuna sushi in New York has "moved from fashionable dining to a high risk sport," according to a researcher whose new report shows servings in top restaurants contain mercury levels high enough for the Food and Drug Administration to order them taken off the market. While the contamination is attributed to a home-grown problem - emissions from coal-fired power plants concentrated in areas such as the Great Lakes and the Northeast - the next great source of the threat, the researcher told WND, could be China, a nation which already has delivered ginger contaminated with a pesticide, fish raised in untreated sewage, toothpaste containing a solvent and children's clothing with formaldehyde embedded. "Toxic Tuna: An Undercover Investigation of Mercury-Laden Tuna in New York City's Premiere Sushi Restaurants" is a project of Caryn Mandelbaum, an environmental health advocate with GotMercury.org. She said it follows on the heels of a report from the New York City Department of Health that one in four people in New York has elevated mercury levels in their body. "Consumers need to know the risks of eating tuna sushi and know about healthier alternatives when it comes to dining out," she said. Her work showed that over 20 percent of the samples taken from the restaurants were considered unsafe for all consumers because they exceeded the FDA action level of one part per million of mercury. - - - - http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57376 Chicken-plant workers test 'positive' for TB 212 out of 765 processing employees infected - company says HIV-privacy laws nix screening WORLDNETDAILY - November 4, 2007 Alabama health officials have identified 212 workers who have tested positive for tuberculosis at a single poultry plant owned by one of the largest processors in the U.S. In two batteries of skin tests last month, given to 765 fresh processing employees at the Decatur, Ala., plant owned by Wayne Farms LLC by the State Department of Public Health's Tuberculosis Control Division, 28 percent were found to be infected, including one with active tuberculosis disease, which is contagious. Doctors have yet to evaluate X-rays for 165 current workers who tested positive to determine if any more are contagious. - - - Both employees with active TB are Hispanics born in countries where the disease is prevalent, heath officials said. - - - Accompanied by the rise in illegal immigration, tuberculosis is making a comeback in the U.S., often eluding diagnosis by doctors who are unfamiliar with the disease. Last year, WND reported more than three-quarters of the 2,903 cases in California in 2005 were among foreign natives, with a total of 14,093 cases nationwide. - - - - http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58501 TB-tainted man crosses border 76 times THE WASHINGTON TIMES [News World Communications/Moon-Unification Church] - By Sara A. Carter and Audrey Hudson - October 17, 2007 A Mexican national infected with a highly contagious form of tuberculosis crossed the U.S. border 76 times and took multiple domestic flights in the last year, according to Customs and Border Protection interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Times. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency was warned by health officials on April 16 that the frequent traveler was infected, but it took the Homeland Security officials more than six weeks to issue a May 31 alert to warn its own border inspectors, according to Homeland Security sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Homeland Security took one more week to tell its own Transportation Security Agency. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR) is a highly contagious illness and also resistant to the two most commonly used drugs to treat TB. It is the same dangerous strain of tuberculosis that concerned health officials when Andrew Speaker, a 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer, slipped into the U.S. from Europe via a flight to Canada. - - - - http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071017/NATION/110170103/1001 Teen Jailed Over TB to Face Deportation ASSOCIATED PRESS - August 30, 2007 LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - Officials started taking steps to deport a Mexican teenager who was jailed after refusing treatment for tuberculosis. Francisco Santos, 17, has acknowledged to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that he is in the country illegally, Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway said Wednesday. County health officials jailed Santos last week after he refused treatment for an active, contagious case of tuberculosis and threatened to travel to Mexico, a move that could expose more people to the potentially fatal disease. Santos, who lives in Duluth, has since started taking medicine, but he will remain jailed at least until a Sept. 5 hearing. Conway said Santos' condition and age could further complicate a deportation process that can take months. Because he is a minor, officials would have to make sure he has family in Mexico or that the Mexican government would take a role. Four people who had been living with Santos have also tested positive for tuberculosis, health officials said Wednesday. - - - - http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070830/D8RBARF80.html FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.