Plague

DENMARK, S.C. — The City of Denmark is expected to put in $2.3 million worth of upgrades to their water distribution system. This comes after nearly two years of concern from residents over what's in their drinking water. "We don't use the water," says Deanna Miller Berry.  She's been living in Denmark for the past six years and founded Denmark Citizens for Safe Water , an organization focused on improving the water quality in the city of about 3,000 people. Instead of drinking the water, she drives about 20 minutes away to Healing Springs, filling up several dozen containers for drinking water. "I do that because we just don't trust the water and we don't trust the people who have been telling us the water is safe to drink," says Berry. The distrust stems from a history of concerns from residents over the water in the City of Denmark. RELATED: Aging water systems: How the pipes can affect the quality of drinking water History of HaloSan ...

Chinese officials have sprayed almost 200 acres of land with poison as part of a rat and flea eradication campaign after a case of bubonic plague was reported in a northern region. The Ulanqab government in central Inner Mongolia said it carried the spraying last week, while another local authority posted images of cadres dressed in white scrubs and face masks and said they dispatched planes to spray poison as part of "rat- and flea-extermination work". The plague germ Yersinia pestis can be transmitted to humans from infected rats via fleas and the reported case has spurred efforts across the region to kill pests. Earlier this month two patients from the same region were diagnosed with the highly-contagious pneumonic strain of the plague and moved to Beijing for treatment. The pneumonic strain an prove fatal in 24 to 72 hours and is the "most virulent form" of the disease according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), while the bubonic form is less danger...

Many Chinese people are now on high alert after a few locals in Inner Mongolia have reportedly contracted the plague and as the rat population in the region is said to be out of control. According to official Chinese state media reports, at least four people have been diagnosed with the plague. The first patient, from northwest China’s Gansu Province, died in September from bubonic plague . A husband and wife from Inner Mongolia were diagnosed with the pneumonic plague and both are receiving treatment at a hospital in Beijing. The fourth patient contracted the bubonic plague after he consumed a wild hare on Nov. 5—he is also being treated in Beijing. However, netizens suspect that Chinese authorities are covering up more cases of the plague even though they have reportedly taken precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Bubonic plague is mainly spread by infected fleas from small animals and rodents such as rats , prairie dogs and hares. The three types of plag...

BEIJING : Chinese officials have sprayed almost 200 acres of land with poison as part of a rat and flea eradication campaign after a case of bubonic plague was reported in a northern region. The Ulanqab government in central Inner Mongolia said it carried the spraying last week, while another local authority posted images of cadres dressed in white scrubs and face masks and said they dispatched planes to spray poison as part of “rat-and flea-extermination work”. The plague germ Yersinia pestis can be transmitted to humans from infected rats via fleas and the reported case has spurred efforts across the region to kill pests. Earlier this month two patients from the same region were diagnosed with the highly-contagious pneumonic strain of the plague and moved to Beijing for treatment. The pneumonic strain Can prove fatal in 24 to 72 hours and is the “most virulent form” of the disease according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), while the bubonic form is less dangerous. “We wi...

Bunker, Waldstetten, Deutschland A Cool Cosplay Of An Black-Plague-Doctor With Glowing Medicine (Kuma Kum, Unsplash) This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of  The European Sting  with the  World Economic Forum . Author: Rosamond Hutt, Senior Writer, Formative Content A case of bubonic plague in China was caused by eating wild rabbit meat. More than 3,200 people were infected with the disease worldwide between 2010-2015, leading to 584 deaths, according to the WHO. Humans usually get plague after being bitten by an infected flea or handling an infected animal. While you may have read about plague in history books, three recent cases in China are a stark reminder the disease is not a thing of the past. A 55-year-old man from northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has been diagnosed with bubonic plague after eating wild rabbit meat. His case follows confirmation that two other people from the same region have the pneumon...

The 2019 counts are in for the two reintroduced populations of black-footed ferrets in Wyoming. There is good news and not-so-good news. Dana Nelson, nongame mammal biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, spent much of late summer and early fall searching for these long, slender endangered mammals. She was joined by crews of volunteer and agency biologists in an effort to count and study ferrets at both Shirley Basin and Meeteetse. “We are pleased our count in Shirley Basin is up from last year,” Nelson said. “The numbers in Meeteetse are less optimistic.” Black-footed ferrets were thought to be extinct until Sept. 26, 1981. That’s the day a dog named Shep happened to bring a dead ferret home and plopped it on the porch of his owner, John Hogg, on the Hogg Ranch near Meeteetse. Subsequent spotlighting surveys resulted in a count of 127 ferrets by 1986, but just a year later the population experienced a rapid decline. Canine distemper, a disease for which black-foot...

All those who came into contact with a pneumonic plague patient in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were released from medical quarantine on Saturday, Xinhua reported, citing the Health Commission of the region.   The 28 people in Huade County, Inner Mongolia have shown no abnormal symptoms during the observation period and have been released.   A third patient from Inner Mongolia, surnamed Liu, was diagnosed with pneumonic plague on November 16 after the first two from the region were diagnosed with the infectious disease in Beijing on November 12.  As of Saturday, Liu is in a stable condition and receiving proper treatment.   The first two patients who were reported to have been in critical condition have had consultations with well-known experts to optimize their treatment. Medical personnel have been closely monitoring the patients, using methods that integrate traditional Chinese and Western medicine. Read more: Infographic: What is pn...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- Many patients with Trypanosoma cruzi infection, or Chagas disease, in Los Angeles had multiple other comorbidities, a researcher said here. In a multivariable analysis, both cardiomyopathy and age were significant predictors of multiple comorbidities in these patients, reported Salvador Hernandez, MD, of the Centers of Excellence for Chagas Disease in Sylmar, California. More than half of patients with Chagas disease had two or more comorbidities, he noted at a presentation at the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene annual meeting. Although Chagas disease is often thought of as a parasitic infection that predominantly affects rural areas of Latin America, Hernandez noted a large epidemiological burden of cases in the U.S., including an estimated 70,000 in California, 37,000 in Texas, 18,000 in Florida, and 17,000 in New York, none of which included undocumented individuals. However, he added that Chagas disease is severely underdiagnosed i...

This is an excerpt from Second Opinion, a weekly roundup of eclectic and under-the-radar health and medical science news emailed to subscribers every Saturday morning. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by  clicking here . It's not a headline that you expect to see in 2019. But plague is back in the news after China reported three cases of the infectious disease earlier this month. The first cases were recorded in a middle-aged couple from the remote region of Inner Mongolia, who were sent to Beijing for observation after struggling to breathe. The third case emerged last weekend : A hunter from the same region was diagnosed with bubonic plague after catching and eating a wild rabbit. About 28 people who were in close contact with the hunter were also put in quarantine. It's actually the second time this year plague has been found in the region; in May, a Mongolian couple died reportedly after eating raw marmot kidney , leading to a six-day quarantine in...

Video Player Close HOHHOT, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Twenty people who had contact with a pneumonic plague patient in Huade County, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, were discharged from quarantine on Saturday. The patient, who is from Xilingol League of the region, is still receiving treatment in the Huade County Hospital. According to medical staff in the hospital, the patient is in a stable condition. In addition to the 20 people discharged, eight others that had contact with the patient had also been put under quarantine, and were later discharged as none had shown any symptoms such as fever. Prior to this case, two patients from Xilingol were diagnosed with pneumonic plague in Beijing early last week. No epidemiological association was found between the cases, according to authorities. Since the two plague outbreaks, the health department in Inner Mongolia has carried out investigations and rodent extermination. So far, a total of 12 rats and two rabbits were ...

Medication that, up until now, has been difficult to administer for the treatment of Alzheimer's Disease , has just been made useful by using a nanoscale silicone chip to "trick" the blood-brain barrier (BBB) into allow the drugs' entry, according to new research by the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in partnership with Bar Ilan University. The researchers claim that such a breakthrough may inhibit the development of the disease. The discovery was made by Professor Ester Segal and Michal Rosenberg from the Technion Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, along with Professor Orit Shefi and Neta Zilony-Hanin from the Bar Ilan University Faculty of Engineering. The disease is a neurodegenerative disease, which means it originates in the brain cells. The major cause of Alzheimer's is an accumulation of a protein called amyloid beta in brain tissues, which kills the neurons in different regions of the brain. Such damage can harm mechanisms essential to...

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Climate change can raise risk of plague    South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/2rl1H2A

Close contacts of infected patients released from medical observation Plague control and prevention in Xiliin Gol League faces harsh challenges, and local authorities should make all out efforts to ensure the disease does not spread, the top official of the league said. Luo Hu, Party chief of Xiliin Gol League, made the remarks on plague control and prevention during an inspection of local medical institutions on Sunday and Monday, following three confirmed cases. A herding couple from the league, located in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, were diagnosed with pneumonic plague in Beijing on Nov 12. They are still in critical condition, according to the Beijing Municipal Health Commission. All those who had close contact with the two patients in Beijing were released from medical observation on Thursday morning, the commission said. The third case, a 55-year-old male quarry worker, was diagnosed with bubonic plague on Saturday. He is receiving treatment at a hospital in Ulaanq...

Dear Dr. Roach: My friend has been struggling with almost never-ending hiccups since she was young. There seems to be no apparent trigger for them. They happen all hours of the day and even wake her up in the middle of the night. She will hiccup until it starts to become very painful for her, and she cannot make them stop. She's tried every remedy she can find -- drinking water, holding her breath and slowly letting out, even doing handstands, just to name a few. Dear Dr. Roach: My friend has been struggling with almost never-ending hiccups since she was young. There seems to be no apparent trigger for them. They happen all hours of the day and even wake her up in the middle of the night. She will hiccup until it starts to become very painful for her, and she cannot make them stop. She's tried every remedy she can find -- drinking water, holding her breath and slowly letting out, even doing handstands, just to name a few. She lives in a rural community with no doctor who can ...

Video Player Close BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- All the close contacts of the two pneumonic plague patients in Beijing were released from medical observation at 8 a.m. Thursday, said the Beijing Municipal Health Commission. The two patients from Xilingol League of northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, who were diagnosed with pneumonic plague in Beijing last week, have been in critical condition, the commission said. In the past few days, local authorities have organized renowned medical experts, optimized the treatment plans and used both Western and traditional Chinese medicine to save their lives. https://ift.tt/2D4Zzyq

It’s finally November here in Charlottesville, and we all know what that means. Students crowd together in libraries before finals like chickens in a factory farm awaiting slaughter, first-years walk a mile to frats in freezing cold weather without jackets (it’ll ruin the ‘fit) and nobody has used hand sanitizer since their mom stopped stuffing it in their backpack. These factors combine to create the ideal conditions for the most sinister of all diseases to flourish — the first-year plague. Most years, it isn’t a problem. It affects a few thousand of us nobodies and we go to Student Health, only to be told to make like a straw and suck it up. But this year, it has grown more powerful than ever before, and a celebrity has been caught in its malicious grasp. The first-year plague has infected our Lord and Savior Ariana Grande. Grande has become somewhat of a patron saint of Charlottesville thanks to her charitable contributions over the years. After the white supremacist rally of 201...

DEAR DR. ROACH: My friend has been struggling with almost never-ending hiccups since she was young. There seems to be no apparent trigger for them. They happen all hours of the day and even wake her up in the middle of the night. She will hiccup until it starts to become very painful for her, and she cannot make them stop. She’s tried every remedy she can find — drinking water, holding her breath and slowly letting out, even doing handstands, just to name a few. She lives in a rural community with no doctor who can figure it out. They also don’t seem to take seriously how disruptive and painful it is. They tell her there’s nothing they can do. Do you have any suggestions? What kind of specialist treats this problem? — N.E. ANSWER: Persistent hiccups can be a severe problem. The hiccup (“singultus,” in Latin) is a spasm of the diaphragm, the main muscle of breathing, and an ancient neurological reflex. There are numerous case reports of people having hiccups lasting for decades, despi...

Share on Pinterest Bubonic plague was found in China. Getty Images An outbreak of the bubonic plague in China has led to worry that the “Black Death” could make a significant return. At least three people in China have been diagnosed with the disease. But experts say the disease is not nearly as deadly as it was thanks to antibiotics. This past Saturday, a hunter in China was diagnosed with bubonic plague after catching and eating a wild rabbit. Twenty-eight people who had been in close contact with the hunter are now in quarantine, according to the local health commission . The plague diagnosis comes about a week after the Chinese government announced two other people had contracted pneumonic plague in Beijing — the infamous plague that triggered the Black Death, which wiped out millions of people in Europe in the 14th century. With words like bubonic plague and Black Death circulating in our headlines, some may wonder if the plague is coming for the United States next — ...

China’s Inner Mongolia has reported a fresh, confirmed case of bubonic plague despite an earlier declaration by the country’s health officials that the risk of an outbreak was minimal. The health commission of the autonomous region said a 55-year-old man was diagnosed with the disease after he ate wild rabbit meat on 5 November. Bubonic plague is the most common form of plague globally and can advance and spread to the lungs, becoming a more severe type called pneumonic plague, according to the World Health Organisation. Two people diagnosed with pneumonic plague in China The Inner Mongolia case follows two that were confirmed earlier this month in Beijing. In both cases, the two patients from Inner Mongolia were quarantined at a facility in the capital after being diagnosed with pneumonic plague, health authorities said at the time. The Inner Mongolia health commission said it found no evidence so far to link the most recent case to the earlier two cases in Beijing. Th...

The patients were diagnosed with a strain of the plague that's more infectious than the type spread during the Middle Ages A 3D illustration of the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis. Getty Images On Tuesday, two people in China were diagnosed with a strain of the plague more infectious than the strain that ravaged Europe in the Dark Ages, sparking a push by authorities to contain the infection and prevent an epidemic. The plague is a serious infectious disease caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacteria typically found in mammals and fleas. It can cause symptoms like fever, vomiting and nausea, and has a high mortality rate. According to Chinese publication Xinhua , doctors in Beijing confirmed that the patients, from China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, were infected with pneumonic plague. This strain, which targets the lungs, incubates in a host in 24 hours and, unlike the bubonic plague, can be transmitted from person to person The plague — specifically the bubo...