Disease 'halves people's incomes' in tropical countries

Luís Amorim in SciDev.net: Tropical countries' per capita incomes could more than double if they managed to reduce their health burden from vector-borne and parasitic diseases (VBPDs) to that seen in temperate countries, a study has found.

The study says that poor economic performance is caused partly by high disease burden, which is in turn affected by biodiversity. Although VBPDs remain a leading cause of death and disability in poor countries, there is debate over their relative impact on global poverty patterns, the paper says.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School and Princeton University in the United States and from Université de Cergy-Pontoise in France set out to examine whether these diseases only played a historical role in delaying tropical countries' growth by limiting foreign investment and institutions' development, or whether environmental factors present in the tropics are the key element driving the VBPDs — which in turn still harming wealth production today.

If disease is still hindering development, then healthcare improvements should be made a key part of macroeconomic strategies and foreign economic aid, and not only be done for humanitarian reasons, the paper argues.

The researchers used models to estimate the relative effects of disease burden and per capita income on each other, controlling for other factors. The findings bolster the case for targeting diseases to lessen their impact on tropical countries' economic development, according to Matthew Bonds, lead author from Harvard Medical School....

Nurse Ubah Mahammed marks a child after administering de-worming medicine, Shinile Woreda, Ethiopia, Oct. 13, 2010. US Army photograph

Fungus responsible for 5 deaths in the wake of massive tornado

Intern Daily via SPX: A fast growing, flesh-eating fungus killed 5 people following a massive tornado that devastated Joplin, Mo., according to two new studies based on genomic sequencing by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Health officials should be aware of infections caused by the fungus Apophysomyces, according to the studies, which tracked 13 people infected by the pathogen during the Class EF-5 tornado - the most powerful category - whose 200-plus mph winds plowed through Joplin on May 22, 2011, initially killing 160 and injuring more than 1,000.

The common fungus - which lives in soil, wood or water - usually has no effect on people. But once it is introduced deep into the body through a blunt trauma puncture wound, it can grow quickly if the proper medical response is not immediate, the studies said. Five of the 13 people infected through injuries suffered during the Joplin tornado died within two weeks.

"Increased awareness of fungi as a cause of necrotizing soft-tissue infections after a natural disaster is warranted ... since early treatment may improve outcomes," concluded one study published Dec. 6 in The New England Journal of Medicine....

Damage from the 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri. Shot by KOMUnews, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Long-term public health support needed to tackle infectious disease outbreaks

Science Daily: Outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as swine flu (H1N1) threaten global health and should be considered by funding agencies and humanitarian organizations as development issues rather than emergency situations, requiring long-term support and investment, according to US experts writing in this week's PLOS Medicine.

The authors from several US institutions, led by Tiffany Bogich from Princeton University, reached these conclusions by reviewing nearly 400 serious international public health events. They found that the disruption to, or lack of, public health infrastructure was the major driving factor of infectious disease outbreaks, contributing 40% overall. In contrast, other main driving factors, such as climate and weather and war and famine had a much lesser role, each contributing less that 10% to infectious disease outbreaks.

Based on these findings, the authors argue that there is a mismatch between the drivers of infectious disease outbreaks and current trends in public health spending as shown by the current donor trend of favoring disease-specific global health programs. The authors argue that this mismatch may be at the cost of strengthening public health infrastructure and development in the long term.

They argue: "Stronger public health infrastructure, for example, expanded surveillance, better diagnostic capacity, and rapid reporting and control, in developing countries will likely help prevent localized outbreaks of newly emerged pathogens becoming pandemic."...

This transmission electron micrograph (TEM), taken at a magnification of 108,000x, revealed the ultrastructural details of two avian influenza A (H5N1) virions, a type of bird flu virus, which is a subtype of avian influenza A. At this magnification, one may note the stippled appearance of the roughened surface of the proteinaceous coat encasing each virion. Photo Credit: Cynthia Goldsmith/ Jackie Katz

Researchers find MRSA superbug in reused wastewater

Alan McStravick in RedOrbit:  Most people are already exposed to the common bacterium Staphylococcus aureus as it is typically found on human skin and respiratory tracts. ... A mutated form of this germ, a so-called ‘superbug’ known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), is immune to first-line antibiotics and can cause a dangerous form of staph infection. People most at risk include athletes who share towels and razors, children in daycare settings, members of the military who live in close quarters and individuals who have recently received tattoos. Additionally, people who have had surgery within the past year are subject to a particularly high risk of contracting an infection due to MSRA.

...A research team led by scientists at the University of Maryland School of Public Health has recently discovered that this superbug has been found in significant amounts in several U.S. wastewater treatment plants. MSRA is known to cause difficult-to-treat and potentially fatal bacterial infections. Typically, these infections are found in hospital patients. However, since the 1990’s, it has also been infecting members of the general community that were otherwise considered healthy.

“MRSA infections acquired outside of hospital settings – known as community-acquired MRSA or CA-MRSA – are on the rise and can be just as severe as hospital-acquired MRSA. However, we still do not fully understand the potential environmental sources of MRSA or how people in the community come in contact with this microorganism,” says Amy R. Sapkota, assistant professor in the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and leader of the study....

This 2005 scanning electron micrograph (SEM) depicted numerous clumps of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, commonly referred to by the acronym, MRSA; Magnified 9560x. Recently recognized outbreaks, or clusters of MRSA in community settings have been associated with strains that have some unique microbiologic and genetic properties, compared with the traditional hospital-based MRSA strains, which suggests some biologic properties, e.g., virulence factors like toxins, may allow the community strains to spread more easily, or cause more skin disease. A common strain named USA300-0114 has caused many such outbreaks in the United States. Shot from the Centers for Disease Control