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Recent rabies reports

Wyoming  12/21/09  localnews8.com:  The city of Sheridan has confirmed four cases of animal rabies in the past month, a significant increase over previous years.  Community Service Officer Kris Walker says there had been only one other confirmed case in 2009 before the past month and no confirmed cases during the previous four years.  Walker says 4 of the confirmed cases were in skunks and one case was in a bat. Numbers for Sheridan County were not immediately available.

Louisiana  12/19/09  klfy.com:  A stray cat in Iberia Parish has tested positive for rabies.  Louisiana Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain says one person has been exposed to the cat. The strain of rabies virus has not yet been determined following Friday’s test.

North Carolina  12/18/09  the-dispatch.com:  The Davidson County Health Department reports a new case of rabies, bringing the total to eight for the year.  A dog was in a fight with a rabid raccoon Thursday in Lexington. The dog was not properly vaccinated and has been destroyed. There was no human exposure reported.

South Dakota and Iowa testing deer and elk for the presence of Chronic Wasting Disease

South Dakota  12/10/09  kotatv.com:  A half dozen cases of chronic wasting disease were found among 667 samples from deer and elk tested in the southwest corner of South Dakota over a recent five-month period.  Chronic wasting attacks the brains of infected animals and is always fatal.  The Game, Fish and Parks Department said lab results are pending on another 477 samples taken between July and December.  The state has found 118 cases of chronic wasting disease since testing began in 1997. 

Iowa  12/09/09  thehawkeye.com:  Iowa Department of Natural Resources staff will be collecting brain tissue from more than 4,000 deer over the next few weeks that will be tested for the presence of chronic wasting disease.  Although tissue samples are collected from deer in every county, the majority of samples are collected from the Mississippi River counties from Allamakee to Scott, because CWD was confirmed in wild deer in Wisconsin and Illinois in 2002.  When the Iowa DNR began collecting tissue samples, the majority were collected from lockers that process deer. In 2009, fewer lockers will be participating in the collection.  The Iowa DNR is asking hunters to help by calling the local conservation officer to arrange for a sample to be collected.

NIH funds La Jolla Institute’s search for vaccines against dengue virus, malaria, and other infectious diseases

National  12/18/09  medicalnewstoday.com:  Researchers from the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology will take aim at several of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases – tuberculosis, malaria, and dengue virus — in a five-year, $18.8 million federally-funded set of projects seeking to make new inroads toward vaccines against the disorders.  The Institute received four project awards totaling $18.8 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, to fund the study. The study also includes a component on smallpox, a deadly infectious disease eradicated worldwide, which remains a focus due to bioterrorism concerns.

Arizona man strangles rabid bobcat

 

 

The average adult bobcat is 3 feet long, stands 2 feet high at the shoulders, and weighs 20 to 30 pounds.

 

Arizona  12/16/09  phoenixnewtimes.com:  Officials at the Arizona Game and Fish Department say a Yavapai County man was attacked by a rabid bobcat on Monday. Rather than panic, he strangled it with his bare hands.  The man’s name is not being released because of privacy laws, but AGFD officials say the attack happened in the front yard of his Crown King Trail home, about 12 miles north of Lake Pleasant. “This was particularly unusual because the gentleman killed the animal with his bare hands, and that was very advantageous because the animal wasn’t out potentially exposing other people to rabies,” Randy Babb, spokesman for the AGFD, tells CBS5 (KPHO).  Arizona is seeing record numbers of rabid animals in 2009, with 244 that have tested positive for the disease. That is an increase from the 176 cases reported last year, which was the previous record.

 

James Gruver holding rabid bobcat that attacked him.

Arizona  12/17/09  phoenixnewtimes.com:  Today, 61-year-old James Gruver is speaking out about his ordeal and tells CBS5 (KPHO) that he threw the bobcat in a “death grip” to keep from getting bit.
“I just kept a death grip on it because I realized when I was down on the ground, this is getting real serious,” he says.  Many would consider just seeing a bobcat “real serious” but Gruver says he’s seen several  on his remote property, and he could tell this one had some, um, issues. “If he clawed me, that’s one thing, but I didn’t want to get bitten because I was sure it has rabies or it wouldn’t be attacking me,” he says.  Gruver, who’s about 6-feet, 8-inches tall, says he bent down to look under a trailer when he noticed the bobcat, which then lunged at him.  The cat knocked Gruver to the ground, where despite the animal’s clawing and trying to bite him, he kept his “death grip” around the cat’s neck until it eventually died.  Gruver came away from the fight with only a few scratches, suggesting one thing: The word “badass” should probably be spelled G-R-U-V-E-R from now on.

 

Third horse dies of EEE in North Carolina, and second cat dies of H1N1 in Oregon

North Carolina  12/14/09  jdnews.com:  Two more horses have died in Carteret County due to infections of Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), according to the county health department. The county has now seen three equine deaths from EEE since October. All three animals were located in the Newport area.

Oregon 12/10/09 statesmanjournal.com:  A second cat has died of swine flu in Oregon, leading veterinarians to investigate why the disease has become a threat to a household pet.  Emilio DeBess, the state public health veterinarian, said the cat died about two weeks ago on the Oregon coast after catching the H1N1 virus from its owner.  Another cat died from the virus early in November in the town of Lebanon after a child in the household got sick with swine flu.  DeBess is working with veterinary researchers at Oregon State University to find clues about why cats might be susceptible to the virus.

Vaccine pioneer has financial woes but forges ahead with research and clinical trials

National  12/12/09  starbulletin.com:  Hawaii Biotech Inc., a privately held biotechnology company based in Aiea, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court yesterday. In 2008 Hawaii Biotech conducted its first human clinical trials with a West Nile virus vaccine, followed by a dengue virus vaccine candidate in August of this year being conducted at St. Louis University.  Jerrold Guben, attorney for Hawaii Biotech, says many of the pre-petition equity investors are still willing to finance the company but will become debt investors. Next week the company will file motions to assume all its clinical trial contracts,. Hawaii Biotech, founded in 1982, recently completed a Phase 1 clinical trial of its West Nile vaccine in healthy human subjects. It is currently in Phase 1 clinical studies with a dengue vaccine candidate, and is in pre-clinical development with a vaccine for tick-borne encephalitis. Hawaii Biotech is also working on vaccine candidates for malaria and influenza.

FDA holds public workshop to assess risk of arbovirus transmission through healthcare system in the United States

 

National  12/09/09  fda.gov:  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing a public workshop entitled “Emerging Arboviruses: Risk Assessment for Blood, Cell, Tissue and Organ Safety.”  The purpose of the public workshop is to assess the risk and discuss approaches to minimize the incidence of transmission of arboviruses (arthropod-borne viruses) via transfusion, infusion, implantation or transplantation in the United States (U.S.). 

Arboviruses are a large group of viruses that are spread by certain invertebrate animals, most commonly blood-sucking insects. Arboviruses are found throughout the world, including the U.S.  Arboviruses such as Dengue virus, Japanese Encephalitis virus (JE), tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBE) and West Nile virus (WNV) are becoming increasingly widespread.  Transmission of WNV and Dengue virus through blood transfusion has been well documented.  Transfusion transmission of the Colorado tick fever (CTF) virus, a tick-borne agent present in the U.S., also has been reported.  Other arboviruses, including JE, TBE, and St. Louis Encephalitis are of concern to blood, cell, tissue and organ safety because of the possibility of viremia in asymptomatic human infections.  Dengue outbreaks have recently occurred in Texas, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Dengue virus, as well as TBE and JE, have the potential to become endemic in certain regions of the U.S. 

The public workshop will facilitate a scientific discussion on approaches to reduce the risk of transmission of arboviruses via transfusion, infusion, implantation or transplantation in the U.S.  The workshop will be held at the Natcher Conference Center, Main Auditorium, Building 45, National Institutes of Health, 8800 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD  20894, on Dec 14 and 15, 2009.

For further details see: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/NewsEvents/WorkshopsMeetingsConferences/ucm187986.htm

CDC advises that southern Texas is also at risk for dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever

Dengue fever is creeping northward into the United States. A recent outbreak in southern Texas, claimed the life of one girl and sickened more than 50 others, but epidemiologists are not yet convinced that dengue is now endemic in the United States.  Dengue is still very much an August-to-December disease in southern Texas, according to Gary Clark, Ph.D., chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s dengue branch in San Juan, P.R. The causative arbovirus depends for its transmission on the Aedes aegypti, a household mosquito that feeds during the day and does not travel more than a few hundred feet from where it hatches, Dengue is also transmitted by another species, A. aldopictus, which is also prevalent in the southern United States, but is not as effective a vector.

Since 1980, the Texas border area has experienced several small outbreaks, all associated with outbreaks in adjacent Mexico, where the disease is endemic. In 1980 came the first appearance of dengue in Texas in more than 30 years; there were 63 cases including 23 locally acquired ones. In 1986 there were 17 cases, 8 locally acquired. An outbreak in 1995 involved 29 cases, 7 of which were locally acquired and were confined to two border counties.  A dengue outbreak in the Brownsville, Texas, area in 2005 involved 25 hospital cases, 16 of which were classified as dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF).

According to a report by the CDC*, “Entomologic, serologic and virologic conditions are now such that locally acquired DHF can occur in south Texas.” Two mosquito species that spread the virus, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopticus, are well established there.  The report adds, “The finding that 38% of surveyed Brownsville residents have IgG antibodies to dengue indicates that a substantial proportion of the city population has been infected with the dengue virus and might be more susceptible to DHF if they receive a second infection” with a different serotype. Clinicians and the public in southern Texas should be aware of the risk of dengue and DHF, the CDC advises. “Early recognition and diagnosis of DHF and careful fluid management can reduce the case-fatality rate in cases with shock to less than 1%,” the report states.

• CDC. Dengue hemorrhagic fever—U.S.-Mexico border, 2005. MMWR 2007 Aug 10;56(31):785-9 [Full text]

CDC cautions that Dengue Fever is an emerging threat in the continental United States

Dengue (den-gee) also (DENG-gay) is a disease that is endemic in most of the world including at least 100 countries in Asia, the Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and the Caribbean.  The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 50 to 100 million infections occur yearly, including 500,000 of the more severe dengue hemorraghic fever (DHF) cases and 22,000 deaths, mostly among children.

Origin:  The four dengue viruses (DENV 1, DENV 2, DENV 3, or DENV 4) originated in monkeys and independently jumped to humans in Africa or Southeast Asia between 100 and 800 years ago.  Dengue remained a relatively minor, geographically restricted disease until the middle of the 20th century.  The disruption of the second world war – in particular the coincidental transport of Aedes mosquitoes around the world in cargo –  are thought to have played a crucial role in the dissemination of the viruses.  DHF was first documented only in the 1950s during epidemics in the Philippines and Thailand.  It was not until 1981 that large numbers of DHF cases began to appear in the Carribean and Latin America.

Most dengue cases in U.S. citizens occur in those inhabitants of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Samoa and Guam, which are endemic for the virus.  Dengue and DHF have been a particular challenge in Puerto Rico where outbreaks have been reported since 1915 and large island-wide epidemics have been documented since the late 1960s. The most recent island-wide epidemic occurred in 2007, when more than 10,000 cases were diagnosed. In Puerto Rico, and most of the Caribbean Basin, the principle dengue vectors are abundant year-round. Dengue transmission in the Puerto Rico follows a seasonal pattern. Low transmission season begins in March and lasts until June, and high transmission begins in August until November. (See CDC maps below.)

In 1934, there was an outbreak of dengue in Florida and 25,000 people fell ill with the disease.  Now, more than 75 years later, 20 new cases have been confirmed in Key West, Florida, this year.

Symptoms:  The principal symptoms of dengue fever (DF) are high fever, severe headache, severe pain behind the eyes, joint pain, muscle and bone pain, rash, and mild bleeding (e.g., nose or gums bleed, easy bruising). Generally, younger children and those with their first dengue infection have a milder illness than older children and adults.

Dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) is characterized by a fever that lasts from 2 to 7 days, with general signs and symptoms consistent with dengue fever. When the fever declines, symptoms including persistent vomiting, severe abdominal pain, and difficulty breathing, may develop. This marks the beginning of a 24- to 48-hour period when the smallest blood vessels (capillaries) become excessively permeable (“leaky”), allowing the fluid component to escape from the blood vessels into the peritoneum (causing ascites) and pleural cavity (leading to pleural effusions). This may lead to failure of the circulatory system and shock, followed by death, if circulatory failure is not corrected. In addition, the patient with DHF has a low platelet count and hemorrhagic manifestations, tendency to bruise easily or other types of skin hemorrhages, bleeding nose or gums, and possibly internal bleeding.

Transmission:  Dengue is transmitted between people by the mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, which are found throughout the world. 

Incubation:  Symptoms of infection usually begin 4 – 7 days after the mosquito bite and typically last 3 – 10 days.  In order for transmission to occur the mosquito must feed on a person during a 5- day period when large amounts of virus are in the blood; this period usually begins a little before the person become symptomatic.  Some people never have significant symptoms but can still infect mosquitoes.  After entering the mosquito in the blood meal, the virus will require an additional 8-12 days incubation before it can then be transmitted to another human. The mosquito remains infected for the remainder of its life, which might be days or a few weeks.

In rare cases dengue can be transmitted in organ transplants or blood transfusions from infected donors, and there is evidence of transmission from an infected pregnant mother to her fetus.  But in the vast majority of infections, a mosquito bite is responsible.

Treatment:  There is no specific medication for treatment of a dengue infection. Persons who think they have dengue should use analgesics (pain relievers) with acetaminophen and avoid those containing aspirin. They should also rest, drink plenty of fluids, and consult a physician. If they feel worse (e.g., develop vomiting and severe abdominal pain) in the first 24 hours after the fever declines, they should go immediately to the hospital for evaluation.

Prevention:  There is no vaccine for preventing dengue. The best preventive measure is to eliminate the places where the mosquito lays her eggs, primarily artificial containers that hold water. And proper application of mosquito repellents containing 20% to 30% DEET as the active ingredient on exposed skin and clothing decreases the risk of being bitten by mosquitoes.

Distribution of dengue, Western Hemisphere as of August 2009

Distribution of dengue, Eastern Hemisphere as of August 2009