Latest news with #epidemiology
Russia Today
6 days ago
- Health
- Russia Today
Deadly fever outbreak claims over 150 lives in African country
Nigeria's Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) raised the alarm on Monday over a growing Lassa fever outbreak in the country, confirming at least 800 infections and 151 deaths in the first half of 2025. According to the agency's Week 27 epidemiological report published on X, the national case fatality rate (CFR) has climbed to 18.9%, up from 17.3% during the same period last year. The NCDC reported the number of confirmed cases had risen to 11 across six states – Ondo, Edo, Kaduna, Ebonyi, Lagos, and Enugu – compared to nine the week before. Three additional deaths were recorded. Lassa fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic illness endemic in parts of West Africa. The virus was first identified in Nigeria in 1969. It is primarily transmitted to humans through contact with food or household items contaminated by rodent urine or feces. Human-to-human transmission can also occur, particularly in healthcare settings with low-quality infection control measures. Lassa fever initially presents with flu-like symptoms, including sore throat, muscle pain, cough, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Later, it can lead to facial swelling, fluid accumulation in the lungs, and bleeding from the mouth, nose, and other parts of the body. In 2024, Nigeria experienced a significant Lassa fever outbreak, with a total of 1,309 confirmed cases and 214 deaths, according to a report from Springer. Health experts warn the outbreak has exposed critical weaknesses in Nigeria's public health system. According to DailyPost outlet, Dr. Solomon Chollom, a public health specialist, stressed the need for community-based response measures. 'We can't fight Lassa with hospital efforts alone,' he said. 'The communities must be empowered to understand how this disease spreads, mainly through contact with rodent urine or feces, and what they can do to prevent it.' Speaking to Punch, virologist Dr. Moses Ayorinde echoed those concerns, pointing to under-resourced hospitals in heavily affected states like Ondo, Edo, and Taraba. He cited delayed diagnostics, medicine shortages, and lack of isolation units as major barriers to containment. Last month, the authorities said response efforts were being scaled up, including expanded surveillance, awareness campaigns, and distribution of limited medical supplies to high-risk zones, DailyPost reported.
Medscape
16-07-2025
- Health
- Medscape
What Europe's GPs Need to Know About Vibriosis
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has issued a warning highlighting the seasonal risk for Vibrio infection. For primary care physicians, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to recognize the signs and understand the evolving epidemiology of vibriosis. Vibrio bacteria thrive in brackish coastal waters, where freshwater and saltwater mix, especially under high temperatures and lower salinity, conditions that are becoming more common across Europe, Therese Westrell, PhD, principal expert in food- and waterborne diseases at the ECDC, told Medscape Medical News . Therese Westrell, PhD While the Baltic Sea has historically been a known hot spot due to its naturally lower salt concentration, the threat is expanding. 'Given the ongoing increases in sea surface temperatures across Europe, the overall environmental suitability for [non-cholera] Vibrio species could be elevated during the 2025 summer season, not only in the Baltic Sea but also in other coastal regions,' Westrell said. 'Other parts of Europe could sustain conditions conducive to Vibrio proliferation, such as estuaries and enclosed water bodies with moderate salinity, in some areas of the North Sea and certain parts of the Mediterranean.' In recent summers, Vibrio suitability models and real-time surveillance tools have indicated that areas of the North Sea coastlines of Germany and the Netherlands, as well as Mediterranean estuarine zones, can now experience intermittent periods of suitability, particularly when sea surface temperatures exceed 20 °C. 'The geographic range of environmental suitability for Vibrio species is expanding, and risk periods may last longer than in previous years due to earlier seasonal warming and later autumn cooling,' said Westrell. Also, more frequent heavy rainfall because of climate change could create new risk areas, at least temporarily, where large amounts of freshwater end up in the sea. Who Is Most Vulnerable? While anyone can contract a Vibrio infection, certain populations face a significantly higher risk for severe outcomes. Individuals with weakened immune systems or chronic liver conditions are particularly vulnerable. A recent article in The Lancet Planetary Health emphasized this demographic shift, noting that an aging global population with increasing chronic comorbidities, especially liver disease, is increasingly susceptible to more serious infections. For instance, data from the US CDC suggest that individuals with liver disease are 80 times more likely to become ill and 200 times more likely to die from Vibrio vulnificus infection after eating raw oysters than those without liver disease. What Should HCPs Know? At first glance, Vibrio infections are not distinguishable from most gastrointestinal infections presenting to primary care because most general practitioners do not have access to microbiology testing in real time, Tiago Villanueva, MD, family physician and president of the European Union of General Practitioners and Family Physicians, told Medscape Medical News. 'Our priority in primary care is not so much reaching a specific diagnosis but trying to assess whether it is a case that can be managed at home with symptomatic treatment or needs to be referred to hospital. In the latter, patients may present red flag signs, such as severe dehydration, impaired level of consciousness, or acute abdomen.' Tiago Villanueva, MD If ingested through food or water, Vibrio can cause gastrointestinal symptoms, typically manifesting as watery diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, fever, and chills. But if Vibrio bacteria enter through a wound, they can cause severe infections, including local wound infections with swelling and fever, tissue death around the wound, and potentially fatal blood infections, Westrell explained. Ear infections can also occur if the bacteria enter through the ear canal. In the presence of these symptoms, it is essential to ask patients about their recent consumption of raw or undercooked seafood, especially oysters, and any contact with brackish or saltwater, particularly if they have open wounds, recent piercings, or cuts. Untreated wound infections can rapidly progress to serious conditions such as necrotizing fasciitis, bloodstream infections, sepsis, or even limb amputation, especially in vulnerable individuals. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) can also educate patients, particularly those at higher risk, on prevention. 'Vulnerable patients should be very cautious in terms of ordering raw or undercooked seafood in restaurants, particularly in the summer months, and maybe even avoid it altogether unless they're very confident hygiene and food safety standards are very high,' Villanueva said. 'This is particularly relevant in people — mostly from Northern Europe — coming for a holiday in Southern European countries, where seafood consumption is very high during the summer months.' HCPs can also recommend avoiding swimming or wading in brackish or saltwater if there are open wounds, recent piercings, or cuts. If exposure is unavoidable, affected areas should be covered with waterproof bandages, and any exposed cuts or wounds should be washed immediately with clean freshwater after accidental contact with seawater. The Surveillance Gap Despite the increasing risk, Vibrio infections are likely underreported across the EU/European Environment Agency (EEA). 'Many countries do not have mandatory surveillance in place, and clinical awareness of these infections could be relatively low, especially in regions where cases have only recently emerged,' Westrell said. The ECDC is launching a voluntary surveillance system for vibriosis at the EU level in 2026, in collaboration with EU/EEA Member States, the EEA, and other partners in the Climate and Health Observatory. This system aims to collect detailed data on species, infection types, exposure locations, and patient outcomes and will invite countries to provide historical data to establish trends. In the meantime, the ECDC continues to support early detection and awareness through its Vibrio Map Viewer, which uses real-time satellite data to assess environmental suitability. Westrell and Villanueva reported having no relevant financial relationships.
Medscape
14-07-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Are Americans Toking Themselves Sick?
This transcript has been edited for clarity. Welcome to Impact Factor , your weekly dose of commentary on a new medical study. I'm Dr F. Perry Wilson from the Yale School of Medicine. Whenever you see a headline that says something is 'on the rise,' there are basically two possibilities. One, the thing is actually on the rise — like pickleball. The other possibility is that we're capturing the information differently nowadays. Either we are getting better at measuring something that has always been common (autism spectrum disorder may fall in this category, at least for part of the observed increase) or we are measuring something worse with more false positives driving up the observed rate, like UFO sightings. Ubiquitous phone cameras mean every little bit of swamp gas from a weather balloon trapped in a thermal pocket and reflecting the light from Venus gets recorded. It's the job of epidemiologists to figure out what is driving observed changes in our health, and this week I want to share some data that show that the rate of a specific cannabis-associated problem is not just on the rise; it is absolutely skyrocketing. Let's see if we can figure out why. I'm talking about cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS), a once-rare condition characterized by cyclic episodes of what can be intractable vomiting. The exact physiology of CHS is still being worked out, but it probably has something to do with chronic exposure downregulating cannabinoid receptors in the gut, leading to decreased gut motility. Regardless of how exactly this works, the numbers suggest it is becoming dramatically more common — at least among adolescents, as highlighted in this research letter appearing in JAMA Network Open. Researchers interrogated the Pediatric Health Information System database which collates data from 52 free-standing children's hospitals around the United States. They were looking for adolescents admitted to the emergency department (ED) with diagnostic codes consistent with CHS, typically a chief complaint of nausea and vomiting, and at least a second diagnostic code indicating a 'cannabis-related concern.' These could be things like cannabis abuse or dependence. The time frame of interest was 2016 to 2023. Let's just take a look at the raw numbers. To give you some perspective, in 2006, there were 6.8 ED visits for CHS per 1 million population. In 2016, the start of this study, that number had jumped to 160.4, a more than 23-fold increase over a decade. These rates increased around 40% per year through 2023. The most recent data showed around 2000 visits for CHS per million population; that's a 30,000% increase in less than 20 years. Crazy numbers. But… are they real? Remember, when we see the rate of anything going up, we need to make sure we're not measuring it differently. And I certainly have some concern here that we are potentially unmasking a problem that has been there all along but not well documented until recently. Adolescents show up in the ED all the time for nausea and vomiting. The AHRQ publishes some of these data. For example, in 2018 there were nearly 800,000 visits for nausea and vomiting among those under age 18 — about 2.5% of all ED visits. The question is, how many of those had CHS? The study we're discussing this week would call it CHS if, in addition to the nausea and vomiting, they had a secondary code for a cannabis-related issue. I have no doubt that we use those codes more frequently now. For one thing, the broad-scale decriminalization and legalization of marijuana has removed much of the stigma that existed in the early 2000s. Doctors might be less worried about 'outing' these kids nowadays. Another possibility is that knowledge about CHS is spreading; with more marijuana use, doctors are getting more sensitive to the diagnosis. So perhaps some of those things we used to call a 'stomach bug' now get appropriately diagnosed as CHS. The converse could also be true. Since we're more comfortable adding cannabis-associated diagnosis codes now than we used to be in the past, we may currently be misclassifying people with nausea from another cause as CHS. Just because someone has cannabis use disorder or cannabis dependence doesn't mean they are not allowed to get norovirus. Of course, the other possibility is that there is a lot more marijuana use going on and with that, more CHS. The authors hypothesized that, if that were the case, we might see a more dramatic rise in states that have legalized recreational marijuana use. This is where the data get a bit weird. Because, yes, states with recreational marijuana legalization had more ED visits for CHS — overall, about 1900 cases per million vs 800 cases per million. But the rate of growth of those visits was more dramatic in states without recreational marijuana legalization. The authors don't opine on what would cause this pattern of observations. That's probably wise since the data are relatively limited. But that has never stopped me before, so here is what I think is going on. I think a lot of this is real. I suspect there is a true increase in the amount of CHS that is commensurate with the broader availability of marijuana in the marketplace. This leads to higher rates in states that have legalized recreational marijuana use. But a significant proportion of the observed increase is due to uncovering CHS in people who would not have received the diagnosis in the past and misclassification of non-CHS syndromes in the setting of people who happen to use marijuana. This occurs in states without legalized marijuana because, let's face it: Even in those states, the stigma about marijuana use is nowhere near what it was 10 or 20 years ago. The times they are a-changin', as one former pothead noted. Is this all a problem? CHS can be bad. In fact, just under half of the kids in this study required a hospital admission; a bit under 1% required the intensive care unit. That said, we should still contextualize these ED visits in the context of other risks adolescents face. I pulled a bit of data comparing ED visits for CHS to those for depression, suicide, gun violence, and drug overdoses. You can see here that CHS rates aren't as high as, say, ED visits for suicidal behavior, but these are all in the same ballpark. Of course, that's assuming the numbers in this study are not inflated. Still, it seems like we can add CHS to the list of real risks adolescents face in the United States today. And, if growth rates of the syndrome continue as they did in this study, rising by 50% per year, well, we can assume that every American adolescent will be in the ER for CHS by 2040. That would be… unlikely. But I suppose we can keep a bloodshot eye on it.
Washington Post
09-07-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
What long covid can teach us about future pandemics
Outbreaks of new types of infections and, yes, even pandemics are becoming increasingly likely, and we need to prepare for not only the next one but also its long-lasting physical and mental effects, experts said. 'The reality is that pandemics are going to hit. They're going to hit again,' said Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis who researches long covid. 'It's not a matter of if. It is a matter of when.'
The Guardian
09-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Climate breakdown tripled death toll in Europe's June heatwave, study finds
Planet-heating pollution tripled the death toll from the 'quietly devastating' heatwave that seared Europe at the end of June, early analysis covering a dozen cities has found, as experts warned of a worsening health crisis that is being overlooked. Scientists estimate that high heat killed 2,300 people across 12 major cities as temperatures soared across Europe between 23 June and 2 July. They attributed 1,500 of the deaths to climate breakdown, which has heated the planet and made the worst extremes even hotter. Milan was the hardest-hit city in absolute terms, with 317 out of 499 heat deaths attributed to climate breakdown, followed by Paris and Barcelona. London had 273 heat deaths, 171 of which the researchers attributed to human influence on the climate. 'This study demonstrates why heatwaves are known as silent killers,' said Malcolm Mistry, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and co-author of the study. 'While a handful of deaths have been reported in Spain, France and Italy, thousands more people are expected to have died as a result of the blistering temperatures.' The rapid analysis from the World Weather Attribution group, which used established methods but has not yet been submitted for peer review, blames climate breakdown for two-thirds of the deaths. Older people had the highest mortality, the study found, with 88% of the climate-driven deaths in people over the age of 65. The researchers said extreme heat was an 'underappreciated' threat as most victims died out of public view in homes and hospitals, and with little media coverage. 'Heatwaves don't leave a trail of destruction like wildfires or storms,' said Ben Clarke, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-author of the study. 'Their impacts are mostly invisible but quietly devastating. A change of just 2 or 3C can mean the difference between life and death for thousands of people.' The scientists used epidemiological models to estimate heat-related mortality in cities such as Paris, London, Madrid and Rome over a 10-day-period, and compared the death toll with that of a hypothetical world in which humans had not heated the planet by burning fossil fuels or destroying nature. They cautioned that the relationships between temperature and death they used in their models were derived from local mortality data up to 2019, and so may not fully capture how people in each city have adapted to hotter weather over time. They found climate breakdown pushed temperatures in some cities up to 4C higher, resulting in 1,500 extra deaths. The death toll was greater than that of other recent weather disasters that were made worse by fossil fuel pollution, such as the floods that killed 224 people in Spain in 2024 and the floods that killed 243 people across north-west Europe in 2021. Previous studies have estimated that about 44,000 people die from heat in Europe each year, averaged over the past few decades. The scientists suggested the vast death toll of 2,300 people from a single heatwave in just 12 cities could make this summer particularly dangerous. The EU's Earth observation service, Copernicus, said last month was the third hottest June on record globally and that an 'exceptional' marine heatwave developed in the western Mediterranean. The average daily sea surface temperature was the highest ever recorded for the region in June at 27C. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Copernicus also found a large increase in dangerous 'tropical nights', where night-time temperatures do not drop below 20C and people struggle to rest. Parts of Spain had as many as 24 tropical nights last month, 18 more than the average for June. Samantha Burgess, a deputy director of the Copernicus climate change service, said the record temperatures in the Mediterranean made the heat stress that large parts of Europe experienced 'much more intense'. She said: 'In a warming world, heatwaves are likely to become more frequent, more intense and impact more people across Europe.' Analysis by Mercator Ocean, a nonprofit research organisation that runs Copernicus's marine service, found nearly two-thirds of the Mediterranean was hit by marine heatwaves that were classed as strong or worse, the greatest extent ever recorded. The high temperatures are known to disturb fish and kill some of the plants they feed on. Mass-mortality events have repeatedly struck the Mediterranean in recent years as marine heatwaves have grown hotter. Karina Von Schuckmann, a scientist at Mercator Ocean, said: 'One particular aspect that is quite concerning … is this repeat emergence of heat stress. If you repeat the heat stress over time, the vulnerability of these specific ecosystems increases.'
