Disease

When a team from Tulane University sent a batch of protective clothing and equipment to help workers fighting an outbreak of Ebola virus in Sierra Leone last month, they were fairly confident the 300 or so packs would be enough for a good start.

They couldn’t have predicted what they would be up against.

submitted by Luis Kun

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent this bulletin at 04/30/2014 02:25 PM EDT

Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) released Antimicrobial Resistance: Global Report on Surveillance 2014, the first comprehensive WHO report on surveillance of antibacterial resistance -- when bacteria outsmart the drugs designed to kill them. The report found that rates of resistance for common bacteria causing serious illness are high throughout the world and that there are significant gaps in global surveillance.

The findings in this landmark report are consistent with CDC’s Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2013 published in September 2013. Both reports sound the alarm on this serious threat. Antibiotic resistance is no longer a prediction for the future. It is happening right now in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone.

In March 2014, the World Health Organization was notified of an outbreak of a communicable disease characterized by fever, severe diarrhea, vomiting, and a high fatality rate in Guinea. Virologic investigation identified Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) as the causative agent. Full-length genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis showed that EBOV from Guinea forms a separate clade in relationship to the known EBOV strains from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon. Epidemiologic investigation linked the laboratory-confirmed cases with the presumed first fatality of the outbreak in December 2013. This study demonstrates the emergence of a new EBOV strain in Guinea.

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CONAKRY, GUINEA — Health workers in protective hazmat suits treated patients in quarantine centers on Tuesday in a remote corner of Guinea where Ebola has killed at least 60 people in West Africa's first outbreak of the deadly virus in two decades.

Seven patients are being hospitalized at one isolation ward in Gueckedou in southern Guinea, while two others are being treated elsewhere, said Doctors Without Borders. The aid group said it is sending mobile teams into the surrounding countryside in search of people who may have been exposed since the first cases emerged last week.