New cases of highly pathogenic avian flu in poultry have recently been detected in south-western regions of France,

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New bird flu outbreak: More than 60 farms in France infected

Published time: 22 Dec, 2015 16:38

© Luc Gnago / Reuters

 

New cases of highly pathogenic avian flu in poultry have recently been detected in south-western regions of France, forcing authorities to step up sanitary measures.

The total number of confirmed cases of contamination with the virus in France has risen to 61, according to a statement from the French Ministry of Agriculture. The statement was published on Tuesday.

 

 

infos140 @infos140

GRIPPE AVIAIRE 8 nouveaux foyers identifiés dans les Landes. 61 foyers désormais touchés dans le sud-ouest

6:45 AM – 22 Dec 2015

 

Special protection zones stretching for between 3 to 10 kilometers around the farms have been set up until the epidemic ceases, a decree published in the Official Journal said.

There is currently no evidence that the virus is transmitted to humans through birds’ eggs, meat or foie gras, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease and Control (ECDC) stated.

 

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Biological Hazard – New Zealand, [Wellington, Motueka, Kaikoura and Christchurch] South Island : Measles

          

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Biological Hazard

New Zealand

[Wellington, Motueka, Kaikoura and Christchurch] South Island

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Biological Hazard in New Zealand on December 11 2015 01:43 PM (UTC).

Base data

EDIS Number	BH-20151211-51213-NZL
Event type	Biological Hazard
Date/Time	December 11 2015 01:43 PM (UTC)
Last update	December 11 2015 01:46 PM (UTC)
Cause of event
Damage level	Is not or not known

Geographic information

Continent	Australia – New-Zealand
Country	New Zealand
County / State	South Island
Area	Wellington, Motueka, Kaikoura and Christchurch
Settlement
Coordinate	41° 7.443,173° 0.059

Number of affected people / Humanities loss

Dead person(s)	0
Injured person(s)	0
Missing person(s)	0
Evacuated person(s)	0
Affected person(s)	0
Foreign people	0

Biohazard information

Biohazard level

Disease, agent name	Measles
Infected person(s)	0
Species	Human
Status	suspected

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Biological Hazard in New Zealand on December 11 2015 01:43 PM (UTC).

A measles warning has been issued in several areas after an infected tourist traveled the country. A 28-year-old European man carrying the virus traveled from Wellington, to Motueka, Kaikoura and Christchurch from December 3 to 11. The Canterbury District Health Board now is asking anyone who may have come in contact with him and is now presenting symptoms to call their doctor. He is believed to have contracted the highly-infectious virus while in Australia and is in private accommodation in Christchurch until the end of his infectious period. Canterbury medical officer Alistair Humphrey said it was a particularly risky time for the tourism industry. “Over the next few years there is a heightened risk of measles as a result of the decision by parents in the 1990s not to get their children immunized,” he said. Where He Stayed: December 3-5: Comfort Hotel, Cuba Street, Wellington,5 December 5: BlueBridge Ferry,December 5-7: Motueka Holiday Top 10,December 8-10: Lazy Shag Backpackers, Kaikoura,December 11: Travels to residence outside Christchurch

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msn news

Sick tourist prompts measles warning

NZ Newswire

© Getty Images Measles is untreatable but easily preventable through vaccinations A measles warning has been issued in several areas after an infected tourist traveled the country.

 

A 28-year-old European man carrying the virus traveled from Wellington, to Motueka, Kaikoura and Christchurch from December 3 to 11.The Canterbury District Health Board now is asking anyone who may have come in contact with him and is now presenting symptoms to call their doctor.

He is believed to have contracted the highly-infectious virus while in Australia and is in private accommodation in Christchurch until the end of his infectious period.

 

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Biological Hazard – Taiwan, Changzhi, Pingtung County : H5N8 (highly pathogenic avian influenza virus)

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Taiwan Hit by Six More Bird Flu Outbreaks

 

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Biological Hazard

Taiwan

Changzhi, Pingtung County

 

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Biological Hazard in Taiwan on December 11 2015 04:45 AM (UTC).

Base data

EDIS Number	BH-20151211-51211-TWN
Event type	Biological Hazard
Date/Time	December 11 2015 04:45 AM (UTC)
Last update	December 11 2015 04:46 AM (UTC)
Cause of event
Damage level	Is not or not known

Geographic information

Continent	Asia
Country	Taiwan
County / State	Pingtung County
Area
Settlement	Changzhi
Coordinate	22° 33.119,120° 32.926

Biohazard information

Biohazard level
Biohazard description
Disease, agent name	H5N8 (highly pathogenic avian influenza virus)
Infected person(s)	0
Species	Animal (ducks)
Status	confirmed
Symptoms

 

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Biological Hazard in Taiwan on December 11 2015 04:45 AM (UTC).

Pingtung County’s animal disease control officials on Thu 10 Dec 2015 culled 8881 ducks after the highly pathogenic bird flu virus H5N8 was found to have infected ducks on a poultry farm in Changzhi Township, officials said. County officials said the farm operator kept the birds in a closed environment in violation of the law and they decided to issue a fine on the owner in accordance with the act governing the prevention of animal infectious diseases. To reduce the risk of spreading virus, local health authorities have worked with the farm owner in disinfecting the area and launched monitoring and sampling of poultry within a 1 km about 0.6 mile radius from the infected farm, said the officials.

 

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Taiwan Hit by Six More Bird Flu Outbreaks

11 December 2015

TAIWAN – Taiwan has reported six more outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza.

There were four outbreaks of the H5N2 serotype in Pingtung and Hualien counties (see image above). Just over 14,000 birds were destroyed to try and prevent these outbreaks from spreading.

The premises affected included a duck farm, a chicken farm, and chickens in two abattoirs. The cases were discovered after abnormal mortality levels.

 

 

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“This flu comes from beyond our borders, But every year it becomes wilder and more resistant” to treatment : Tehran, Health Minister Hassan Hashemi

        

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PRESS TV

Swine flu outbreak claims 33 lives in Iran

Mon Dec 7, 2015 7:18PM

A digital rendering of the H1N1 virus

At least 33 people have lost their lives following an outbreak of swine flu mainly in two southeastern Iranian provinces in the past three weeks, Iran’s deputy health minister says.

Ali Akbar Sayyari said on Monday that the flu left 28 people dead in Kerman Province and five, including four pregnant women, in Sistan and Baluchestan.

He added that there are more cases of infection across the country.

 

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Swine flu outbreak nears Tehran as Iran death toll tops 40

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View photo

The World Health Organisation declared the swine flu pandemic over in August 2010 (AFP Photo/Sam Panthaky)

Tehran (AFP) – An outbreak of swine flu in Iran has claimed 42 lives since mid-November, including in a province neighbouring Tehran, Health Minister Hassan Hashemi said Thursday.

Hashemi, quoted by ISNA news agency, said 33 deaths from the H1N1 virus were recorded in Kerman and five in Sistan-Baluchistan, both provinces in southeastern Iran.

The other four deaths were in three northern provinces, including one in Karaj, near the capital, he said in an update recording nine new fatalities since Monday.

Hashemi has said the number of deaths from flu was similar to previous years, but that it was becoming harder to treat.

“This flu comes from beyond our borders, especially from Sistan-Baluchistan” near Pakistan, the minister said Monday. “But every year it becomes wilder and more resistant” to treatment.

 

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As many as 200 people have gotten sick in a norovirus outbreak at a downtown Seattle office building, health officials reported Monday.

         

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As Many As 200 Sickened In Seattle Tower Norovirus Outbreak

Norovirus is highly contagious and causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Donna Gordon Blankinship

12/08/2015 05:18 pm ET

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE (AP) — As many as 200 people have gotten sick in a norovirus outbreak at a downtown Seattle office building, health officials reported Monday.

Illness at the Russell Investments Center grew exponentially after a catered event in the building, but several cases were reported before the event last Tuesday, according to Public Health-Seattle & King County, which is still investigating the outbreak that began last week.

Between 175 and 200 cases have been reported to the health department either independently or through a survey of people who went to the catered event in the building.

“We anticipate that number is probably low,” said Dr. Meagan Kay, medical epidemiologist for communicable diseases with the Seattle and King County Public Health Department.

Two people spent one night in a hospital because of norovirus, and another eight people were treated in emergency rooms during the past week.

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Flesh-eating skin disease grips ISIS-controlled areas in Syria (GRAPHIC)

           

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Published time: 8 Dec, 2015 05:10Edited time: 8 Dec, 2015 16:14

The collapse of medical services in terrorist-controlled parts of Syria has caused the spread of a flesh-eating virus transmitted by parasites munching on corpses dumped in the streets.

“As a result of abominable acts by ISIS that included the killing of innocent people and dumping their corpses in streets, this is the leading factor behind the rapid spread of Leishmanisis disease,” Dilqash Isa, the head of the Kurdish Red Crescent told the Kurdish Rudaw news.

Kurdish fighters in Syria claimed the disease, spread by sand flies, was not noticed until Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) influence and atrocities spread across Syria. Leishmaniasis, which is rarely deadly but leads to disfiguring lesions on the skin, was particularly bad in war-torn parts of Syria, one unnamed militant told the publication.

“We have been fighting on the battlefield for almost four years and this disease basically generated from embattled areas of Tal Hamis, Hon and Qosa,” he claimed.

“It is very possible in the area where there is a lot of military activity and population movement, those are circumstances in which an outbreak of the leishmaniasis can occur,” Dr. William Schaffner (MD) told RT.

 

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Biological Hazard – Iraq, [Provinces of Capital City, Kerman and Sistan-Baluchistan] MultiProvinces : An outbreak of swine flu has left 33 people dead in two provinces of southwestern Iran

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Home / News / Iran swine flu outbreak kills 33 in three weeks: state media

Iran swine flu outbreak kills 33 in three weeks: state media

• By AFP on December 7, 2015 5:32 pm

An outbreak of swine flu has left 33 people dead in two provinces of southwestern Iran in the last three weeks, the official IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

IRNA quoted Deputy Health Minister Ali Akbar Sayyari as saying there had been 28 deaths in Kerman province and five in Sistan-Baluchistan and warning the H1N1 virus was likely to spread to other areas including the capital Tehran.

“The health ministry predicts that the virus will spread in the coming days to Tehran, West and East Azerbaijan and Kermanshah provinces more than to other places,” he said.

 

Read More Here

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December 07 2015 06:03 PM

Biological Hazard

Iraq

[Provinces of Capital City, Kerman and Sistan-Baluchistan] MultiProvinces

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Biological Hazard in Iraq on December 07 2015 06:03 PM (UTC).

An outbreak of swine flu has left 33 people dead in two provinces of southwestern Iran in the last three weeks, the official IRNA news agency reported on Monday. IRNA quoted Deputy Health Minister Ali Akbar Sayyari as saying there had been 28 deaths in Kerman province and five in Sistan-Baluchistan and warning the H1N1 virus was likely to spread to other areas including the capital Tehran. “The health ministry predicts that the virus will spread in the coming days to Tehran, West and East Azerbaijan and Kermanshah provinces more than to other places,” he said. Nearly 600 people have been hospitalised in Kerman province over the outbreak, the head of the province’s medical university, Ali Akbar Haghdoost, told the ISNA news agency. “Traces of the H1N1 virus were uncovered three weeks ago and we were the first province to report the epidemic,” Haghdoost said. He called for limited travel during a three-day holiday weekend due to start on Thursday in order to prevent the spread of the virus. A major H1N1 outbreak in 2009 sparked a World Health Organization pandemic alert in June 2009, after the virus emerged from Mexico and the United States. The alert was lifted in August 2010 and the outbreak left some 18,500 people dead in 214 countries.

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Biological Hazard : Sudan, [Greater Darfur regions] Multiple areas – 469 suspected cases of viral haemorrhagic fever (VHF)

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Photo Credit: Content Providers(s): CDC/Dr. Lyle Conrad

Wikipedia.org

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December 07 2015 08:57 AM

Biological Hazard

Sudan

[Greater Darfur regions] Multiple areas

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Biological Hazard in Sudan on December 07 2015 08:57 AM (UTC).

Between 29 Aug-27 Nov [2015], 469 suspected cases of viral haemorrhagic fever (VHF), including 120 deaths, were reported in the 5 Darfur states, according to the Sudanese Ministry of Health. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan reported in its latest weekly bulletin that the outbreak has now spread to 27 localities in Sudan’s conflict-torn western region. The highest number of reported cases is in West Darfur (296) followed by North Darfur (68) Central Darfur (68), South Darfur (23), and East Darfur (14). The highest number of fatalities was recorded in West Darfur (90), followed by North Darfur (15), Central Darfur (12), East Darfur (2) and South Darfur (one). The World Health Organisation (WHO) has supported vector control activities with larvicide interventions, reaching 6268 families (40 800 people) in Ed Daein, capital of East Darfur, in the South Darfur localities of Tullus, Kass, Ed El Fursan, Buram, and El Sereif Beni Hussein in North Darfur. A further 30 000 families (195 000 people) in South Darfur’s Tullus town and the Kass camps for the displaced were reached with integrated vector control activities conducted jointly by the Ministry of Health and the WHO. These activities are now ongoing in Buram, Ed Fursan and Nyala localities in the state. In addition, the WHO supported larvicide fogging and spraying assistance to more than 1300 families (8500 people) in El Sereif town, North Darfur.

In North Darfur, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Spain and the WHO support a treatment centre in El Sereif locality. MSF Switzerland is supports a treatment centre and 2 mobile clinics in the West Darfur Krendig and Kereinik camps for the displaced in Kereinik locality. The UN Children’s Agency (Unicef) supported the Ministry of Health in West Darfur to reach 385 700 people on viral haemorrhagic fever prevention through local radio programmes. It supported national NGOs to conduct health education sessions in El Geneina and Kereinik localities. Unicef has also supported health promotion activities in Zalingei, Azum, Bindisi, West Jebel Marra and Wadi Salih localities of Central Darfur. Haemorrhagic fevers are endemic in many states of Sudan including Red Sea, Kassala, Gedaref, and South Kordofan, OCHA states. In 2012, sporadic cases of dengue fever and yellow fever co-infection were reported in Darfur, while no cases were reported in 2013. In 2014, however, a large-scale dengue fever outbreak occurred in Red Sea (1092 cases), North Darfur (132), South Darfur (48), West Darfur (24), South Kordofan (59), and Kassala (57).

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41 kids die from mystery disease in Papua

         

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VOA    Voice of America

Mysterious Illness Kills Dozens of Children in Indonesian Village

 

FILE – Mosquito nets helped control malaria after an outbreak in the late 1990s. Today, a mysterious illness initially thought to be malaria has hit Papua, killing at least 41 children within three weeks.

Fatiyah Wardah

November 30, 2015 4:26 PM

JAKARTA—A mysterious illness in Indonesia has killed dozens of children in a village in the remote eastern province of Papua in the past three weeks, leading to charges that the government has failed to take aggressive action.

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41 kids die from mystery
disease in Papua

Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura | Headlines | Tue, November 24 2015, 6:27 PM

A large number of children, many below the age of seven, have died of an unexplained disease in Mbuwa district, Nduga regency, Papua, following the start of the rainy season in early November.

A medical team consisting of health workers from Nduga, Wamena and Jayawijaya regencies arrived at the location but have yet to ascertain the cause of the deaths.

“As many as 41 children have died, as of today. They present with a slight illness at first but die shortly after these initial signs. The medical team from Nduga Health Office, assisted by the Wamena Health Office may have returned home, but the cause of these deaths remains uncertain,” said Mbuwa district chief Erias Gwijangge, during a call to The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Erias said Nduga and surrounding areas had experienced drought and were exposed to haze from forest fires. Rain only fell in the past month. When the rain began, a number of livestock, such as pigs and poultry, also died abruptly.

“Many of the children died prior to the livestock but there was no report of child fatalities, only in the last three days,” said Erias.

When contacted by the Post, Wamena City community health clinic analysis member Yan Hubi, who joined the trip to Mbuwa district, said his clinic analyzed blood samples of the children to find out if the children had been infected by malaria, but all were negative.

Yan returned to Mbuwa on Nov. 17. A doctor and several other medical workers are also continuing to conduct medical treatment in Mbuwa.

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Deadly kissing bugs reported in more than half of U.S., spreading Chagas disease

 

Daily News

BY Nicole Lyn Pesce

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Updated: Wednesday, November 25, 2015, 11:58 AM

“Kissing Bug” now in Florida and Georgia

WTEV – Jacksonville, FL

Here’s another reason to stay in New York this holiday season — the “kissing bug” has now spread to 28 states.

Texas is the latest to report an outbreak of infections from the Latin American triatomine bug after the pest had been spotted in other southern and western states, including Georgia, Alabama and California, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The creepy crawler resembling a cockroach gets its colorful nickname because it likes to bite around the lips and eyes of people when they are asleep. More than half of the bugs carry a parasite that can cause Chagas disease in humans, dogs and other mammals.

The good news? To actually pass on the disease, the bug not only needs to bite you, but then defecate into the gash. If left untreated, up to 30% of bite victims will develop chronic conditions such as difficulty breathing, heart and intestinal complications, and, in extreme cases, death.

There have been eight million cases in Latin America and South America because of poorly constructed rural homes, according to the CDC.

To prevent an outbreak, the CDC recommends:

Sealing cracks and gaps around windows, walls, roofs, and doors.

Removing wood, brush, and rock piles near your house.

 

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