Zika virus : A virus believed to cause under-developed brains and skulls in newborn babies has sparked a public health emergency in Brazil and the Caribbean.

 Independent

Zika virus: Health alerts in South America and Caribbean following fears illness may cause birth deformities

Doctors believe the illness may be linked to a rise in cases of microcephaly in infants

• Alexandra Sims
• Thursday 19 November 2015 Zika virus is a mosquito-borne disease similar to dengue fever VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images

A virus believed to cause under-developed brains and skulls in newborn babies has sparked a public health emergency in Brazil and the Caribbean.

The Zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease similar to dengue fever, was first identified on Easter Island, Chile in February last year and has since spread to Brazil, Columbia and the Caribbean.
On Monday, the Caribbean Public Health Agency confirmed five cases of the Zika virus in a territory of the Caribbean Community, according to Liverostrum News Agency.

The territory where the cases were confirmed has not been revealed.

Reports say the disease surveillance system operated by one of the community's members, Grenada, has since been heightened and health officials are on alert.

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Biological Hazard - Denmark, [The area was not defined.]

Earth Watch Report  -  Biological Hazards

Scanning electron micrograph of neutrophil ingesting methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Credit: NIAID   National Institutes of Health.
NIAID/NIH
Wikimedia.org

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May 13 2014 03:04 AM

Biological Hazard

Denmark

[The area was not defined.]

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RSOE EDIS

Biological Hazard in Denmark on Tuesday, 13 May, 2014 at 03:04 (03:04 AM) UTC.

Description A troubling and also kind of odd story came out of Denmark this weekend. In a court proceeding, a microbiologist has disclosed that three residents of the country who had no known connection to farming died of MRSA infections caused by ST398, the livestock-associated strain of drug-resistant staph that first appeared among pig farmers in the Netherlands in 2004 and has since moved through Europe, Canada and the United States. If the report is correct - and sources have told me it is, but I've seen no data to confirm it - it reinforces the concern that bacteria which become resistant because of antibiotic use on farms can move off farms and affect the health of people who have no connection to farming. Livestock MRSA has always one of the best cases for establishing that, because the drug to which it showed the greatest resistance, tetracycline, wasn't used against human MRSA in the Netherlands, but was used routinely on farms - so the only place the strain could have picked up its unique resistance pattern was in pigs. (Here's my long archive of posts on pig MRSA, dating back to my book Superbug where the story was told for the first time.) Just to get them high up, here are some Danish news sources; this sees to have been a widely covered story. Danish isn't one of my languages, so I've relied on Google Translate - not the best practice, but there's enough agreement among the stories that I am comfortable with it in this case. Biohazard name: MRSA (pig, human) Biohazard level: 3/4 Hight Biohazard desc.: Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level. Symptoms: Status: confirmed

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Denmark: Three Deaths from Drug-Resistant “Pig MRSA”

• By Maryn McKenna
• 05.12.14  |
• 12:29 pm  |

A troubling and also kind of odd story came out of Denmark this weekend. In a court proceeding, a microbiologist has disclosed that three residents of the country who had no known connection to farming died of MRSA infections caused by ST398, the livestock-associated strain of drug-resistant staph that first appeared among pig farmers in the Netherlands in 2004 and has since moved through Europe, Canada and the United States.
If the report is correct — and sources have told me it is, but I’ve seen no data to confirm it — it reinforces the concern that bacteria which become resistant because of antibiotic use on farms can move off farms and affect the health of people who have no connection to farming.
Livestock MRSA has always one of the best cases for establishing that, because the drug to which it showed the greatest resistance, tetracycline, wasn’t used against human MRSA in the Netherlands, but was used routinely on farms — so the only place the strain could have picked up its unique resistance pattern was in pigs. (Here’s my long archive of posts on pig MRSA, dating back to my book Superbug where the story was told for the first time.)

Just to get them high up, here are some Danish news sources; this sees to have been a widely covered story. Danish isn’t one of my languages, so I’ve relied on Google Translate — not the best practice, but there’s enough agreement among the stories that I am comfortable with it in this case.

• The Information: “Filthy use of antibiotics”
• Kvalls Posten: “Resistant swine bacterium has killed three Danes”
• DR DK: “Politicians are worried about swine bacteria”
• Avisen: “Three Danes die of swine bacteria”
• Ekstra Bladet: “Three died from killer bacteria from pigs”
• Fyens: “University hospital physician: Three died of swine bacteria”

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Related articles

• Denmark: Three Deaths from Drug-Resistant "Pig MRSA"
• Humans and companion animals harbor the same types of MRSA infections
• Humans And Pets May Carry Similar Strains Of MRSA
• Pig-Manure Fertilizer Linked to Human MRSA Infections
• Workers at industrial farms carry drug-resistant bacteria associated with livestock

Silencing the Scientist: Tyrone Hayes on Being Targeted By Herbicide Firm Syngenta

democracynow


   

Published on Feb 21, 2014

http://www.democracynow.org - We speak with a University of California scientist Tyrone Hayes, who discovered a widely used herbicide may have harmful effects on the endocrine system. But when he tried to publish the results, the chemical's manufacturer launched a campaign to discredit his work. Hayes was first hired in 1997 by a company, which later became agribusiness giant Syngenta, to study their product, Atrazine, a pesticide that is applied to more than half the corn crops in the United States, and widely used on golf courses and Christmas tree farms. When Hayes found results Syngenta did not expect -- that Atrazine causes sexual abnormalities in frogs, and could cause the same problems for humans -- it refused to allow him to publish his findings. A new article in The New Yorker magazine uses court documents from a class-action lawsuit against Syngenta to show how it sought to smear Hayes' reputation and prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from banning the profitable chemical, which is already banned by the European Union.