CNTV English language newshour reports that the home-made first influenza vaccine from China has met local safety standards and is ready for mass production. The vaccine was a collaborative development between the First Affiliated Hospital under the School of Medicine of Zhejiang University, Hong Kong University, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Food...
Monkeys!
A troup of Hamadryas Baboons (Papio hamdryas) outsideof Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Hamadryads live for 30 to 35-yearsImage from Northwest Wildlife Homepage.Monkeys I tell ya, monkeys!Alsharq.net notes that baboons are such a problem in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's southwest that electric fences...
MERS update: WHO catches up but passes along no detail - and Hajjis look clear
The World Health Organisation updated it's MERS-CoV tally. The total (144 cases) is the same except for the confirmation of 2 deaths (to 62) hinted at in my last update. Disappointingly and once again, the update doesn't allow any analysis because there are no specific details with which to cross-check against our case lists.Even...
Influenza A(H7N9) in Zhejiang, Dutch DURC and dogs..
With the second H7N9 case (see FluTracker's thread) in Zhejiang, located only 13km from the earlier case, things seem to be picking up where they left off in late April. Poultry exposure seems key to this latest case who was a farmer who engaged in poultry trading. That word, trading,...
DENV-5: virus from the jungle comes to humans?
Earlier today I posted on a conference announcement by Dr Nikos Vasilakis of a 5th human dengue virus (DENV) discovery, "the first new dengue virus type in 50 years"Click to enlarge. An alignment of the prototypical known 4 dengue virus complete genome sequences. The GenBank accession number is...
Hajj pilgrims return around the world...is lab testing happening?
Media and Ministry reports are filtering in from many different countries that their Hajj pilgrims have been safely returning from their pilgrimage. To date there have been no reports of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) disease in any pilgrim. I presume this is all observational diagnosis? It would be very interesting to read whether any actual laboratory testing is...
Break out the bug zapper: DENV-5 is the new dengue virus in town!
A report from the Third International Conference on Dengue and Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever describes the discovery, by researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch, of a new type of dengue virus (DENV). he virus was found during screening of samples from 2007, collected from Malaysia's...
Australia on watch for illness among Hajj pilgrims
A report from Radio Australia highlight the ongoing need to be watchful for acute respiratory infections developing among pilgrims returning from Hajj.Gregory H�rtl (spokesperson, World Health Organisation) noted the need to keep an eye out... It could well be that a returning pilgrim gets back, starts feeling sick and is found to be diagnosed with MERS, and what we consequently...
Latest MERS-CoV cases
The 1st of the 3 most recent cases were from Qatar (6 in total) and the other 2 seem to have originated in or around Riyadh in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Some details on each case are below (preceded by the FluTrackers' number):FT#144. 61-year old male (61M) with comorbidities, hospitalized...
MERS-CoV cases begin to tick over again after the Hajj....but not related right?
So by all accounts, Hajj2013 was a very successful event. A lot of lifelong wishes may have been fulfilled and the event went off without any apparent major hitch. A huge undertaking on many fronts.However, during the Hajj it was hard to avoid seeing Middle...
