For this edition of the Pandora Report we look at Jonas Salk, avian influenza in China, TB and diabetes as a co-epidemic, and, of course, an Ebola update. As the weather is turning cooler, don’t forget to get your flu shot, and remember to protect yourself by washing your hands!
Have a great week!
On Jonas Salk’s 100th Birthday, A Celebration of his Polio Vaccine
If you visited Google.com on Tuesday you may have seen one of their famous doodles dedicated to Jonas Salk. Salk’s polo vaccine was declared safe and effective in 1955 and was, interestingly enough, never patented. “The notion handed down to us is that Salk decided not to patent the vaccine as a noble act of self-abnegation.”
The Los Angeles Times—“But the more important reason the vaccine went unpatented, as related by David M. Oshinsky in his 2005 book, “Polio: An American Story,” is that legally it was thought to be unpatentable. The National Foundation and the University of Pittsburgh, where much of the work was done, had looked into patenting the vaccine. They were dissuaded by Salk, who informed them that his techniques weren’t novel and his work had been based on years of prior work by others.”
Five Strains of H5 Avian Flu Reported Across China
The Chinese veterinary authority reported outbreaks of five different subtypes of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) to the World Organization of Animal Health (OIE) on October 24. There were a total of 51 positive findings of the following strains; H5N3, H5N8, H5N2, H5N6, and H5N1. A map of all strain outbreaks is available here.
CIDRAP—“Two of the strains—H5N8 and H5N3—have not been reported by China to the OIE before. Two outbreaks of the former were reported in September, each involving one bird (a duck and an unspecified bird) sampled during a national surveillance plan. One was at a slaughterhouse and the other in a wetland area; both were in Liaoning province in the northeast.”
Unlikely Marriage of Diseases: TB and Diabetes Form a ‘Co-Epidemic’
A white paper presented on Wednesday at the 45th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Barcelona, Spain, warns, “diabetes is fueling the spread of TB.” The paper warns that having diabetes increases the risk that a person will become sick with TB will make TB more difficult to manage, adding that a patient with both diseases is more likely to have complications that do not exist when only one disease is present.
NPR—“The TB/diabetes double-whammy has at least two important differences from the TB/HIV co-epidemic. [1.] It involves the interaction of an infectious disease (TB is the world’s second-deadliest, next to HIV/AIDS) and a non-communicable chronic disease, rather than two infections. [2.] It has potentially more global impact. The TB/HIV co-epidemic was concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, where 18 countries saw TB rates quadruple because of HIV. Many more countries have high rates of TB and, increasingly, of diabetes.”
This Week in Ebola
Not sure if it was because of Halloween or what, but it seemed to me there were fewer Ebola stories this week. Dallas nurse Amber Vinson, was finally released from Emory Hospital, free of the Ebola virus. Many other stories this week focused on quarantine. Kaci Hickox, the nurse who worked treating patients in Sierra Leone, first protested over her isolation in New Jersey, and then broke her quarantine in Maine, was reportedly ‘humbled’ when a judge in her home state of Maine ruled she can come and go as she pleases. She was still in this news this weekend as it was reported that her roommate in Africa tested positive for Ebola and there was a skit about her on SNL. President Obama has said that quarantines may dissuade doctors and nurses from traveling to West Africa, while Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has said that U.S. military personnel returning from West Africa will be subject to a 21-day quarantine. The WHO reported that Ebola infections are slowing in Liberia, and the New England Journal of Medicine says they have a suspect zero for this whole outbreak.
Stories You May Have Missed
- Empty hole in your pandemic TV show schedule now that TNT’s The Last Ship and FX’s The Strain have ended? Maybe this preview for Syfy’s 12 Monkeys will satiate you until January 16.
- Oh, Halloween, ruined on so many levels. Anti-vaxxers handing out propaganda on candy and the sexy ebola nurse costume.
- Just like our very own Jonathon Marioneaux, Huffington Post wrote on why scapegoating bats is a big mistake.
- As antibiotic resistance grows, there are many looking into building new and powerful antibiotics. Researchers at the University of Illinois are doing just that.
- It isn’t just because I work with students from West Africa that stories like this make me so sad.
Image Credit: Google
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