WEST NILE VIRUS, MONITORING - USA (PENNSYLVANIA)

[Guest guest]

Also included are other interesting articles I did not cut.

Barb F. - MI

____________________________________

http://id.medscape.com/Other/ProMED/2000/03.2000/proMED.v2000.n05

1.html

ProMED Digest

Sunday, 12 March 2000

Volume 2000: Number 051

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In this issue:

PRO: Burkholderia cepacia, body lotions - USA: recall

PRO: Buruli ulcer - Ghana (Eastern Region): update

PRO: Calendar 2000 (13)

PRO/AH: Announcements 2000 (09)

PRO/AH: Hem. fever, renal synd. - Russia: vert. host (03)

PRO/AH: West Nile virus, monitoring - USA (Pennsylvania)

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See the end of the digest for information on how to retrieve back

issues.

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Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 11:53:07 -0500 (EST)

From: ProMED-mail <promed@...>

Subject: PRO: Calendar 2000 (13)

CALENDAR 2000 (13)

**************************

A ProMED-mail post

<http://www.promedmail.org>

[1]

Date: Thu 9 Mar 2000

From: Stuart B. Levy, M.D. <APUA@...>, Kathy Young,

Executive

Director, Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, Tufts

Medical

School, 75 Kneeland Street, Boston, MA 02111

Antibiotic resistance has been identified as a mounting public

health

threat by the WHO, CDC, IOM and various US medical organizations.

To raise

the public's and health professionals' awareness about its causes

and known

interventions, the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics is

sponsoring four symposia or conferences in the next 2 months:

13 April 2000: 9th International Congress on Infectious Diseases,

Buenos

Aires, the Sheraton Hotel and convention center, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

APUA and

APUA-Argentina, along with the Pan American Health Organization

and the Pan

American Society for Infectious Diseases, are sponsoring a

symposium, with

a reception to follow.

2 May 2000: The CME-accredited day-long course, Antibiotic

Resistance:

Global Challenge with Local Solutions, the Sheraton, Needham, MA;

presented

by 15 US infectious disease experts and representatives from the

US CDC and

the WHO. This program is geared toward primary care physicians

and is

sponsored in conjunction with Massachusetts Dept. of Public

Health,

American Assoc. for World Health, and the Massachusetts Medical

Society.

For more information, see <www.apua.org>.

4-5 May 2000: Antimicrobial Resistance, The Royal Society of

Medicine,

London, the Westin Fairfax Hotel, Washington, DC. For more

information, see

<www.roysocmed.ac.uk>.

24 May 2000, American Society of Microbiology symposium: Panel on

Reservoirs of Antibiotic Resistance (ROAR); Los Angeles, CA.

presenters

include Drs. n Davies, Stuart Levy, and Abigail Saylers. For

more

information, see <www.asmusa.org>.

As an independent organization with chapters in 24 countries,

APUA serves

as a neutral source of information on antibiotic resistance on a

global

basis. For more information, see <www.apua.org>

***

[2]

Date: Fri 10 Mar 2000

From: P. Larghi <oplarghi@...>

************************************

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 12:10:47 -0500 (EST)

From: ProMED-mail <promed@...>

Subject: PRO/AH: Announcements 2000 (09)

ANNOUNCEMENTS 2000 (09)

***********************************

A ProMED-mail post

<http://www.promedmail.org>

[1]

Date: Thu 9 Mar 2000

From: o Docampo <rodoc@...>

Subject: Third Annual Conference on New and Re-Emerging

Infectious Diseases

Sender: owner-tdr-scientists@...

Location: University of Illinois, College of Veterinary Medicine,

Urbana,

Illinois

Dates: 20-21 April 2000

We are pleased to announce the agenda for the Third Annual

Conference on

New and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases. The following URL will

take you to

the conference home page where there is a list of speakers,

registration

form, and an abstract submission form:

<http://www.cvm.uiuc.edu/idc3/>

As in previous years, posters presented by graduate students will

be judged

and the best will receive cash awards. For those who are from out

of town

and will be attending, a block of rooms has been reserved at the

Radisson

Suite Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign/Urbana, 101 Trade

Centre

Drive, Champaign, IL 61820.

This year's conference is supported by the Department of

Veterinary

Pathobiology, The Center for Zoonosis Research and Infectious

Diseases, the

Laboratory of Molecular Parasitology, College of Veterinary

Medicine, The

Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research, and

Elanco/Eli Lilly

- --

o Docampo, MD, PhD

Laboratory of Molecular Parasitology

Department of Pathobiology

College of Veterinary Medicine

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2001 South Lincoln Avenue

Urbana, IL 61802, USA

Tel: 217-333-3845

Fax: 217-244-7421

<http://www.cvm.uiuc.edu/research/FacultyPages/docampo>

<http://www.cvm.uiuc.edu/vp/molparasite/>

<rodoc@...>

***

[2]

Date: Thu 9 Mar 2000 22:35:42 -0300

From: Hugh- <mehj@...>

Issues in Ecology

Our readers may well want to check out this article, as it is not

irrelvant

to our interests.

<http://esa.sdsc.edu/issues5.htm>

- --

Hugh-

Department of Epidemiology & Community Health,

School of Veterinary Medicine,

Louisiana State University,

Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA

tel: (225) 346-3341

fax: (225) 346-3331

<mehj@...>

[Fascinating piece. - Mod. CHC]

....................................jw/mhj/chc/ds

- --

Visit ProMED-mail's web site at <http://www.promedmail.org>.

Send all items for posting to: promed@...

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Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 12:21:20 -0500 (EST)

From: ProMED-mail <promed@...>

Subject: PRO/AH: Hem. fever, renal synd. - Russia: vert. host

(03)

HEM. FEVER, RENAL SYND. - RUSSIA: VERT. HOST (03)

************************************************

A ProMED-mail post

<http://www.promedmail.org>

[see also:

Hem. fever, renal synd. - Russia (Tatarstan) 20000204144414

Hem. fever, renal synd. - Russia (Tatarstan): vert...

20000205090924

Hem. fever, renal synd. - Russia (Yaroslavl Ob.) (02)

20000227111410

Hem. fever, renal synd. - Russia (Yaroslavl Oblast)

20000214203531

Hem. fever, renal synd. - Russia: vert. host (02) 20000223230942]

Date: Mon 6 Mar 2000

From: Ake Lundkvist <akelun@...>

Recent ProMED-mail reports on HFRS outbreaks in Tatarstan and

Yaroslav

prompted us to the attached reply, in which we try to summarize

the present

knowledge on hantaviruses and their rodent carriers in western

Russia. We

hope you will find it valuable.

A. Lundkvist

A. Plyusnin

H. Henttonen

On several occasions when hantavirus cases/outbreaks in Europe,

especially

in Russia, have been reported on ProMED-mail, there has been a

confusion

regarding the potential infectious agents. Hantaan virus (HTNV),

originally

isolated in the striped field mouse (_Apodemus agrarius_) in

Korea, has

repeatedly been suggested as one of the likely causes of the

epidemics.

Some of us have earlier commented on these messages from Russia,

suggesting

that Puumala virus (PUUV), and not HTNV, is the most likely agent

for the

recent epidemics. This is based on the corresponding

extraordinary high

densities of the bank vole (_Clethrionomys glareolus_), the

natural

reservoir of PUUV, in these regions during the epidemics (e.g. in

Samara

and in Bashkortostan in 1997). However, we would like, once

again, to

clarify what is known for hantaviruses in (eastern) Europe.

1) The circulation of HTNV virus has never been convincingly

proven in this

part of Russia or elsewhere in Europe. Previously reported

isolates of HTNV

from Russia have in all investigated cases been found to be

laboratory

contaminations (by prototype strains). Actually, there are no

proven cases

of HTNV or Seoul (SEOV) infections either from Europe or from

western

Russia (west of the Urals). This is not to say that SEOV will not

be found

in Europe in the future, but so far all claimed cases have turned

out to be

Dobrava hantavirus (DOBV).

2) On the other hand, during the recent years of hantavirus

research the

circulation of DOBV, has been proven in large parts of central

and eastern

Europe. HFRS cases caused by DOBV have at present been proven, in

addition

to from former Yugoslavia, from Albania, Greece, Germany, Estonia

and

Russia. Interestingly, in contrast to the Balkan region where

DOBV seems to

be carried mainly by _Apodemus flavicollis_, in Estonia and

Russia the

virus has only been found in _Apodemus agrarius_.

3) Notably, two outbreaks in the Ryazan and Tula regions in

Russia,

previously reported as caused by SEOV virus, were later proven to

be solely

caused by DOBV.

Thus, the two hantaviruses known to circulate and to cause HFRS

in western

Russia are PUUV and DOBV. All available data from the last

epidemics, based

on rodent epidemiology and clinical observations, indicate that

PUUV is the

most common cause of the recent HFRS epidemics.

Simultaneous HFRS epidemics in Bashkortostan (Bashkiria), Samara,

and

Tatarstan (all have been discussed earlier on ProMED-mail) are

probably

related. In European temperate deciduous forests, mast years

(heavy seed

crops of oak, beech etc) affect in a pronounced way the dynamics

of forest

rodents like the bank vole, the wood mouse (_Apodemus

sylvaticus_) and the

yellow necked field mouse (_A. flavicollis_). In addition to the

basic

multiannual rhythm in bud development, flowering and masting,

warmer than

normal summers can induce the bud development, and therefore the

mast years

can be synchronous over large areas. A similar connection between

masting

and rodent dynamics is also known for eastern USA, where it has

been

associated to the prevalence of Lyme disease. Even though garbage

dumping

etc. was mentioned as likely causes of the epidemics in the

original

ProMED-mail reports, multiannual variation in the masting could

instead be

the primary reason for the regular HFRS epidemics in these

regions. The

increasing trend in the number of human cases could be, as Prof.

Tkachenko

has suggested, due to the construction boom during the last

decade; i.e. a

lot of new private houses and cabins have been built in the

forests, which

in turn has resulted in increased contacts with rodents. In 1997,

HFRS

epidemics occurred in Bashkortostan and in Samara, and were most

likely

caused by the high numbers of bank voles carrying PUUV. For

Bashkortostan

and Yaroslav this winter, PUUV has already been reported as the

likely

agent, and it is probably the same agent in Samara and Tatarstan.

However, only specific serology or direct RT-PCR on patient

material will

solve these interesting questions. We are willing to analyze

samples from

these cases without any charge. Most efficient will be a)

acute-phase

serum/blood samples for confirmation of an acute hantavirus

infection (by

detection of hantavirus-specific IgM), combined with

convalescent

samples, drawn at least 1 month after onset of symptoms, for

hantavirus

serotyping (by neutralization test). Please contact A. Lundkvist

for details.

- --

Ake Lundkvist

Swedish Institute for

Infectious Disease Control

SE-171 82 Stockholm

Sweden

Phone: +46-8-4572641

Fax: +46-8-314744

<akelun@...>

[Thanks to Ake and his collborators for taking time from their

busy

schedules to provide us with this marvelous overview and expert

summary. It

seems to me that there has not been " confusion regarding the

potential

infectious agents " . Until we have definitive information as to

the specific

hantavirus that is the etiologic agent, we simply say " a

hantavirus " , which

is correct, but we always ask for additional information from a

local

source; it usually is not forthcoming. I make regular field trips

(hantavirus studies) and, by chance, reports on outbreaks of

disease caused

by hantaviruses seem to arrive at ProMED-mail when I am away.

When this

occurs, someone else does the moderating. We are now holding all

such

reports until I return home. - Mod. CHC]

.........................................chc/ds

- --

Visit ProMED-mail's web site at <http://www.promedmail.org>.

Send all items for posting to: promed@...

(NOT to an individual moderator). If you do not give your

full name and affiliation, it may not be posted. Send

commands to subscribe/unsubscribe, get archives, help,

etc. to: majordomo@.... For assistance from a

human being send mail to: owner-promed@....

############################################################

############################################################

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 12:30:03 -0500 (EST)

From: ProMED-mail <promed@...>

Subject: PRO/AH: West Nile virus, monitoring - USA (Pennsylvania)

WEST NILE VIRUS, MONITORING - USA (PENNSYLVANIA)

************************************************

A ProMED-mail post

<http://www.promedmail.org>

Date: Thu 2 Mar 2000

From: Marjorie P. Pollack <pollackmp@...>

Source: Media, 1 March 2000

Pennsylvania Health Secretary S. Zimmerman Jr. today

announced that

the state is finalizing plans to monitor the state for potential

mosquito

and animal carriers of the West Nile virus that struck New York

City last

year. " We want to be sure we are prepared if this virus crosses

the

Pennsylvania state line, " Secretary Zimmerman said. " We are

developing an

aggressive plan to monitor, test and control the species of

mosquitoes that

carries the virus, and to educate Pennsylvanians on easy steps

they can

take to protect themselves. "

Although the West Nile virus has not been found in Pennsylvania,

the state

wants to be ready in case the virus spreads into the state this

summer.

Governor Tom Ridge's 2000-01 budget proposes $9.8 million in new

funding to

prevent and mitigate the potential public-health effects of West

Nile virus

on citizens of the Commonwealth. The funds will provide necessary

staffing

and an improved epidemiological infrastructure to detect the

virus should

it find its way into Pennsylvania.

The departments of Health, Environmental Protection, Aging, and

Conservation and Natural Resources, and the Fish and Boat and

Game

commissions currently are working on a comprehensive, statewide

plan to try

to prevent a virus outbreak in Pennsylvania. " We learned from

other states

last summer that we need to be ready to respond if the virus is

found to

help prevent it from spreading, " Department of Environmental

Protection

Secretary M. Seif said. " The state's plan will include

testing animal

populations that may act as a host for the virus and monitoring

public

health to provide early warning of virus infections. "

DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] has been charged

with the

mosquito surveillance and control portion of the multi-agency

effort to

control disease outbreaks in Pennsylvania. The seven agencies

will work

together and with local governments to implement the

comprehensive

surveillance and control program, which will include mosquito

surveillance

and monitoring. Birds, chickens and horses, potential hosts for

the virus,

will be monitored and tested. If the virus is detected, the

control program

will be implemented to kill the infected mosquitoes.

For more information visit the Pennsylvania website at

<www.state.pa.us> or

directly at <www.westnile.state.pa.us>.

CONTACT: Yanoshik, Press Secretary of the Pennsylvania

Department of

Health, 717-787-1783, or April L. Hutcheson of the Pennsylvania

DEP,

717-787-1323, or pager, 888-516-7705.

SOURCE: Pennsylvania Department of Health

- --

ProMED-mail

<promed@...>

[seropositive birds were found last summer in New Jersey, New

York and

land. Pennsylvania is between New Jersey and land. - Mod.

CHC]

......................................chc/ds