Covid 19 Resources Center

Many of the earlier trends continue with areas facing dengue, and areas facing cholera, in big numbers. And there is even a locally acquired cholera case in Italy (Sardinia) reported today. 

Fiji has been on red alert as leptospirosis incidence has been rising – 29 confirmed cases as of 22 June, with just one fatality.  Note that the actual number of cases is probably greater, with 42 admissions for suspected leptospirosis.

Florida chalked up six cases of local malaria. 

Anthrax in Indonesia is approaching 100 cases. 

COVID-19 cases and deaths in US and Europe low and continuing to fall.

A couple more articles on aircraft wastewater testing, one journal and one in media:

Shingleton et al: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10286959/ https://time.com/6286825/covid-19-variant-tracking-airports-cdc/

The journal article is from the UK Health Security Agency and considers the potential for wastewater testing as an alternative to individual passenger screening, applied to the example of SARS-CoV-2. 

This is interesting from Nature on “supershedders” outlining data from a study back in 2021 in which people were deliberately infected with COVID-19 – a small number of individuals emitted much more airborne virus than the remainder.  In fact, two of the 36 individuals were responsible for 86% of the total emitted virus. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01961-7

Zhou et al: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(23)00101-5/fulltext

Some further headlines on infectious diseases (Sources: Airfinity, WHO)

WHO announced the end of the Marburg emergencies in both Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2023-DON472

https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2023-DON471

Except for a few hot spots, COVID-19 activity over the past month declined in all six world regions, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its recent weekly update. The pattern follows several weeks of a mixed picture, which saw rising cases in some parts of the globe.

A significant increase in dengue cases has been observed in Sri Lanka compared to previous years, with over 40,000 cases so far in 2023, over 60% increase over the same period in 2022, and more than 2.5x greater than 2021.

Headlines on infectious diseases (Sources: Airfinity, Nature, Promed):

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever in several middle Eastern locations, and also posing some threat to Europe, with cases now in Georgia.

Cholera and measles significantly burden African countries while dengue continues to claim lives in Asia and South America. 

The outbreak of Lassa fever in Nigeria has been mentioned in previous reports.

Anopheles stephensi, the malaria-spreading mosquito which is resistant to insecticides and well adapted to urban life, has been detected in urban Kenya.

Murray Valley encephalitis in Australia – 14 cases (5 fatal) in 4 Australian states, the most recent one in Western Australia.  Australia has also reported some cases of meningitis and an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease in Melbourne.

Further to the WHO announcement (see last update) on COVID-19, the IATA response to the end to the PHEIC status is here: https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2023-releases/2023-05-06-01/    Also, here is the commentary in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01559-z

Current trends with COVID are the usual mixed picture, as illustrated by rates continuing to decline in India, but trebled over the past month in China (both trends probably related to XBB.1.16 which is now at 10% of new sequences globally) and rising in Indonesia.   

As the pandemic transitions to something that has been termed a “permademic” (an extended health threat before it settles into “background” or endemic), the threat of highly pathogenic avian flu (H5N1) is on the horizon at an unknown distance. 

An analysis by BlueDot assesses the overall risk to humans as low but increasing.  It points to an exponential increase in wild birds rather than domestic poultry and a series of “unusual mortality events” amongst mammals since 2022 (in USA, Spain and Peru), with genetic adaptations for mammals.  It notes that CDC assesses the current H5N1 vaccine candidate, and existing antivirals, as likely to provide good protection/efficacy.  (Source: BlueDot). 

Most of you will have seen that on the advice of the relevant Emergency Committee, WHO’s Director-General announced the end of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern status of COVI19, moving it instead to the status of an ongoing health threat, with a plan to develop standing recommendations which are more enduring.  Here’s the committee statement:

https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2023-statement-on-the-fifteenth-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-19)-pandemic

The key headline sentence is:

The WHO Director-General concurs with the advice offered by the Committee ….. determines that COVID-19 is now an established and ongoing health issue which no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).