Infectious Diseases

Infectious disease has the terrifying power to disrupt everyday life on a global scale, overwhelming public and private resources and bringing trade and transportation to a grinding halt.

Host Dr. John Russell sits down with Dr. Osterholm to talk about the book Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs. They talk about how we could wake up to a reality in which many antibiotics no longer cure, bioterror is a certainty, and the threat of a disastrous influenza pandemic looms ever larger. Only by understanding the challenges we face can we prevent the unthinkable from becoming the inevitable.

After sitting at the feet of Martin Luther King at the University of Michigan in 1963, Larry Brilliant was swept up into the civil rights movement, marching and protesting across America and Europe. As a radical young doctor he followed the hippie trail from London over the Khyber Pass with his wife Girija, Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm commune to India. There, he found himself in a Himalayan ashram wondering whether he had stumbled into a cult. Instead, one of India’s greatest spiritual teachers, Neem Karoli Baba, opened Larry’s heart and told him his destiny was to work for the World Health Organization to help eradicate killer smallpox. He would never have believed he would become a key player in eliminating a 10,000-year-old disease that killed more than half a billion people in the 20th century alone.

Host Dr. John Russell sits down with Dr. Larry Brilliant to discuss his book, Sometimes Brilliant and talk about his amazing journey from Detroit to counter-culture San Francisco to an ashram in India and beyond.

In this session of Beyond the Data carrying forward ideas discussed at CDC's Public Health Grand Rounds, Dr. Phoebe Thorpe speaks with Dr. Bobbi Pritt, Director of the Clinical Parasitology Laboratory and Co-Director of Vector-borne Diseases Laboratory Services at the Mayo Clinic. The two expand on Dr. Pritt's lecture focusing on advances in diagnosing tickborne diseases.

Host Dr. Russell sits down with Dr. Steven Hatch, an infectious disease specialist and author of the book, Inferno: a Doctor's Ebola Story, about his experience in Liberia during the heart of the Ebola crisis.

Dr. Steven Hatch first came to Liberia in November 2013, to work at a hospital in Monrovia. Six months later, several of the physicians Dr. Hatch had mentored and served with were dead or barely clinging to life, and Ebola had become a world health emergency. Hundreds of victims perished each week; whole families were destroyed in a matter of days; so many died so quickly that the culturally taboo practice of cremation had to be instituted to dispose of the bodies. With little help from the international community and a population ravaged by disease and fear, the war-torn African nation was simply unprepared to deal with the catastrophe.

A physician’s memoir about the ravages of a terrible disease and the small hospital that fought to contain it, Inferno is also an explanation of the science and biology of Ebola: how it is transmitted and spreads with such ferocity. And as Dr. Hatch notes, while Ebola is temporarily under control, it will inevitably re-emerge―as will …

Genital Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) infection is a major public health problem. A dramatic upsurge in genital HSV infections have been documented from several prominent studies, making recognition, treatment, and patient counseling strategies more important than ever.

Joining host, Ana Rosario at the Women's Health Annual Visit in Deerborn, MI, is Dr. David Gandell, Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Rochester and attending phsyician at Strong Memorial Hospital.

News about the Zika virus have dominated health headlines, but understandings about the full range of viral transmission routes, symptomatology, complications, and rising endemic zones remain unclear for many clinicians.

Joining Dr. Jennifer Caudle for updates in recognitions and treatment for Zika virus infection is Dr. Kecia Gaither, practicing OB/GYN and maternal fetal medicine specialist, and perinatal consultant at St. Lukes Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. Most recently, Dr. Gaither served as Director of Perinatal Outreach at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Prior to this post, she served as the Vice Chairman and Director of Maternal Fetal Medicine in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center. Dr. Gaither earned her MPH in health policy and management at Columbia University.

A fascinating and shocking historical exposé, The Malaria Project is the story of America's secret mission to combat malaria during World War II—a campaign modeled after a German project which tested experimental drugs on men gone mad from syphilis. Karen M. Masterson, a journalist turned malaria researcher, uncovers the complete story behind this dark tale of science, medicine and war.

J Cyst Fibros. 2016 Jul;15(4):495-502. doi: 10.1016/j.jcf.2015.12.004. Epub 2016 Feb 4.

RATIONALE:

For patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), the use of inhaled antibiotics has become standard of care to suppress chronic Pseudomonas airways infection. There are limited antibiotic options formulated and approved for inhaled use and antibiotic efficacies attenuate over time, making additional inhaled antibiotic classes desirable. APT-1026 (levofloxacin inhalation solution, LIS) is a fluoroquinolone in development for management of chronic P. aeruginosa airways infection in patients with CF.

OBJECTIVES:

To compare the safety and efficacy of a 28-day course of treatment with LIS 240mg or placebo BID in persons ≥12years old with CF and chronic P. aeruginosa infection.

METHODS:

A multinational, randomized (2:1), double-blinded study of LIS and placebo over 28days in CF patients ≥12years with chronic P. aeruginosa infection. Time to exacerbation was the primary endpoint. FEV1 (% predicted) and patient-reported …

J Cyst Fibros. 2016 May;15(3):340-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jcf.2016.01.004. Epub 2016 Feb 5.

With intensified antibiotic therapy and longer survival, patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) are colonized with a more complex pattern ofbacteria and fungi. However, the clinical relevance of these emerging pathogens for lung function remains poorly defined. The aim ofthis study was to assess the association of bacterial and fungal colonization patterns with lung function in adolescent patients with CF. Microbial colonization patterns and lung function parameters were assessed in 770 adolescent European (German/Austrian) CF patients in a retrospective study (median follow-up time: 10years). Colonization with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and MRSA were most strongly associated with loss of lung function, while mainly colonization with Haemophilus influenzae was associated with preservedlung function. Aspergillus fumigatus was the only species that was associated with an increased risk for infection with P. aeruginosa.Microbial interaction analysis revealed three distinct microbial clusters within the longitudinal course of CF lung disease. …

Dr. Mary Guinan was one of the first scientists to conduct an initial investigation into the emerging HIV/AIDS epidemic for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Additionally, she was one of the first female physicians to work on smallpox eradication and has been a leading researcher and educator on sexually transmitted diseases.

Dr. Mary Guinan is the founding dean of the School of Community Health Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and is now a professor emerita.

She joins Dr. Jennifer Caudle to discuss her book, Adventures of a Female Medical Detective which explores Dr. Guinan's life in medicine, including her many experiences with emerging disease outbreaks and the efforts to control them. She provides a unique female perspective from a time when very few women worked in the field.