Outbreak News Radio

On Sept 20, Hurricane Maria pulverized Puerto Rico, the worst hit the island had taken since 1928. Access to drinking water has been restored to 45% of Puerto Rico — but more than half of the U.S. territory of 3.4 million is still going without.

Reports of some disease outbreaks have already been published, including false reports of cholera.

What are the infectious disease risks we'll be seeing in Puerto Rico in the near and the distant future post Hurricane Maria?

Joining me to give us his thoughts is Michael Osterholm PhD, Dr Osterholm is the director of CIDRAP at the University of Minnesota.

This week we got the latest data on sexually transmitted infections from a CDC's annual Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report which told of some serious problems we're having with STDs in this country.

More than two million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were reported in the United States in 2016, the highest number ever.

Perhaps most tragic is the continued increase in congenital syphilis. In 2016, there were a total of 628 reported cases of congenital syphilis, including 41 syphilitic stillbirths, and the national rate was 15.7 cases per 100,000 live births. This is nearly double the 334 cases reported in 2012.

Senior Associate with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Amesh Adalja, MD joined me to discuss congenital syphilis what's behind the increase we are seeing.

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA is a bacteria that is resistant to many common antibiotics. It can cause a variety of problems ranging from are skin infections and sepsis to pneumonia to bloodstream infections.

Monday is World MRSA Day, a day to raise the awareness of MRSA around the globe and to activate survivors, communities, governments, healthcare officials and personnel to join together to stop the spread of this preventable disease.

Founder of MRSA Survivors Network , Jeanine Thomas joined me to discuss MRSA, World MRSA Day and to tell her personal story as a MRSA survivor.

In the latest installment of the Parasites 101 series on the podcast, Parasitology teacher and author of Parasites: Tales of Humanity’s Most Unwelcome Guests, Rosemary Drisdelle joined me to discuss the protozoan parasite, Dientamoeba fragilis. “The unflagellated human flagellate”, D. fragilis is a pathogenic protozoan parasite with a world-wide distribution. Interestingly, a resistant cyst stage has not been demonstrated […]

In the latest installment of the Parasites 101 series on the podcast, Parasitology teacher and author of Parasites: Tales of Humanity's Most Unwelcome Guests, Rosemary Drisdelle joined me to discuss the protozoan parasite, Dientamoeba fragilis.

"The unflagellated human flagellate", D. fragilis is a pathogenic protozoan parasite with a world-wide distribution. Interestingly, a resistant cyst stage has not been demonstrated and it is unlikely that its trophozoites can survive successfully outside the human host.

D. fragilis infection may be acute or chronic, and has been reported in both children and adults.

In this podcast, which is a short segment from a comprehensive interview about sepsis I had with infectious disease physician, Steven LaRosa, MD this past weekend on the radio show, I pulled out an interesting segment on his views of what laboratory tests he found useful in the diagnosis of sepsis.

In the segment, LaRosa goes into quite a bit of detail on the Complete Blood Count, or CBC and looks at all the useful information a physician can get out of the very common laboratory test.

According to the Sepsis Alliance, sepsis has been named as the most expensive in-patient cost in American hospitals costing billions each year with forty percent of patients diagnosed with severe sepsis not surviving.

September is Sepsis Awareness Month and infectious disease physician and returning guest, Steven P. LaRosa, MD joined me for a comprehensive discussion on this very important topic.

Dr. LaRosa discussed a variety of issues surrounding sepsis to include symptoms, laboratory testing, fluid resuscitation and post-sepsis syndrome to name but a few.

I woke up to this headline in my inbox from the WHO–“The world is running out of antibiotics, WHO report confirms”….Yikes! A new WHO report was published today Antibacterial agents in clinical development – an analysis of the antibacterial clinical development pipeline, including tuberculosis which shows a serious lack of new antibiotics under development to […]

I woke up to this headline in my inbox from the WHO--"The world is running out of antibiotics, WHO report confirms"....Yikes!

A new WHO report was published today Antibacterial agents in clinical development – an analysis of the antibacterial clinical development pipeline, including tuberculosis which shows a serious lack of new antibiotics under development to combat the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance.

Most of the drugs currently in the clinical pipeline are modifications of existing classes of antibiotics and are only short-term solutions. The report found very few potential treatment options for those antibiotic-resistant infections identified by WHO as posing the greatest threat to health, including drug-resistant tuberculosis which kills around 250 000 people each year.

The report identifies 51 new antibiotics and biologicals in clinical development to treat priority antibiotic-resistant pathogens; however, only 8 are classed by WHO as innovative treatments that will add value to the current antibiotic treatment arsenal.

I asked Dr Mike Osterholm, director of CIDRAP to come on the show to share his thoughts on this alarming topic.

In the spring of 2012, a Saudi Arabian man developed symptoms resembling severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. However, it wasn't caused by the SARS coronavirus. Instead it was identified as a new coronavirus named the Middle East Respiratory syndrome or MERS coronavirus.

Globally, 2080 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV including at least 722 related deaths have been reported to WHO.

Director of CIDRAP at the University of Minnesota and author of the book, Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs, Michael Osterholm, PhD joined me to talk about the threat of MERS on a larger scale and what can be done to prevent it.