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Providing basic sanitation and safe drinking water and food is the key for controlling the disease. In developed countries, enteric fever rates decreased in the past when treatment of municipal water was introduced, human feces were excluded from food production, and pasteurization of dairy products began. In addition, children and adults should be carefully educated about personal hygiene. This would include careful handwashing after defecation and sexual contact, before preparing or eating food, and especially the sanitary disposal of feces. Food handlers should be educated in personal hygiene prior to handling food or utensils and equipment. Infected individuals should be advised to avoid food preparation. Sexually active people should be educated about the risks of sexual practices that permit fecal-oral contact.
Those who travel to countries with poor sanitation should receive a live attenuated typhoid vaccine—Ty21a (Vivotif), which, in addition to the protection against typhoid fever, and may provide some protection against paratyphoid fever caused by the "S. enterica" serotypes A and B. In particular, a reanalysis of data from a trial conducted in Chile showed the Ty21a vaccine was 49% effective (95% CI: 8–73%) in preventing paratyphoid fever caused by the serotype B. Evidence from a study of international travelers in Israel also indicates the vaccine may prevent a fraction of infections by the serotype A, although no trial confirms this. This cross-protection by a typhoid vaccine is most likely due to O antigens shared between different "S. enterica" serotypes.
Exclusion from work and social activities should be considered for symptomatic, and asymptomatic, people who are food handlers, healthcare/daycare staff who are involved in patient care and/or child care, children attending unsanitary daycare centers, and older children who are unable to implement good standards of personal hygiene. The exclusion applies until two consecutive stool specimens are taken from the infected patient and are reported negative.
Control requires treatment of antibiotics and vaccines prescribed by a doctor. Major control treatments for paratyphoid fever include ciprofloxacin for ten days, ceftriaxone/cefotaxime for 14 days, or aziththromycin.
As resistance to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and streptomycin is now common, these agents have not been used as first–line treatment of typhoid fever for almost 20 years. Typhoid resistant to these agents is known as multidrug-resistant typhoid (MDR typhoid).
Ciprofloxacin resistance is an increasing problem, especially in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Many centres are shifting from using ciprofloxacin as the first line for treating suspected typhoid originating in South America, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, or Vietnam. For these people, the recommended first-line treatment is ceftriaxone. Also, azithromycin has been suggested to be better at treating typhoid in resistant populations than both fluoroquinolone drugs and ceftriaxone. Azithromycin significantly reduces relapse rates compared with ceftriaxone.
A separate problem exists with laboratory testing for reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin: current recommendations are that isolates should be tested simultaneously against ciprofloxacin (CIP) and against nalidixic acid (NAL), and that isolates that are sensitive to both CIP and NAL should be reported as "sensitive to ciprofloxacin", but that isolates testing sensitive to CIP but not to NAL should be reported as "reduced sensitivity to ciprofloxacin". However, an analysis of 271 isolates showed that around 18% of isolates with a reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin (MIC 0.125–1.0 mg/l) would not be picked up by this method. How this problem can be solved is not certain, because most laboratories around the world (including the West) are dependent on disk testing and cannot test for MICs.
There is currently no vaccine available. The primary method of disease prevention is minimizing mosquito bites, as the disease is only transmitted by mosquitoes. Typical advice includes use of mosquito repellent and mosquito screens, wearing light coloured clothing, and minimising standing water around homes (e.g. removing Bromeliads, plant pots, garden ponds). Staying indoors during dusk/dawn hours when mosquitos are most active may also be effective. Bush camping is a common precipitant of infection so particular care is required.
The study of RRF has been recently facilitated by the development of a mouse model. Mice infected with RRV develop hind-limb arthritis/arthralgia which is similar to human disease. The disease in mice is characterized by an inflammatory infiltrate including macrophages which are immunopathogenic and exacerbate disease. Furthermore, mice deficient in the C3 protein do not suffer from severe disease following infection. This indicates that an aberrant innate immune response is responsible for severe disease following RRV infection.
While a vaccine is available for PHF, it does not cover all strains of the bacterium, and recent vaccine failures seem to be on the rise. Additionally, the vaccine usually produces a very weak immune response, which may only lessen the severity of the disease rather than prevent it. The vaccine is administered twice a year, in early spring and in early summer, with the first one inoculation given before the mayflies emerge and the second administered as a booster.
Some veterinarians have started making recommendations for farm management to try to prevent this disease:
- Maintaining riparian barriers along bodies of water may encourage aquatic insects to stay near their places of origin
- Turning off outside lights around the barn will prevent insects from being attracted
- Cleaning water buckets and feed areas frequently and keeping food covered will reduce the chance that the horse will accidentally ingest infected insects
The rediscovery of oral rehydration therapy in the 1960s provided a simple way to prevent many of the deaths of diarrheal diseases in general.
Where resistance is uncommon, the treatment of choice is a fluoroquinolone such as ciprofloxacin. Otherwise, a third-generation cephalosporin such as ceftriaxone or cefotaxime is the first choice. Cefixime is a suitable oral alternative.
Typhoid fever, when properly treated, is not fatal in most cases. Antibiotics, such as ampicillin, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, amoxicillin, and ciprofloxacin, have been commonly used to treat typhoid fever in microbiology. Treatment of the disease with antibiotics reduces the case-fatality rate to about 1%.
Without treatment, some patients develop sustained fever, bradycardia, hepatosplenomegaly, abdominal symptoms and, occasionally, pneumonia. In white-skinned patients, pink spots, which fade on pressure, appear on the skin of the trunk in up to 20% of cases. In the third week, untreated cases may develop gastrointestinal and cerebral complications, which may prove fatal in up to 10–20% of cases. The highest case fatality rates are reported in children under 4 years. Around 2–5% of those who contract typhoid fever become chronic carriers, as bacteria persist in the biliary tract after symptoms have resolved.
The most efficient treatment in breeding flocks or laying hens is individual intramuscular injections of a long-acting tetracycline, with the same antibiotic in drinking water, simultaneously. The mortality and clinical signs will stop within one week, but the bacteria might remain present in the flock.
"N. risticii" responds well to tetracycline antibiotics. Mild cases may be treated with oral doxycycline, while severe cases are usually treated with intravenous oxytetracycline.
Supportive care for severe cases is aimed at minimizing the effects of endotoxemia and preventing laminitis. This may include intravenous fluids and electrolytes to counteract the diarrhea; NSAIDs such as Banamine (flunixin meglumine); intravenous dimethyl sulfoxide; administration of products such as Biosponge or activated charcoal via nasogastric tube to bind endotoxins; polymyxin B or plasma for endotoxemia; supportive shoeing; low doses of intramuscular acepromazine; and pentoxifylline.
Since 2011, Denmark has had zero cases of human salmonella poisoning. The country eradicated salmonella without vaccines and antibiotics by focusing on eliminating the infection from "breeder stocks", implementing various measures to prevent infection, and taking a zero-tolerance policy towards salmonella in chickens.
Electrolytes may be replenished with oral rehydration supplements (typically containing salts sodium chloride and potassium chloride).
Appropriate antibiotics, such as ceftriaxone, may be given to kill the bacteria but are not necessary in most cases. Azithromycin has been suggested to be better at treating typhoid in resistant populations than both fluoroquinolone drugs and ceftriaxone. Antibiotic resistance rates are increasing throughout the world, so health care providers should check current recommendations before choosing an antibiotic.
The disease can be prevented in horses with the use of vaccinations. These vaccinations are usually given together with vaccinations for other diseases, most commonly WEE, VEE, and tetanus. Most vaccinations for EEE consist of the killed virus. For humans there is no vaccine for EEE so prevention involves reducing the risk of exposure. Using repellent, wearing protective clothing, and reducing the amount of standing water is the best means for prevention
West Nile virus can be sampled from the environment by the pooling of trapped mosquitoes via ovitraps, carbon dioxide-baited light traps, and gravid traps, testing blood samples drawn from wild birds, dogs, and sentinel monkeys, as well as testing brains of dead birds found by various animal control agencies and the public.
Testing of the mosquito samples requires the use of reverse-transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) to directly amplify and show the presence of virus in the submitted samples. When using the blood sera of wild birds and sentinel chickens, samples must be tested for the presence of WNV antibodies by use of immunohistochemistry (IHC) or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).
Dead birds, after necropsy, or their oral swab samples collected on specific RNA-preserving filter paper card, can have their virus presence tested by either RT-PCR or IHC, where virus shows up as brown-stained tissue because of a substrate-enzyme reaction.
West Nile control is achieved through mosquito control, by elimination of mosquito breeding sites such as abandoned pools, applying larvacide to active breeding areas, and targeting the adult population via lethal ovitraps and aerial spraying of pesticides.
Environmentalists have condemned attempts to control the transmitting mosquitoes by spraying pesticide, saying the detrimental health effects of spraying outweigh the relatively few lives that may be saved, and more environmentally friendly ways of controlling mosquitoes are available. They also question the effectiveness of insecticide spraying, as they believe mosquitoes that are resting or flying above the level of spraying will not be killed; the most common vector in the northeastern United States, "Culex pipiens", is a canopy feeder.
Prophylaxis by vaccination, as well as preventive measures like protective clothing, tick control, and mosquito control are advised. The vaccine for KFDV consists of formalin-inactivated KFDV. The vaccine has a 62.4% effectiveness rate for individuals who receive two doses. For individuals who receive an additional dose, the effectiveness increases to 82.9%. Specific treatments are not available.
Outbreaks occur in cold and wet weather (in late summer, fall and winter).
The outbreaks are often traced back to the presence of rodents in the breeding houses. These are thought to spread the disease from carcasses of dead birds (possibly from neighboring backyards), improperly disposed of.
Once the disease is introduced to a flock, it will stay until culling. Chronic carriers can always lead to re-emerging of the disease in susceptible birds...
In wild birds, this disease is most commonly associated with wetlands. Blanchong et al. determined that wetlands act as short term reservoirs, recording large amounts of the bacterium in the soil and water through the duration of the outbreak. Wetlands, however, are not long term reservoirs.
The disease presents in two very different forms: acute and chronic. Birds with chronic avian cholera, more common in domestic fowl, exhibit prolonged illness with more localized infections. Chronic infection has been demonstrated in snow geese, and these individuals are believed to be long term migrating reservoirs for the disease.
Once the bacteria gets introduced into a population of susceptible birds, an outbreak of acute avian cholera follows. Infected birds will die 6–12 hours after contracting the bacterium, and very few ill birds have been described. Due to association and dense aggregations, waterfowl are most commonly affected by "P. multocida", however scavengers and other water birds are often affected in large multi-species outbreaks.
A vaccine for horses (ATCvet code: ) based on killed viruses exists; some zoos have given this vaccine to their birds, although its effectiveness is unknown. Dogs and cats show few if any signs of infection. There have been no known cases of direct canine-human or feline-human transmission; although these pets can become infected, it is unlikely they are, in turn, capable of infecting native mosquitoes and thus continuing the disease cycle.
AMD3100, which had been proposed as an antiretroviral drug for HIV, has shown promise against West Nile encephalitis. Morpholino antisense oligos conjugated to cell penetrating peptides have been shown to partially protect mice from WNV disease. There have also been attempts to treat infections using ribavirin, intravenous immunoglobulin, or alpha interferon. GenoMed, a U.S. biotech company, has found that blocking angiotensin II can treat the "cytokine storm" of West Nile virus encephalitis as well as other viruses.
A vaccine called Chimerivax-WNV is being actively researched and has undergone phase II Clinical trials in 2011.
As swine influenza is rarely fatal to pigs, little treatment beyond rest and supportive care is required. Instead, veterinary efforts are focused on preventing the spread of the virus throughout the farm, or to other farms. Vaccination and animal management techniques are most important in these efforts. Antibiotics are also used to treat this disease, which although they have no effect against the influenza virus, do help prevent bacterial pneumonia and other secondary infections in influenza-weakened herds.
The presence of avian botulism is extremely hard to detect before an outbreak. Frequent surveillance of sites at risk is needed for early detection of the disease in order to take action and remove carcasses. Vaccines are also developed, but they are expected to have limited effectiveness in stemming outbreaks in wild waterbird populations. However may be effective in reducing mortality for endangered island waterfowl and small non-migratory wild populations. Field tests are needed.
Prevention of swine influenza has three components: prevention in pigs, prevention of transmission to humans, and prevention of its spread among humans.
Kemerovo tickborne viral fever is an aparalytic febrile illness accompanied by meningism following tick-bite. The causative agent is a zoonotic Orbivirus first described in 1963 in western Siberia by Mikhail Chumakov and coworkers. The virus has some 23 serotypes, and can occur in coinfections with other Orbiviruses and tick-transmitted encephalitis viruses, complicating the course of illness. Rodents and birds are the primary vertebrate hosts of the virus; "Ixodes persulcatus" ticks are a vector of the virus. Kemerovo and related viruses may be translocated distances in the environment by migratory birds.
There is no cure for EEE. Treatment consists of corticosteroids, anticonvulsants, and supportive measures (treating symptoms) such as intravenous fluids, tracheal intubation, and antipyretics. About four percent of humans known to be infected develop symptoms, with a total of about six cases per year in the US. A third of these cases die, and many survivors suffer permanent brain damage.
The World Health Organization recommends the following:
- Food should be properly cooked and hot when served.
- Consume only pasteurized or boiled milk and milk products, never raw milk products.
- Make sure that ice is from safe water.
- If you are not sure of the safety of drinking water, boil it, or disinfect it with chemical disinfectant.
- Wash hands thoroughly and frequently with soap, especially after using the toilet and after contact with pets and farm animals.
- Wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly, especially if they are to be eaten raw. Peel fruits and vegetables whenever possible.
- Food handlers, professionals and at home, should observe hygienic rules during food preparation.
- Professional food handlers should immediately report to their employer any fever, diarrhea, vomiting or visible infected skin lesions.
The antiviral drugs amantadine and rimantadine inhibit a viral ion channel (M2 protein), thus inhibiting replication of the influenza A virus. These drugs are sometimes effective against influenza A if given early in the infection but are ineffective against influenza B viruses, which lack the M2 drug target. Measured resistance to amantadine and rimantadine in American isolates of H3N2 has increased to 91% in 2005. This high level of resistance may be due to the easy availability of amantadines as part of over-the-counter cold remedies in countries such as China and Russia, and their use to prevent outbreaks of influenza in farmed poultry. The CDC recommended against using M2 inhibitors during the 2005–06 influenza season due to high levels of drug resistance.
The influenza vaccine is recommended by the World Health Organization and United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for high-risk groups, such as children, the elderly, health care workers, and people who have chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease, or are immuno-compromised among others. In healthy adults it is modestly effective in decreasing the amount of influenza-like symptoms in a population. Evidence is supportive of a decreased rate of influenza in children over the age of two. In those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease vaccination reduces exacerbations, it is not clear if it reduces asthma exacerbations. Evidence supports a lower rate of influenza-like illness in many groups who are immunocompromised such as those with: HIV/AIDS, cancer, and post organ transplant. In those at high risk immunization may reduce the risk of heart disease. Whether immunizing health care workers affects patient outcomes is controversial with some reviews finding insufficient evidence and others finding tentative evidence.
Due to the high mutation rate of the virus, a particular influenza vaccine usually confers protection for no more than a few years. Every year, the World Health Organization predicts which strains of the virus are most likely to be circulating in the next year (see Historical annual reformulations of the influenza vaccine), allowing pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines that will provide the best immunity against these strains. The vaccine is reformulated each season for a few specific flu strains but does not include all the strains active in the world during that season. It takes about six months for the manufacturers to formulate and produce the millions of doses required to deal with the seasonal epidemics; occasionally, a new or overlooked strain becomes prominent during that time. It is also possible to get infected just before vaccination and get sick with the strain that the vaccine is supposed to prevent, as the vaccine takes about two weeks to become effective.
Vaccines can cause the immune system to react as if the body were actually being infected, and general infection symptoms (many cold and flu symptoms are just general infection symptoms) can appear, though these symptoms are usually not as severe or long-lasting as influenza. The most dangerous adverse effect is a severe allergic reaction to either the virus material itself or residues from the hen eggs used to grow the influenza; however, these reactions are extremely rare.
The cost-effectiveness of seasonal influenza vaccination has been widely evaluated for different groups and in different settings. It has generally been found to be a cost-effective intervention, especially in children and the elderly, however the results of economic evaluations of influenza vaccination have often been found to be dependent on key assumptions.
Cats can be protected from H5N1 if they are given a vaccination, as mentioned above. However, it was also found that cats can still shed some of the virus but in low numbers.
If a cat is exhibiting symptoms, they should be put into isolation and kept indoors. Then they should be taken to a vet to get tested for the presence of H5N1. If there is a possibility that the cat has Avian Influenza, then there should be extra care when handling the cat. Some of the precautions include avoiding all direct contact with the cat by wearing gloves, masks, and goggles. Whatever surfaces the cat comes in contact with should be disinfected with standard household cleaners.
They have given tigers an antiviral treatment of Oseltamivir with a dose of 75 mg/60 kg two times a day. The specific dosage was extrapolated from human data, but there hasn't been any data to suggest protection. As with many antiviral treatments, the dosage depends on the species.