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Omsk hemorrhagic fever is caused by the Omsk hemorrhagic fever virus (OHFV), a member of the Flavivirus family. The virus was discovered by Mikhail Chumakov and his colleagues between 1945 and 1947 in Omsk, Russia. The infection is found in western Siberia, in places including Omsk, Novosibirsk, Kurgan, and Tyumen. The virus survives in water and is transferred to humans via contaminated water or an infected tick.
TBE is caused by tick-borne encephalitis virus, a member of the genus "Flavivirus" in the family Flaviviridae. It was first isolated in 1937. Three virus sub-types are described: European or Western tick-borne encephalitis virus, Siberian tick-borne encephalitis virus, and Far-Eastern tick-borne encephalitis virus (formerly known as Russian spring summer encephalitis virus).
Russia and Europe report about 5,000–7,000 human cases annually.
The former Soviet Union conducted research on tick borne diseases, including the TBE viruses.
The majority of MVEV infections are sub-clinical, i.e. do not produce disease symptoms, although some people may experience a mild form of the disease with symptoms such as fever, headaches, nausea and vomiting and only a very small number of these cases go on to develop MVE. In fact, serological surveys which measure the level of anti-MVEV antibodies within the population estimate that only 1 in 800-1000 of all infections result in clinical disease.
The incubation period following exposure to the virus is around 1 to 4 weeks. Following infection, a person will have lifelong immunity to the virus. When a patient appears to show MVE symptoms and has been in an MVE-endemic area during the wet season, when outbreaks usually occur, MVE infection must be confirmed by laboratory diagnosis, usually by detection of a significant rise of MVE-specific antibodies in the patient's serum.
Of those who contract MVE, one-quarter die from the disease.
It is transmitted by the bite of several species of infected ticks, including "Ixodes scapularis", "I. ricinus" and "I. persulcatus", or (rarely) through the non-pasteurized milk of infected cows.
MVEV is a mosquito-borne virus that is maintained in a bird-mosquito-bird cycle. Water birds from the order Ciconiiformes, including herons and cormorants, provide the natural reservoir for MVEV. The major mosquito vector is "Culex annulirostris". Human infection occurs only through bites from infected mosquitoes; the virus cannot be transmitted from person to person.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a journal "Emerging Infectious Diseases" that identifies the following factors contributing to disease emergence:
- Microbial adaption; e.g. genetic drift and genetic shift in Influenza A
- Changing human susceptibility; e.g. mass immunocompromisation with HIV/AIDS
- Climate and weather; e.g. diseases with zoonotic vectors such as West Nile Disease (transmitted by mosquitoes) are moving further from the tropics as the climate warms
- Change in human demographics and trade; e.g. rapid travel enabled SARS to rapidly propagate around the globe
- Economic development; e.g. use of antibiotics to increase meat yield of farmed cows leads to antibiotic resistance
- Breakdown of public health; e.g. the current situation in Zimbabwe
- Poverty and social inequality; e.g. tuberculosis is primarily a problem in low-income areas
- War and famine
- Bioterrorism; e.g. 2001 Anthrax attacks
- Dam and irrigation system construction; e.g. malaria and other mosquito borne diseases
The main hosts of OHFV are rodents like the non-native muskrat. OHFV originates in ticks, who then transmit it to rodents by biting them. Humans become infected through tick bites or contact with a muskrat. Humans can also become infected through contact with blood, feces or urine of a dead or sick muskrat (or any type of rat). The virus can also spread through milk from infected goats or sheep. There is no evidence that the virus is contagious among humans.
There is currently no established treatment.
Half of all cases results in permanent neurological damage and 10-15% result in death.
Outbreaks of zoonoses have been traced to human interaction with and exposure to animals at fairs, petting zoos, and other settings. In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an updated list of recommendations for preventing zoonosis transmission in public settings. The recommendations, developed in conjunction with the National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians, include educational responsibilities of venue operators, limiting public and animal contact, and animal care and management.
Rocio viral encephalitis is an epidemic flaviviral disease of humans first observed in São Paulo State, Brazil, in 1975. Low-level enzootic transmission is likely continuing in the epidemic zone, and with increased deforestation and population expansion, additional epidemics caused by Rocio virus are highly probable. If migratory species of birds are, or become involved in, the virus transmission cycle, the competency of a wide variety of mosquito species for transmitting Rocio virus experimentally suggest that the virus may become more widely distributed. The encephalitis outbreak in the western hemisphere caused by West Nile virus, a related flavivirus, highlights the potential for arboviruses to cause severe problems far from their source enzootic foci.
The causative Rocio virus belongs to the genus "Flavivirus" (the same genus as the Zika virus) in family Flaviviridae and is closely related serologically to Ilhéus, St. Louis encephalitis, Japanese encephalitis and Murray Valley encephalitis viruses.
Brazilian hemorrhagic fever (BzHF) is an infectious disease caused by the Sabiá virus, an Arenavirus. The Sabiá virus is one of the arenoviruses from South America to cause hemorrhagic fever. It shares a common progenitor with the Junin virus, Machupo virus, Tacaribe virus, and Guanarito virus. It is an enveloped RNA virus and is highly infectious and lethal. Very little is known about this disease, but it is thought to be transmitted by the excreta of rodents.
There have only been three documented infections of the Sabiá virus, only one of which occurred naturally and the other two cases occurred in the clinical setting. The only naturally occurring case was in 1990, when a female agricultural engineer who was staying in the neighborhood of Jardim Sabiá near São Paulo, Brazil contracted the disease. She presented with hemorrhagic fever and died. Her autopsy showed liver necrosis. A virologist who was studying the woman's disease contracted the virus but survived. Ribavirin was not given in these first two cases. Four years later, in 1994, a researcher was exposed to the virus in a level 3 biohazard facility at Yale University when a centrifuge bottle cracked, leaked, and released aerosolized virus particle. He was successfully treated with ribavirin.
Ribavirin is thought to be effective in treating the illness, similar to other arenaviruses. Compared to the patients who did not receive ribavirin, the patient who was treated with it had a shorter and less severe clinical course. Symptomatic control such as fluids to address dehydration and bleeding may also be required.
The Sabiá virus is a Biosafety Level 4 pathogen.
This virus has also been implicated as a means for bioterrorism, as it can be spread through aerosols.
Contact with farm animals can lead to disease in farmers or others that come into contact with infected animals. Glanders primarily affects those who work closely with horses and donkeys. Close contact with cattle can lead to cutaneous anthrax infection, whereas inhalation anthrax infection is more common for workers in slaughterhouses, tanneries and wool mills. Close contact with sheep who have recently given birth can lead to clamydiosis, or enzootic abortion, in pregnant women, as well as an increased risk of Q fever, toxoplasmosis, and listeriosis in pregnant or the otherwise immunocompromised. Echinococcosis is caused by a tapeworm which can be spread from infected sheep by food or water contaminated with feces or wool. Bird flu is common in chickens. While rare in humans, the main public health worry is that a strain of bird flu will recombine with a human flu virus and cause a pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu. In 2017, free range chickens in the UK were temporarily ordered to remain inside due to the threat of bird flu. Cattle are an important reservoir of cryptosporidiosis and mainly affects the immunocompromised.
During 1975 and 1976, Rocio virus was responsible for several epidemics of meningoencephalitis in coastal communities in southern São Paulo, Brazil. The outbreaks affected over 1,000 people and killed about 10% of those infected, but apparently responded well to treatment for viral encephalitides. The disease progresses rapidly after onset, with patients dying within 5 days of symptoms first appearing. The disease first presents with fever, headache, vomiting, and conjunctivitis, then progresses to neurological symptoms (confusion, disorientation, etc.) and muscle weakness; about one-third of cases enter a coma, and a third of those patients die, although supportive care such as intensive nursing and symptomatic treatment might reduce the case fatality rate to 4%. Survivors show neurological and psychological after-effects (sequelae) in about 20% of cases.
West Nile virus (WNV) is a single-stranded RNA virus that causes West Nile fever. It is a member of the family Flaviviridae, specifically from the genus Flavivirus which also contain the Zika virus, dengue virus, and the yellow fever virus. The West Nile virus is primarily transmitted through mosquitoes, mostly by the Culex species. However, ticks have been found to carry the virus. The primary hosts of WNV are birds, so that the virus remains within a "bird-mosquito-bird" transmission cycle.
Infectious pathogen-associated diseases include many of the most common and costly chronic illnesses. The treatment of chronic diseases accounts for 75% of all US healthcare costs (amounting to $1.7 trillion in 2009).
A list of the more common and well-known diseases associated with infectious pathogens is provided and is not intended to be a complete listing.
A viral disease (or viral infection) occurs when an organism's body is invaded by pathogenic viruses, and infectious virus particles (virions)
attach to and enter susceptible cells.
Powassan encephalitis, caused by the Powassan virus (POWV), as flavivirus also known as the deer tick virus, is a form of arbovirus infection that results from tick bites. It can occur as a co-infection with Lyme disease since both are transmitted to humans by the same species of tick. There has been a surge in the number of cases and geographic range in the last decade. In the United States, cases have been recorded in the northeast. The disease was first isolated from the brain of a boy who died of encephalitis in Powassan, Ontario, in 1958. The disease is a zoonosis, an animal disease, usually found in rodents and ticks, with spillover transmission to humans. The virus is antigenically related to the Far Eastern tick-borne encephalitis viruses.
An emerging infectious disease (EID) is an infectious disease whose incidence has increased in the past 20 years and could increase in the near future. Emerging infections account for at least 12% of all human pathogens. EIDs are caused by newly identified species or strains (e.g. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, HIV/AIDS) that may have evolved from a known infection (e.g. influenza) or spread to a new population (e.g. West Nile fever) or to an area undergoing ecologic transformation (e.g. Lyme disease), or be "reemerging" infections, like drug resistant tuberculosis. Nosocomial (hospital-acquired) infections, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus are emerging in hospitals, and extremely problematic in that they are resistant to many antibiotics. Of growing concern are adverse synergistic interactions between emerging diseases and other infectious and non-infectious conditions leading to the development of novel syndemics. Many emerging diseases are zoonotic - an animal reservoir incubates the organism, with only occasional transmission into human populations.
According to a ProMED article, disease in sheep has been controlled in the UK by a vaccine (ATCvet code: QI04AA01), originally developed by Scotland's Moredun Research Institute by Prof John Russell Greig. In 2009, however, a shortage of vaccine combined with an increase in the number of ticks found in sheep pasture areas cause an increased risk of this disease.
Symptoms of infectious mononucleosis are fever, sore throat, and swollen lymph glands. Sometimes, a swollen spleen or liver involvement may develop. Heart problems or involvement of the central nervous system occurs only rarely, and infectious mononucleosis is almost never fatal. There are no known associations between active EBV infection and problems during pregnancy, such as miscarriages or birth defects. Although the symptoms of infectious mononucleosis usually resolve in 1 or 2 months, EBV remains dormant or latent in a few cells in the throat and blood for the rest of the person's life. Periodically, the virus can reactivate and is commonly found in the saliva of infected persons. Reactivated and post-latent virus may pass the placental barrier in (also seropositive) pregnant women via macrophages and therefore can infect the fetus. Also re-infection of prior seropositive individuals may occur. In contrast, reactivation in adults usually occurs without symptoms of illness.
EBV also establishes a lifelong dormant infection in some cells of the body's immune system. A late event in a very few carriers of this virus is the emergence of Burkitt's lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma, two rare cancers. EBV appears to play an important role in these malignancies, but is probably not the sole cause of disease.
Most individuals exposed to people with infectious mononucleosis have previously been infected with EBV and are not at risk for infectious mononucleosis. In addition, transmission of EBV requires intimate contact with the saliva (found in the mouth) of an infected person. Transmission of this virus through the air or blood does not normally occur. The incubation period, or the time from infection to appearance of symptoms, ranges from 4 to 6 weeks. Persons with infectious mononucleosis may be able to spread the infection to others for a period of weeks. However, no special precautions or isolation procedures are recommended, since the virus is also found frequently in the saliva of healthy people. In fact, many healthy people can carry and spread the virus intermittently for life. These people are usually the primary reservoir for person-to-person transmission. For this reason, transmission of the virus is almost impossible to prevent.
The clinical diagnosis of infectious mononucleosis is suggested on the basis of the symptoms of fever, sore throat, swollen lymph glands, and the age of the patient. Usually, laboratory tests are needed for confirmation. Serologic results for persons with infectious mononucleosis include an elevated white blood cell count, an increased percentage of certain atypical white blood cells, and a positive reaction to a "mono spot" test.
Louping-ill (also known as Ovine Encephalomyelitis, Infectious Encephalomyelitis of Sheep, Trembling-ill) is an acute viral disease primarily of sheep that is characterized by a biphasic fever, depression, ataxia, muscular incoordination, tremors, posterior paralysis, coma, and death. Louping-ill is a tick-transmitted disease whose occurrence is closely related to the distribution of the primary vector, the sheep tick "Ixodes ricinus". It also causes disease in red grouse, and can affect humans. The name 'louping-ill' is derived from an old Scottish word describing the effect of the disease in sheep whereby they 'loup' or spring into the air.
Zika virus is a mosquito-borne flavivirus closely related to the dengue and yellow fever viruses. While mosquitoes are the vector, the main reservoir species remains unknown, though serological evidence has been found in both West African monkeys and rodents.
There is no specific treatment for infectious mononucleosis, other than treating the symptoms. In severe cases, steroids such as corticosteroids may be used to control the swelling of the throat and tonsils. Currently, there are no antiviral drugs or vaccines available.
It is important to note that symptoms related to infectious mononucleosis caused by EBV infection seldom last for more than 4 months. When such an illness lasts more than 6 months, it is frequently called chronic EBV infection. However, valid laboratory evidence for continued active EBV infection is seldom found in these patients. The illness should be investigated further to determine if it meets the criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS. This process includes ruling out other causes of chronic illness or fatigue.
The Coggins test (agar immunodiffusion) is a sensitive diagnostic test for equine infectious anemia developed by Dr. Leroy Coggins in the 1970s.
Currently, the US does not have an eradication program due to the low rate of incidence. However, many states require a negative Coggins test for interstate travel. In addition, most horse shows and events require a negative Coggins test. Most countries require a negative test result before allowing an imported horse into the country.
Horse owners should verify that all the horses at a breeding farm and or boarding facility have a negative Coggins test before using the services of the facility. A Coggins test should be done on an annual basis. Tests every 6 months are recommended if there is increased traveling.