Recent reports of La Crosse encephalitis in North Carolina remind us that a number of severe arthropod-borne infections continue to appear each year in the United States. For almost four decades, California encephalitis has been the most commonly-reported disease in this group ; however, since 2000, (more…)

An ongoing outbreak in Denmark belies the fact that salmonellosis rates in Scandinavia have remained fairly constant during the past decade. In the attached graph rates for the United States are added for comparison. Some additional background data on salmonellosis in Denmark – source www.GideonOnline.com (more…)

A recent outbreak of suspected salmonellosis among British travelers at a hotel in Italy highlights the risk for such infections among tourists, expatriates and similar groups in transit through foreign countries. The following chronology of similar episodes is abstracted from GIDEON:

1976 - An outbreak (550 cases) of Salmonella typhimurium infection affecting 4 international air flights (Las Palmas-Helsinki, Las Palmas-Honover) was caused by contaminated mayonnaise prepared in Spain.
1985 - An outbreak (168 cases) of Salmonella minnesota infection was reported at a Filipino workers’ camp in Saudi Arabia. (more…)

Rickettsial spotted fever was first reported in Brazil in 1920.

The disease is known locally as ‘Brazilian spotted fever’ and ‘Febre maculosa brasileira’

Cases are reported in Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Goias, Rio Grande do Sul and Espirito Santo.

Seroprevalence surveys:
10.6% of healthy students and 4.11% of dogs in the endemic areas of Minas Gerais (1998)
77.3% of horses and 31.3% of dogs in Pedreira Municipality, Sao Paulo State (2001)
1.6% of healthy persons in Minas Gerais (2005 publication)
(more…)

LOS ANGELES, CA–(June 12, 2008) - More than one million cases of foodborne salmonella are reported each year, accounting for 9.7 percent of all foodborne illnesses and 30.6 percent of all food-related deaths, according to GIDEON Online, an online database of infectious disease information for medical professionals.

Specifically, foodborne salmonella resulted in 15,600 hospitalizations and 550 deaths, over the last year.

For more information on salmonella, Dr. Stephen Berger, MD, infectious disease expert, is available for interviews. Dr. Berger, cofounder and Medical Advisor for GIDEON, has published more than 180 articles and books, including “Introduction to Infectious Diseases” and “The Healthy Tourist.” He is currently affiliated with the Tel Aviv Medical Center as Director of both Geographic Medicine and of Clinical Microbiology.

For more media information, contact:
Lisa Hendrickson
LCH Communications
516-643-1642
lisa@lchcommunications.com

As America once again enters the “Lyme disease season” information regarding this major infectious disease continues to evolve rapidly. The following material has been generated using GIDEON, an interactive on line program that can be used to diagnose or explore the status of all infectious diseases: signs and symptoms, status in every country, ongoing epidemics, antibiotics, vaccines, parasites, virus … in real time. So, let’s test your knowledge about Lyme disease:

1. True or false: Lyme disease is a relatively new infection that is primarily limited to the United States.
2. You have probably heard that Lyme disease is transmitted by ticks. How many tick-borne diseases occur in the world ? In the United States ?
3. Many other infectious diseases are characterized by severe illness, involving many body systems. Are there any truly unique features to Lyme disease ?
4. How many antibiotic agents are available ? How many are effective against the bacterium that causes Lyme disease ?

I put these four questions to GIDEON … (more…)

Recent outbreaks highlight the fact that Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFM) is the second most commonly reported viral disease in Singapore. In fact, since 2001 rates of HFM have approached those of varicella. See graph.

The following data regarding Enteroviral infection in Singapore are extracted from GIDEON [primary reference available on request]

Enteroviruses are responsible for 0.2% of lower respiratory infection in the age group 0 to 20 years (1990 to 1994).

During 1996 to 1997, 44% of school children ages 5 to 12, and 50% of their mothers were found to be seropositive toward Enterovirus 71.
- Enterovirus 71 accounted for 71% of enteroviral isolates in 2000; 44.3% in 2001; 3.5% in 2002.

Epidemics of hemorrhagic conjunctivitis due to (more…)

As reported in ProMED:
Notwithstanding the recent episode in Uganda [see: ProMED-mail post Hepatitis E virus - Uganda 20080304.0894], outbreaks of hepatitis E in Sub-Saharan Africa are rarely reported. The following summary was abstracted from GIDEON.

Botswana
1985 - An outbreak (245 cases) in Maun was ascribed to possible water contamination.

Central African Republic
2002 - An outbreak (48 confirmed cases) in Bangui may have been caused by contaminated drinking water.
2004 - An outbreak (10 cases) in Bangui was caused by contaminated water sold by a street vendor.

Chad
2004 - An outbreak (1442 cases, 46 fatal) was reported in Goz Amer and Goz Beida - Sudanese refugee camps.
2005 - An outbreak (50 or more fatal cases) was reported in the area of Goz Beida (eastern Chad).
(more…)

As of 2008, mankind is confronted by 346 generic infectious diseases, distributed in a seemingly haphazard fashion across 220 countries. An average of three new diseases are described every two years - and a new infecting organism is published every week ! Over 1,600 human pathogens have been reported, each with a specific set of phenotypic, genomic and susceptibility characteristics which must be confronted by diagnostic laboratories and clinicians. The pathogens are in turn confronted by 276 generic anti-infective agents and 67 vaccines - marketed under 10,493 proprietary names.

Table 1, below, lists the major infectious diseases and pathogens which have been reported since 1972. Many conditions on this list (ie, Lyme disease, Legionellosis, Cyclosporiasis) are in fact old diseases which were only “discovered” when technology permitted us to recognize their presence. This is also true of many “new” pathogens, which could only be discovered because of the advent of molecular biology and other sophisticated laboratory techniques.
(more…)

Quoted in ProMED:

Visceral leishmaniasis was 1st described in Brazil in 1934 and 1st reported from Rio de Janeiro state in 1977.

90 percent of cases are reported from the north (mouth of the Amazon) and eastern regions. The disease is endemic to Alagoas, Bahia, Ceara, Espirito Santo, Goias, Maranhao, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Para, Paraiba, Pernambuco, Piaui, Rio Grande do Norte, Roraima and Sergipe. Urban transmission was 1st reported in 1981, from Teresina (Piaui State). A large focus extends from Roraima into Venezuela and Guyana.

The reported incidence has increased from 164 cases (35 fatal) in 1980 to 3220 (223 fatal) in 2005; see graph . A total of 44 289 cases were reported during 1980 to 2000, 39 823 of these from the northeast. Brazil accounts for over 90 percent of cases in the New World.
(more…)

We’re continuing our progress in making it easier to find the information you’re looking for in GIDEON with minimal effort. We have added a new feature in the Microbiology module that link relevant organisms to their drug susceptibility and appropriate vaccines as demonstrated by the highlighted links in this screen shot of the Vibrio Cholerae general tab:

These new links are in addition to links added in the past connecting between disease organisms to microbiology and typical therapy to drugs, vaccines and pathogens.
For example see the links from the Anthrax disease general information tab screen shot below, to the Microbiology organism (Bacillus anthracis), Therapy (eg: Ciprofloxacin) and Anthrax vaccine:

Traditionally GIDEON has been used by Travel Medicine practitioners, who have loved the detailed country information for the various diseases affecting travelers. Their main suggestion was to add more pre-travel information that could be provided to travelers at consultations. We’re happy to announce that we listened and have now launched a new Travel tab in the Epidemiology module.

The general pre-travel information is provided by region and is divided into Professional and Traveler sections. Professional is for health practitioners and is based on content from the CDC Yellow book. Links are provided directly to relevant disease information in GIDEON. Traveler is traveler friendly content from the CDC Traveler’s health destination guide. Links are provided to additional information from the CDC.
The Country section displays the list of all the relevant diseases that have additional information for travelers to the selected country. The content is presented briefly as a “mouse over” and can be accessed more thoroughly by linking to actual country note for the specific disease.

As with all the information in GIDEON, you can print and email each section information. This will be very useful to serve your travelers that want a hard copy of the information or a soft copy via email.

“Traveling with GIDEON” (video) is a new case of the month that provides examples of how to use the Travel tab.