Measles – Outbreaks Associated With Imported Cases

Monday, April 13th, 2009

A case imported from India into the United States is the latest in a growing list of cross-border measles episodes. The following is a chronology of notable outbreaks reported during the past decade.

1998 – An outbreak (69 cases, 2 hospitalized, 0 fatal) in Tuvalu was ascribed to introduced cases among workers from Nauru.
1998 – An outbreak (33 cases) was linked to an infected visitor arriving to Alaska, United States from Japan.
1999 – An outbreak (75 confirmed cases) in Australia was traced to an index case from Indonesia.
2000 – Outbreaks (78 cases, total) in Canada were linked to travel in Mexico (6 cases), Bolivia (19 cases) and Belgium (25 cases).
2000 – An outbreak (992 cases, or 57% of all cases for the Americas region) in Haiti was thought to originated with imported cases from the Dominican Republic.
2000 to 2001 – An outbreak (1,062 cases, 0 fatal) was reported in Tanzania among refugees from Burundi.
(more…)

Increase in tick-borne diseases, U.S.A.

Friday, October 24th, 2008

Rates of tick-borne infections in the United States have been increasing dramatically since 2000. See attached graph (Lyme disease displayed as cases/100,000 to allow fit). Although this phenomenon might reflect changes in human population density and artifacts of reporting and diagnosis, I suspect that these data are related to increasing tick and animal reservoir populations.

Update: Also referenced in ProMED

Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) in the US

Sunday, April 29th, 2007

Another Promed post by Steve:

The relative importance of Eastern Equine Encephalitis [EEE] in the United States has been overshadowed by the emergence of neuroinvasive West Nile fever (WNF) virus infection. The graphs referenced below illustrate the relative incidence of older forms of arboviral encephalitis: Graph of encephalitis cases in the US
and the dominance of WNF since 2003: Graph of encephalitis cases versus West Nile fever in the US.