Pestilence

The secret to beating the superbug MRSA could be found in the pomegranate.

Scientists have created an ointment that tackles drug-resistant infections by harnessing chemicals that are contained in the fruit’s rind.

They found that by combining pomegranate rind with other natural products they created a strong, infection-busting compound.

Secret weapon? The pomegranate has long been touted as a ’superfood’. Now scientists have created an ointment from its rind to tackle drug-resistant infections, like MRSA

It is hoped that this could lead to the creation of a lotion for hospital patients, or even an antibiotic.

The need for a new method of tackling superbugs is growing more and more desperate as they continue to develop resistance to common antibiotics.

Source/Full Story: Mail Online

After the detection of the A/H1N1 virus in pigs in Canada transmitted by a human, FAO has again urged national authorities and farmers to carefully monitor pigs and investigate any possible occurrences of influenza-like symptoms in domestic animals.

“The human-to-animal transmission that occurred in Canada does not come as a surprise as influenza viruses are capable of transmitting from humans to animals,” FAO’s Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech said.

“The Canadian event should therefore not be a matter of panic, but it should remind us of the human-animal link in virus transmission on which we definitely need to keep an eye.”

Influenza viruses, whether in humans or among animals, are constantly evolving genetically, along with changes in their ability to cause morbidity and mortality in humans or animals. Therefore the current A/H1N1 situation should be carefully monitored as many of the virus characteristics and developments are still unknown, Domenech said.

Surveillance for porcine respiratory disease should be intensified and all cases of porcine respiratory syndrome are recommended to be immediately reported to veterinary authorities. It is also recommended to inform OIE and FAO about any occurrence of outbreaks of the new A/H1N1 Influenza virus in pigs.

Strict biosecurity measures including restriction of movements of pigs, goods and people should be applied on all farms or holdings with swine showing signs of clinical respiratory illness until diagnosis of the illness has been made.

Source/Full Story:: FAONewsroom

AUSTRALIANS have been advised to stockpile food and water after the World Health Organisation raised its swine flu alert to phase five yesterday, indicating an imminent pandemic.

The Federal Government’s pandemic plan, a 132-page manual issued to medics, media and the public, insists that once the world reaches phase five, Australians should stock their pantries with food and bottled water to last 14 days, check on elderly neighbours and put emergency numbers by the phone.

Residents are advised to stock their pantries with drinks, including three litres of water for each person each day, dried and long-life food such as canned meals, toilet paper, batteries, candles, matches, manual can openers and water sterilising tablets. Analgesics, masks, gloves, a thermometer, disinfectant and prescription medications should also be stockpiled and people should have enough supplies to stay in their homes for 14 days.

Householders should also have plenty of tissues, alcohol-based hand-wash dispensers in kitchens and bathrooms, and soap and disposable towels near all sinks, the manual says.

Source/Full Story:: Swine flu

Four years ago, I became convinced that vitamin D was unique in the vitamin world by virtue of three facts. First, it’s the only known precursor of a potent steroid hormone, calcitriol, or activated vitamin D. Most other vitamins are antioxidants or co-factors in enzyme reactions. Activated vitamin D – like all steroid hormones – damasks the genome, turning protein production on and off, as your body requires. That is, vitamin D regulates genetic expression in hundreds of tissues throughout your body. This means it has as many potential mechanisms of action as genes it damasks.

Second, vitamin D does not exist in appreciable quantities in normal human diets. True, you can get several thousand units in a day if you feast on sardines for breakfast, herring for lunch and salmon for dinner. The only people who ever regularly consumed that much fish are peoples, like the Inuit, who live at the extremes of latitude. The milk Americans depend on for their vitamin D contains no naturally occurring vitamin D; instead, the U.S. government requires fortified milk to be supplemented with vitamin D, but only with what we now know to be a paltry 100 units per eight-ounce glass.

The vitamin D steroid hormone system has always had its origins in the skin, not in the mouth. Until quite recently, when dermatologists and governments began warning us about the dangers of sunlight, humans made enormous quantities of vitamin D where humans have always made it, where naked skin meets the ultraviolet B radiation of sunlight. We just cannot get adequate amounts of vitamin D from our diet. If we don’t expose ourselves to ultraviolet light, we must get vitamin D from dietary supplements.

The third way vitamin D is different from other vitamins is the dramatic difference between natural vitamin D nutrition and the modern one. Today, most humans only make about a thousand units of vitamin D a day from sun exposure; many people, such as the elderly or African Americans, make much less than that. How much did humans normally make? A single, twenty-minute, full body exposure to summer sun will trigger the delivery of 20,000 units of vitamin D into the circulation of most people within 48 hours. Twenty thousand units, that’s the single most important fact about vitamin D. Compare that to the 100 units you get from a glass of milk, or the several hundred daily units the U.S. government recommend as “Adequate Intake.” It’s what we call an “order of magnitude” difference.

Source/Full Story:: medicalnewstoday.com

Read this, and act accordingly:  Protecting Your Family From an Influenza Pandemic  By James Wesley, Rawles — Editor of www.SurvivalBlog.com

Source/Full Story:: WHO warns flu pandemic imminent | U.S. | Reuters

The World Health Organization warned on Wednesday that a global flu pandemic was imminent, raising its threat level as the swine flu virus spread and killed the first person outside of Mexico, a toddler in Texas.

“Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world,” WHO Director General Margaret Chan told a news conference in Geneva.

“The biggest question is this: how severe will the pandemic be, especially now at the start,” Chan said, but added the world “is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history.”

Nearly a week after the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, first emerged in California and Texas and was found to have caused deaths in Mexico, Spain reported the first case in Europe of swine flu in a person who had not been to Mexico, illustrating the danger of person-to-person transmission.

Chan raised the WHO alert level to Phase 5, its second highest warning that a pandemic, or global outbreak of a serious new illness, is imminent.

The new alert a signal to governments and businesses to take action, and to pharmaceutical companies to ramp up antiviral drug production and capacity, she said.

Almost all cases outside of Mexico have had only light symptoms, and only a handful of cases have needed hospitalization.

But in Mexico, where up to 159 people have died from the virus and around 1,300 more are being tested for infection, people struggled with an emergency that has brought normal life virtually to a standstill over the past week.

“I’m depressed. I don’t understand where this came from, how it spreads, how long it will last or what it will to the economy,” an elderly woman named Licha said, sitting on a Mexico City park bench and wearing a surgical mask.

The state Department of Health says rabbits in New Mexico are getting sick and dying from a bacterial disease, tularemia . That illness is potentially serious in people.

Tularemia is caused by a bacteria found in animals, especially rodents and rabbits. Symptoms in people are similar to those of plague – sudden fever, chills, headaches, diarrhea, muscles aches and joint pain. Other symptoms can include pneumonia, chest pain, ulcers on the skin or mouth, swollen and painful lymph glands, swollen and painful eyes and a sore throat.

Public health veterinarian Dr. Paul Ettestad urges people to follow the same precautions against tularemia as for plague. That includes not allowing pets to roam and hunt, using flea-control products on pets and not handling sick or dead rodents or rabbits.

Source/Full Story:: krqe.com

The state of Arizona is being hit with the biggest outbreak of rabies that it has seen in a while, according to state veterinarian Elisabeth Lawaczeck.

Phoenix resident Marisa Kopelva, 21, learned this the hard way when she was bitten by a rabid bat at a family get-together in Northern Arizona.

“Something flew at me…I didn’t know what it was,” Kopelva told KTAR. “I remember fumbling with it a lot. It was really fury. It bit me and it flew away.”

Kopelva was taken to the emergency room where she was treated for rabies. She had to undergo a series of painful shots that lasted six months.

“The needle was really long and it was really thick. I remember the substance that they used was pink, and that was probably the most painful thing that I’ve ever had to endure,” said Kopelva.

With the current outbreak of rabies, Lawaczeck says people should take precautions when they go hiking or camping.

“When you’re camping you want to make sure you are sleeping inside a tent and not just on the ground or on a tarp. When you’re hiking on the trails you should take a hiking stick if you are in an area where there is reported rabies in the past,” Lawaczeck told KTAR.

Lawaczeck also said most rabies cases occur in skunks and foxes in Southern Arizona but there have been recent outbreaks in the Flagstaff area as well.

So far this year there has been 62 animals confirmed with rabies, according to Lawaczeck.

Source: ktar.com

Again, separation is absolutely crucial…

Source:  Kentucky.com

Ryan Robinson went from a healthy, 17-year-old soccer player at the peak of his form to another victim of a deadly drug-resistant strain of bacteria — all within the span of five days.

It’s something his stepfather still cannot fathom.

“It’s a surreal experience,” Michael Brown said Thursday, two days before Ryan’s Saturday funeral. “It’s not something you can plan for.”

Ryan died Tuesday. His rapid deterioration in health stemmed from MRSA, a strain of staph that is aggressive and typically harder to treat because it is resistant to commonly used antibiotics.

Until the beginning of this decade, MRSA, short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was largely confined to hospitals. But in the last few years, there has been an increase in cases of drug-resistant staph among the general public, including jails, the military and athletic teams.

Athletes are at risk because they “are more likely to be in a crowded condition,” said Dr. Kraig Humbaugh, an epidemiologist with the state Department for Public Health.

Athletes are also more likely to have abrasions, cuts and scrapes — the skin breaks that bacteria can enter — and they are more likely to come into contact with shared items such as towels, razors or practice jerseys, Humbaugh said.

Contrary to initial reports, Brown said Ryan did have some injuries.

“He had different scrapes and scratches on his legs, and he also had a large cut on his hand where he had been cleated in a game,” he said. “I’m not suggesting that that is the point of entry because we don’t know, obviously.”

The speed of Ryan’s deterioration is something that stunned the community and his classmates at West Jessamine High School, where he was a junior.

Brown said Ryan played soccer on March 5 and, other than a dry cough, there was no indication that the teen had any problem.

The next morning, Ryan awoke “throwing-up sick.” So Brown said Ryan’s mother, Patti Brown, took him to Lexington Clinic’s Jessamine Medical Center near Wal-Mart in Nicholasville.

“They diagnosed him with the flu” and gave Ryan something to curb his vomiting. They also gave him a prescription for Relenza, an inhaler for Type A flu, Brown said.

“They told us to bring him back in three to five days if he wasn’t feeling better,” he said.

On Saturday, Ryan appeared to be getting worse, so the Browns took him to St. Joseph-Jessamine RJ Corman Ambulatory Care Center, a facility that opened earlier this year off the U.S. 27 Bypass in Nicholasville.

“They put him on oxygen and started some IVs with broad-spectrum antibiotics,” Brown said. “After a couple of minutes they decided to intubate him (put a tube down his throat) because he was having such a hard time breathing.”

St. Joseph-Jessamine suspected Ryan might have pneumonia, so they transferred him to the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital in Lexington, where he was admitted to a pediatrics intensive care unit, Brown said.

There he was put on a respirator for his lungs and a life support system that did the work of his heart, Brown said. He said Ryan was not conscious from the time he left Nicholasville because he had been given a sedative so he would not fight the tube threaded down his throat.

“There was one point on Saturday that he responded to a request to squeeze a hand,” Brown recalled.

In his last hours, Ryan was surrounded by family. He died Tuesday afternoon, shortly after life support was turned off.

“One of the things the physician did say to us that I think is important for other families is that a flu immunization is something that would have been beneficial,” Brown said. As Brown understands it, flu weakened Ryan’s immune system and thus provided an opportunity for MRSA to attack more aggressively.

“We hope other parents get flu shots for their children,” Brown said.

Trying to fight MRSA

Doctors did not wish to comment specifically on Ryan’s case, citing confidentiality. But medical journals and Web sites in recent years have cited rare cases of a “staphylococcal necrotizing pneumonia” following an influenza illness. Such pneumonia destroys healthy lung tissue and can be fatal within 72 hours.

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Kentucky -based Burkmann Feeds announced today that it is voluntarily recalling Wild Birds Unlimited Wildlife Blend bird food after tests conducted by the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ Food and Drug Protection Division revealed the presence of Salmonella bacteria.

Burkmann is recalling 20-pound packages of Wild Birds Unlimited Wildlife Blend bird food with the specific manufacturing date code of 81132200 2916 08124, sold exclusively at Wild Birds Unlimited Stores.

The department initiated an investigation following reports of salmonellosis in dead wild birds found in various locations throughout the state. NCDA&CS is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to identify the source of contamination at the manufacturer.

“We are pleased that the testing has enabled us to remove contaminated feed from the market,” said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. “Food safety is a number one priority for this department, for both humans and animals.”

Salmonella can affect animals, and there is risk to humans from handling contaminated bird seed or pet food products. People handling contaminated wild bird food can become infected with Salmonella, especially if they have not thoroughly washed their hands after having contact with the product or any surfaces exposed to these products. Symptoms include: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. Rarely, Salmonella can result in more serious aliments, including arterial infections, endocarditis, arthritis, muscle pain, eye irritation and urinary tract symptoms. Consumers exhibiting these signs after having contact with this product should contact their healthcare providers.

Wild Birds Unlimited Inc. and Burkmann Feeds are cooperating to remove all affected product from Wild Birds Unlimited franchisees. NCDA&CS is advising consumers to discard the product, avoid touching unsealed product with bare hands and wash their hands thoroughly after touching unsealed product.

-30-

Product Description

Recalled Lot/Manufacturing Date Code

Wild Birds Unlimited
Wildlife Blend (20 lb. packages)

81132200 2916 08124

Source: NCDA&CS

This may very well be, but it will require tampering and meddling on a level that in itself is harmful, not only on an individual basis but also on a level that continues the contamination of God’s perfect creation.  This provokes judgment, with pestilence being one such method of delivery for said judgment.  Hmmm…The best bet for survival in instances of pestilence is to be a follower of God’s Law-Word, to be holy, separate…and to be so separated before it strikes.

Source:  Reuters

Researchers have discovered human antibodies that neutralize not only H5N1 bird flu but other strains of influenza as well and say they hope to develop them into lifesaving treatments.

The antibodies — immune system proteins that attach to invaders such as viruses — also might be used to protect front-line workers and others at high risk in case a pandemic of flu broke out, the researchers said.

In tests on mice the viruses neutralized several types of influenza A viruses, including the H5N1 avian influenza virus, the researchers reported in Sunday’s issue of the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

“We were surprised and actually delighted to find that these antibodies neutralized a majority of other influenza viruses, including the regular seasonal (H1N1 strain of) flu,” Robert Liddington of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California, told reporters in a telephone briefing.

The researchers found the antibodies in a “library” of such immune system proteins generated from 57 volunteers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute affiliated with Harvard Medical School in Boston. They said it is not clear how common they are in the general population.

Influenza is especially difficult to fight because it cloaks itself in lollipop-shaped proteins called hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, which mutate regularly and give influenza A strains the “H” and “N” designations in their names.

Vaccines target hemagglutinin, while drugs called neuraminidase inhibitors, including Roche AG’s (ROG.VX) Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK.N) Relenza, attack neuraminidase.

Because of the mutations, vaccines have to be reformulated every year and the viruses can develop resistance to the neuraminidase inhibitors, as they have to older antivirals.

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