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Donald Henderson, epidemiologist who helped to eradicate smallpox-obituary

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Donald Henderson, who has died aged 87, was the American epidemiologist in charge of the decade-long campaign to eradiate smallpox worldwide; the most significant public health initiative of the twentieth century.

The impact of the smallpox virus on the history of human development is as disastrous as it is incontestable. By the mid-eighteenth century the disease was endemic in Europe, with outbreaks affecting up to a third of the total population. For those who became ill, the mortality rate stood at around 30%. Though the arrival of effective vaccination methods precipitated a steep decline in the number of cases throughout Europe and America, attempts to replicate the effects elsewhere had been largely piecemeal until the late 1950s, when Henderson began to develop surveillance programmes for endemic diseases as part of his work with the Communicable Disease Center (CDC), stationed in Atlanta.

 

Read at The Telegraph

First Suspected Female-to-Male Sexual Transmission of Zika Virus — New York City, 2016

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The CDC reports that there has been the first suspected case of female-to-male transmission of the Zika virus.

A routine investigation by the New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) identified a nonpregnant woman in her twenties who reported she had engaged in a single event of condomless vaginal intercourse with a male partner the day she returned to NYC (day 0) from travel to an area with ongoing Zika virus transmission. She had headache and abdominal cramping while in the airport awaiting return to NYC. The following day (day 1) she developed fever, fatigue, a maculopapular rash, myalgia, arthralgia, back pain, swelling of the extremities, and numbness and tingling in her hands and feet. In addition, on day 1, the woman began menses that she described as heavier than usual. On day 3 she visited her primary care provider who obtained blood and urine specimens. Zika virus RNA was detected in both serum and urine by real-time reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) performed at the DOHMH Public Health Laboratory using a test based on an assay developed at CDC (1). The results of serum testing for anti-Zika virus immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibody performed by the New York State Department of Health Wadsworth Center laboratory was negative using the CDC Zika IgM antibody capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Zika MAC-ELISA) (2)

Read at CDC 

Zika virus: ‘Strongest evidence yet’ of effect on babies

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One of the US’s most senior public health officials has revealed the “strongest evidence to date” of the effect on babies of the Zika virus.

Dr Tom Frieden, head of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), was testifying before politicians in Washington.

He said that data from the cases of two infants in Brazil who died soon after birth indicated the virus had passed from mother to child.

However, he said the suspected link was still not definite.

There are thought to have been more than 4,000 cases in Brazil alone of babies born with microcephaly – abnormally small brains – and where the transmission of Zika virus from mother to child is suspected of being the cause.

 

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