With cruise ship norovirus making headlines, it’s easy to realize that an influx of people into a large venue can cause a potential health emergency. Tens of thousands of spectators will pack New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium for the Super Bowl this weekend—during one of the most frigid periods in the region’s history—and Health Monitoring Systems […]
The number of tick-borne illnesses reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is rising. Lyme disease accounts for the majority of reported cases, with about 35,000 cases reported annually. Black-legged ticks in the Northeast United States also infect people with other illnesses, including anaplasmosis and basesiosis.
A recent study published in the journal of Parasites and Vectors has confirmed an increase in the number of ticks carrying deer tick virus–the virus that causes Powassan encephalitis.
According to research published in Health Affairs this week, “there is a substantial risk that many current efforts to promote health information exchange will fail.”
The study was conducted by a group of researchers led by the University of Michigan’s Julia Adler-Milstein, an assistant professor in the U-M School of Information and School of Public Health. Their survey found that about 30 percent of hospitals and 10 percent of ambulatory practices are now participating in one of the 119 operational HIEs across the country, while 74 percent of HIEs surveyed report long-term funding challenges. Fewer than one in four HIEs responding reported that revenues from exchange participants covered their operating costs. Fewer than half were being financially supported by payers.
According to a recent study published in The Lancet, Middle East respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is less significantly less transmissible than SARS.
A team of researchers researchers from France’s Pasteur Institute analyzed clusters of infections involving 55 of the first 64 cases of MERS-CoV in order to calculate the average number of people each infected person passed the virus on to. This number is known as a “basic reproduction value.”
A high value would indicate that the number of cases could increase rapidly and potentially spread around the world, but a number lower than one would suggest that the virus was likely to fade away.
In the light of MERS coronavirus and concerns over H7N9 Influenza in South East Asia, researchers at the University of Warwick and University of Liverpool mapped the daily contact networks of thousands of individuals to shed light on which groups may be at highest risk of contracting and spreading respiratory diseases. The scientists used an anonymous web and mail survey of 5,027 UK residents to collect information on the types of social contact likely to lead to the transmission of respiratory infections.
According to a recent news article, some residents of Moore, Oklahoma are experiencing “tornado cough”–asthma-like symptoms resulting from tornado debris that remains in the air.
The article suggests that the particles of drywall, fiberglass, and mold thrown into the air during a tornado can result in allergic reactions in people who don’t normally suffer from asthma or allergies.
It may seem obvious: Allowing all employees access to paid sick days would reduce influenza infections in the workplace.
But for the first time, this hypothesis is now supported by research. In a first-of-its-kind study by the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, researchers found that universal access to paid sick days would reduce flu cases in the workplace by nearly 6 percent.
In an update posted today, the World Health Organization reported that an 83-year-old man with underlying medical conditions has died of a laboratory-confirmed case of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). To date, this marks the 31st death due to MERS-CoV.
According to the report, the man was from Al-Ahsa, where the outbreak began in a healthcare facility in April of this year. The WHO has been notified of a total of 55 cases of the virus worldwide, but Saudi Arabia has been hit the hardest by the virus, with 40 confirmed cases and 25 fatalities.
Unlike the approach taken by the development of a Health Information Exchange (HIE), a Health Record Bank (HRB) would provide storage for all of an individual’s health information in one account. In much the same way that bank accounts work, individuals would be given a secure HRB account number, and that account could then be accessed from anywhere—including mobile health apps and health and wellness devices. Access to the account would be controlled exclusively by the individual or their proxies. Patients could provide the account number to their healthcare provider so that each time an entry was made into a healthcare provider’s Electronic Health Record (EHR), that information would be automatically added to their HRB.
After investigating a cluster of mysterious illnesses that killed two people in Alabama, Public Health officials have determined that the cases were unrelated and no new bacteria or viruses were involved. The investigation involved seven patients who were admitted to hospitals in Dothan and Luverne in Southeast Alabama exhibiting fever, cough, and shortness of breath. The patients ranged in age from 24 to 87.