Brucellosis

It happened this past week ... the loss of a no-holds-barred and unrepentant warrior against an earlier plague. Author and activist Larry Kramer died Wednesday in New York of pneumonia . An Academy Award-nominated screenwriter (for "Women in Love"), Kramer realized early on the threat AIDS posed to the gay community in the early 1980s. He founded the militant group ACT UP, known for its acts of civil disobedience on behalf of AIDS research; and he waged a bitter campaign against top federal virus doctor Anthony Fauci, whom he accused of incompetence. Kramer also battled AIDS with his pen, dramatizing the fight in his 1985 play "The Normal Heart." Diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS himself in 1988, Kramer struggled with multiple ailments in his later years, while never losing his determination and his distinctive voice. The 2011 revival of "The Normal Heart" won a Tony Award. And as for that other Tony, Anthony Fauci, he went on to become a s...

Larry Kramer was angry, irascible, and indispensable. He was a playwright and novelist in 1983, as he saw friends around him die of what you then had to spell out as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. And he wrote a call to action in the New York Native, a gay bi-weekly paper: "1,112 and Counting," was the title. It was the number of people diagnosed with serious complications from AIDS - nearly half in and around New York. "If this article doesn't rouse you to anger, fury, rage and action, gay men have no future on this earth," he wrote. He turned some of his most incisive phrases on members of his own community he thought stayed silent because they feared coming out to their family or employer. "Every gay man who is unable to come forward now and fight to save his own life," wrote Larry Kramer, "is truly helping to kill the rest of us." AIDS made Larry Kramer an activist. He helped found the Gay Men's Health Crisis — where his d...

Passengers onboard the coronavirus-afflicted Ruby Princess have been issued another health warning after a crew member was diagnosed with tuberculosis this week. NSW Health said the crew member was being treated in Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. The crew member was diagnosed weeks after passengers disembarked from it on March 19. A letter, penned by by Assistant Director of Communicable Diseases Christine Selvey, was sent out today and told passengers they were at a very low risk of infection. "There is no reason to believe you are at increased risk of contracting tuberculosis from being on the cruise ship," it said. "Tuberculosis is spread from a person with active disease after close and prolonged contact with that person, rather than casual exposure." NSW Health advised the people who may be at risk of infection include some hospital staff, roommates, close friends and workmates. More to come.

In his May 15 column, English professor David McGrath, now pandemic scientist and gloom-and-doom prognosticator, called unemployed Americans “selfish” for wanting to go back to work to provide for their families. Because a few protesters carried Confederate flags or signs with swastikas, that means they’re all irrational in his mind. https://ift.tt/36H0nrc

NEW YORK - Larry Kramer, the grandfather of fierce protests demanding action to fight the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and '90s, died Wednesday at age 84. The author and activist founded the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, known as ACT UP, in 1987. ACT UP mounted dramatic and angry demonstrations credited with raising awareness of the plight of those suffering from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. They were also aimed at pressuring the U.S. government to devote resources to stop the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and to find an effective treatment for the disease. AIDS primarily struck gay men in America, an often-reviled group with little political clout before Kramer launched his unique brand of unapologetically confrontational activism. Tributes have poured in for Kramer, including from those with whom he had a stormy relationship, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as the first director of the U.S. government's Office of AIDS Research. Kramer granted h...

Posted 28 May 2020 | By Michael Mezher  The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday approved what is now the only treatment for severe malaria in the US following the marketing discontinuation of Eli Lilly’s quinidine in 2019.   The approval was granted to Amivas, LLC for its intravenous (IV) artesunate product, which was co-developed with the US Army under a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) that began in 2017 and led to the Army granting Amivas an exclusive license to a patent to manufacture the drug.   While rare in the US, malaria is endemic in other parts of the world, including parts of Central and South America, Africa and Asia. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most of the 2,000 cases diagnosed in the US each year are acquired during travel and about 300 of those cases are severe.   Outside the US, IV artesunate is widely used as a first line treatment for severe malaria and the dru...

The longtime AIDS activist and author Larry Kramer died Wednesday morning in Manhattan, his publisher confirmed. He was 84. The cause of death was pneumonia, according to The New York Times. Kramer was an American playwright, screenwriter and gay rights pioneer and is widely credited with catalyzing the early response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States. The Morning Rundown Get a head start on the morning's top stories. American author, AIDS campaigner and gay rights activist Larry Kramer, founder of ACT-UP and the Gay Men's Health Crisis group in his home in New York on Dec. 20, 1989. Sara Krulwich / The New York Times via Getty Images file Born in 1935, he grew up in and around Washington, D.C. He graduated from Yale University in 1957 and served in the U.S. Army Reserve, before working in film production in London for Columbia Pictures. In August 1981, following the announcement of an outbreak of Kaposi sarcoma, Kramer formed a group that eventually becam...

Vets hold socially distanced parade The Bayonne Memorial Day Parade stepped off on Monday on Memorial Day — despite being canceled due to COVID-19. A small group of veterans marched up 5th Street to keep the more-than 100-year tradition alive. Two Bayonne Memorial Day Parade Committee members, Michael Embrich and Mike Ransom, kicked off the parade from the usual location located at the World War I Memorial behind Mary J. Donohoe Elementary School in Bayonne. New Jersey still has restrictions on large gatherings like parades, and Monday’s parade complied with social distancing and other CDC guidelines. We wanted to keep the Bayonne tradition going, and at the same time remember the many Bayonne Veterans who gave their lives in service of this Nation. The small group aimed to be safe and responsible, so the parade was not announced to the public. Typically, the Bayonne Memorial Day Parade hosts hundreds of marchers and thousands of spectators each year in Bayonne. The parade is one...

Naples Daily News Published 8:56 p.m. ET May 26, 2020 Kevin Necessary editorial cartoon   (Photo: USA TODAY Network) Library needed for computer use This senior citizen is pecking away this letter on a $20 Tracfone, my only source for the internet or a computer since the libraries closed in March. Using a stylus since my fingers can't do it. This is slow going. I need computer usage to write and print letters, and I'm not alone. I can't afford all the expenses of a computer, printer, ink cartridges, internet costs, plus virus protection. (I was hacked in 2015.) As a retired Air Force nurse captain, I have searched for affordable housing. Inflation got me too. My month's salary in the Air Force in the 1970s is a month's rent now. And how is it that 500 boats can come out to support a wealthy man who has broken all the Ten Commandments while people are in food lines? Alice Mack, Fort Myers Editor';s note: Five Lee County libraries will reopen Tu...

May 26th 2020 HONG KONG, KAMPALA AND SULAWESI Editor’s note: Some of our covid-19 coverage is free for readers of The Economist Today , our daily newsletter . For more stories and our pandemic tracker, see our hub WHEN ANTHONY FAUCI, a well-respected immunologist on President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task-force, called for the worldwide banning of wet markets last month, he may have had in mind somewhere like Tomohon in Indonesia. The highland town is surrounded by lush countryside in northern Sulawesi, home to the Minahasa people and an amazing diversity of wildlife. Much of it makes its way to Tomohon’s covered market, where it is laid out on countless butchers’ slabs: warty pigs, flying foxes (actually, a fruit bat), reticulated pythons and the Sulawesi giant rat. Before feast days other specimens, all illegally caught, find their way to the stalls, among them the rare Celebes crested macaque, a large jet-black monkey, and the Sulawesi bear cuscus, a tree-dwelling marsup...

What to know about hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine A lot has been said about hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, the malaria drugs pushed by President Trump as treatments for COVID-19. BOSTON - Malaria drugs pushed by President Donald Trump as treatments for the coronavirus did not help and were tied to a greater risk of death and heart rhythm problems in a new study of nearly 100,000 patients around the world. Friday’s report in the journal Lancet is not a rigorous test of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, but it is by far the largest look at their use in real world settings, spanning 671 hospitals on six continents. RELATED: CoronavirusNOW.com, FOX launches national hub for COVID-19 news and updates “Not only is there no benefit, but we saw a very consistent signal of harm,” said one study leader, Dr. Mandeep Mehra, a heart specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Researchers estimate that the death rate attributable to use of the drugs, with or witho...

× Alaska resident with rifle aids police with no guns after shots fired at officer KWETHLUK, Alaska — A 19-year-old Alaska man is facing attempted murder charges after breaking into a public safety building and firing on an unarmed village police officer, authorities said. It happened in Alaska’s Village of Kwethluk on May 16 and Kwethluk’s Public Safety Administrative Chief, Nicolai Joseph said that a potential mass shooting was avoided, Alaska Public Radio reported Friday. Now, village police officers, who currently do not carry firearms, are wondering if they should carry guns, according to the station. Troopers arrested Bryan Nicolai after a member of the Kwethluk community with a rifle arrived on scene and talked Nicolai into surrendering, the station reported. “If we had access to firearms, we’d be able to handle more of these scenarios on our own,” Village Police Officer Tiger Lee told the station. Nicolai is accused of aiming ...

caption Joey Terrill. source Courtesy Joey Terrill Survivors of the HIV/AIDs epidemic share three life-saving lessons for coping with COVID-19. The HIV/AIDS epidemic changed American culture. Since 1981, 75 million people have had the HIV virus and approximately 32 million have died. Everything from practicing compassion to developing tolerance can help you get through this tough time. Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories. From overwhelmed hospital systems to mass panic and virus-related stigma, the issues arising from COVID-19 have changed life permanently. Experts have touted this crisis as the “new normal” as a result. But, for older generations of LGBTQ people, these issues are all too familiar. Joey Terrill is the director of community partnerships at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a non-profit offering AIDS prevention and patient advocacy services in Los Angeles, California. Terrill, 64, told Business Insider that LGBTQ seniors who survived the AIDS...

When emergency room nurse Lauren Anderson walked into New York Presbyterian Columbia Hospital for the first time April 27, she was met with pure chaos. “There was equipment in the hallways, alarms were going off, people running around,” Anderson said. “The doctors weren’t even intensive care doctors. They were dermatologists, psychologists and pediatricians all helping out.” Every floor of the hospital had been converted into a coronavirus unit. So had the children’s hospital. And all four operating rooms had been converted into intensive care units, each filled with four patients on ventilators. Every patient was treated as though they were positive for the virus. “It was insane,” she said. “I didn’t imagine it was going to be that bad.” Anderson, 25, is an emergency room nurse at Halifax Health Medical Center. When the coronavirus pandemic began to overwhelm New York, a friend there suggested Anderson come help at the overrun hospitals in the city. She declined at first because s...

Friday May 22, 2020 at 12:06 PM Dear Editor, More than one million dogs are imported into the US each year according to the CDC, yet only about one percent of these dogs are screened for the serious diseases they carry. We would not tolerate this lack of oversight for cattle, poultry, or swine arriving in the US and we should not tolerate it for the animals who are our closest companions. The US dog import system is broken! Rabies, canine flu and brucellosis, screwworm, and a host of other serious diseases, parasites, and vector-borne diseases already have been carried into the US by imported dogs. Please support the Healthy Dog Importation Act - HR 6921. Protect our pets, America's livestock, and the people who live and work with animals. Sincerely, Monica Kirsch Chillicothe https://ift.tt/2XfxmOU

Taken in February 1928 at Meriden’s Undercliff Sanatorium, this photo shows the practice of “sunbathing” to relieve tuberculosis. As described in the original caption, “scores of children are taking the sunlight, fresh air and rest cure ... to build up resistance against the illness.” Bettmann Archive via Getty Images It has attacked humans throughout recorded history and been called “the white plague” and “Captain of all these men of death.” From the 1600s through the 1800s it was responsible for a quarter of all deaths in Europe, with similar numbers in the U.S. Like the novel coronavirus, tuberculosis often attacks the lungs, and it can spread through droplets in the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Unlike the virus-caused COVID-19, tuberculosis is brought on by bacteria, and rather than the rapid spread we’ve witnessed in recent months, throughout history tuberculosis has spread slowly through families, generation to generation, down through the ages. ...

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T wo clinical trials, in which subjects were vaccinated with genetically engineered Plasmodium parasites and later exposed to the malaria-causing microbe, showed the vaccines to be safe with promising, but not ideal, efficacy. Results of the trials are published in two papers in Science Translational Medicine today (May 20). “Within the malaria control and elimination space, we do need additional tools, so . . . these are very welcome results,” says malaria and public health expert James Tibenderana of the Malaria Consortium, a nonprofit organization that carries out research, develops policies, and advocates for the prevention, control, and treatment of malaria. Tibenderana, who was not involved in either study, adds, “They are cutting-edge innovations to attempt to customize a vaccine.” Certain parasites of the Plasmodium genus, including  P. falciparum  and P. vivax , cause malaria when transmitted to humans via mosquito bites. These parasites have “impacted human heal...

What are the strategies to eliminate malaria? Public Domain Images Malaria is an infectious disease transmitted through the bite of Anopheles mosquitoes. The single-celled parasites of the Plasmodium genus are the cause for this disease, and are further classified into over a hundred species of which five ( Plasmodium falciparum , P. vivax , P. malariae , P. ovale,   and P. knowlesi) primarily infect humans resulting in flu-like symptoms (including fever, headache, and nausea). The average incubation period is 2 weeks but can be many months for some species. P. falciparum causes the most severe and potentially fatal form of malaria if prompt treatment is not given. There have been some changes, however, in the diseases epidemiology over the last few years. Incidence and Mortality  Malaria is endemic throughout the tropics and sub-tropics including in areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Oceania, and South America. The World Health Organization (WHO) repo...