Baby boomer injection use increases number of hepatitis related deaths

hepatitis-associated deaths increased dramatically in the past decade, exceeding the number of HIV-related deaths. Hepatitis C alone caused 13,000 deaths between 1999 and 2007, compared to 13,000 due to HIV. Just as significant as the related mortalities are the related morbidities - 1.4 million people are living with chronic hepatitis B and 3.2 with HCV.

One group particularly represented in the hepatitis-related mortality group is the baby boomer generation. This group is more susceptible to injection drug use, therefore at higher risk for hepatitis infection. It's estimated that 75% of all hepatitis related deaths can be attributed to this group. This group is also at high risk because the HBV vaccine was not developed while they were youths.

The article provided a fairly accurate background on the latency of hepatitis virus, how it's transmitted, and potential treatment using nucleoside analog. I was very surprised that Hepatitis caused more deaths than HIV since there seems to be so much attention concentrated on HIV research. Hopefully, with the development of HBV vaccine, we can reduce the number of hepatitis related deaths and move onto developing a vaccine for HIV!

-Michelle Jin
Article source: http://news.businessweek.com/article.asp?documentKey=1376-LZK4GQ6K50XU01-0B4FE2IEUNK9I8BNJICBH7EOEQ

Doctors drop vaccine-refusing families

Great article by WSJ: More Doctors "Fire" Vaccine Refusers!

It's kind of horrible I know—doctors refusing to treat families who refuse vaccination. Because really, the doctor's duty to society should include those who are disillusioned by vaccines, and should treat illnesses other than MMRV. But apparently, 30% of pediatricians in Connecticut and 21% in the midwest asked families who refused vaccinations to find another doctor. The trend has only climbed in the last decade, perhaps owing to increasing frustration as these parents refuse to believe scientific studies, the medical internet (where I personally diagnose myself with everything...), the risk of infections spreading from unvaccinated children in the waiting room (new type of nosocomial spread!!) or the fact that a large part of a pediatrician's job is actually providing vaccines.

Interestingly, this has created a group of families who can't really get pediatric care. That's quite sad, and a consequence I really had no idea was coming. I really appreciate that we don't blindly follow whatever our doctors tell us but take the time to become informed. However, there are definitely times where it's probably better to just listen to the doctor, despite how smart we think we are/how well we know our own bodies. I suspect I'd be a bad patient one day when I'm overprotective of my kids and haven't kept up on medical findings. Plus, I'll be one of those med students who comes in claiming they have cancer every 3 weeks.

-Annelise

Norovirus Vaccine in the works

With all of the news about Norovirus lately, it is nice to hear of a positive development in this field.

According to the Huffington Post a vaccine for Norovirus is being worked on at Arizona State University. It will be an inactivated vaccine in the form of a powder puff which will be administered nasally.

So maybe in the future when you are planning your next cruise vacation the packing list will look something like this: Swimmsuit (check), sunglasses( check), sunscreen, shorts, shirt, etc (check), and lastly Norovirus vaccine (check).

Right now the vaccine is having about a 50% success rate which will need to be increased but the vaccine looks promising. Immunity to noroviruses tends to be similar to influenza viruses so the vaccine would likely need to be administered annually.

In the meantime, while we wait for an effective vaccine, the best precautions are to wash your hands before eating/preparing food and to stay home from work/school if you are sick.

--Elena Jordan
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/17/powder-puff-vaccine-for-norovirus-vomiting-bug_n_1284886.html

Flu Scare in New Zealand

In what seems to be a pretty comical story, New Zealand health authorities ordered the immediate isolation of a plane that touched down in Auckland. It was believed that dozens of Japanese students on this flight were carrying a strain of unknown flu virus, and so 73 of these homestay students were kept on the plane hours after it hit the tarmac.

According to the passengers, a pretty frantic investigation ensued, with paramedicals erratically taking temperatures and pulses of the students, and no clear explanation being given from the authorities to the passengers. While it seems funny, about 40 students were found to exhibit mild respiratory symptoms.

The passengers were released approximately 4 hours after landing, and given health services. The whole flurry began when one non-Japanese passenger saw a few Japanese passengers with respiratory symptoms, and thus reported it to the captains on the plane, who then called medical services.

While the Auckland authorities admitted to overreacting, it was much better than underreacting, especially given that 300,000 cases of flu have been reported in Japan in the last week alone.


http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/health-scare-auckland-airport-4717991


Pooja

Germany leads the way in centralizing infectious disease data

Germany has just finished testing an electronic reporting system for infectious disease. The system was only tested in the Rhein-Kreiss Neuss district, but theoretically all districts of the country would gather information from local hospitals, doctors, and labs, and forward all information about infectious diseases on to the central federal authority, the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin.

This test not only sets up a data structure for reporting, but also set up secure and confidential ways to submit patient information, as well as set doctors up with the proper computer systems for this kind of networking. This means that it will be faster and easier for German doctors to share information with the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, which is increasingly important in given the current climate of infectious disease and the necessity of fast response. This would be important in every country, and hopefully the world is moving in that direction.


http://epractice.eu/en/news/5332231

--Sarah Kaewert

The Speed of Viral Evolution

Researchers recently studied how genetic manipulation of a the virus known as Phage Lambda (noninfectious to humans) affected transmissibility among host bacteria e. coli cells. Downregulation of the typical receptor protein resulted in the viral evolution of a new tropogen that utilized the receptor protein OmpF - a receptor protein that until now had never been recorded as the receptor protein for Phage Lambda. The development of this new tropogen occurred within just 15 days! Upon molecular examination, it was revealed that this mutation required four individual point mutations within the viral genome.

This research could shed some light on the idea of viral evolution. The primary researcher, Justin Meyer, estimates that the probability of four such point mutations occurring simultaneously is around "one in a thousand trillion trillion" (a slightly nonspecific estimate but still...). Contrary to what might be expected, however, in a number of different trials the virus always acquired the function mutation over the course of several weeks.

Is viral evolution more pointed than pure probabilistic mutations? So it would seem.

- Elena Higuchi

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/science/in-real-time-a-virus-learns-a-new-way-to-infect.html

Study: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6067/428.abstract

Nanotechnology and future antiviral therapies

Recently, research has been done on the interactions of nanoparticles on the surface structure of viruses (see interaction of silver particles on G120 of HIV) and there's been interest in developing nanoparticles capable of neutralizing viruses or delivering drugs to specific targets. A company called NanoViricides Inc has developed 'polymeric micelles' that contain ligands normally specific to viral tropogens. This viricide's mechanism of action involves binding to viral-specific proteins (multiple types, if available) and engulfing the virion. In vitro, it has been shown to disassemble the virus in many cases, but researchers have been unable to explain why this happens.

This new type of antiviral therapy is slated to have no adverse metabolic effects, significantly higher effectiveness than chemical drugs, a short R/D period (3-6 weeks), and is biodegradable. It is touted to be a good, rapid counter to bioterror because micelles containing target proteins specific to the virus can be created quickly and cheaply. Unfortunately, the research summary did not include possible disadvantages, of which I can imagine many: host immune response may inactivate the drug, finding effective tropotopes is a severe limiting factor, targeting latent or intracellular pathogens may be difficult, etc.

Possible applications include control of viremia via injection into blood, topical applications on sores (ex. Herpes) and lesions, nasal sprays, and immune-globulin-like therapy/prophylaxis. Also, given that they can be specific to certain cell/viral receptors, these micelles can be used to deliver drugs to areas of the body that need it most.