It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
September 14, 2013 – HEALTH – A rare fungus found in soil and trees has sickened hundreds of people in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest in the last decade — and killed dozens — but scientists now say they’re seeing different strains of the potentially deadly bug in additional U.S. states. As of June, 171 cases of infection caused by Cryptococcus gatti, a fungus once confined to tropical climates, had been reported in the U.S. That includes at least 100 cases in Oregon and Washington, where officials have been tracking an outbreak since 2004. But at least 25 cases have been detected in eight states outside of the Northwest since 2009 — and six of those patients died, according to a new report in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. No one’s calling it a public health crisis; officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they just want to raise awareness. “It is really, really rare; very few people get infected by this,” said Dr. Julie Harris, a fungal disease expert with the CDC. “You can still go outside, you can still do your daily activities.”Of the six patients in the new tally who died, four succumbed to severe lung and brain infections before they were diagnosed. A previously healthy 18-year-old Georgia woman showed up at a community hospital with a headache and fever — and died within two weeks of getting sick. Of those who provided travel information, none had been to the Pacific Northwest recently, the study found. Thirteen of the newest U.S. cases were reported in California, with five more in Georgia, two in New Mexico and one each in Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan and Montana. The original outbreak was caused by three specific strains of C. gattii, but the new cases, including those in nearby California, were caused by unrelated strains, Harris said.
it seems to be a growing problem.
AliensRapedMe
reply to post by 727Sky
Thank you for sharing this information! Star and flag!
Aliens have been infecting us with these DNA altering fungus for year! The truth is unraveling!
Veterinary Cases in the Pacific Northwest
To date, many species of animals, including dogs, cats, ferrets, porpoises, llamas, alpacas, birds, and a horse, have been confirmed to have C. gattii infections
continued...
Identified risk factors for animals include disturbance of soil or vegetation caused by hiking, digging, logging, and construction. These activities can potentially increase aerial dispersal of the infectious particles and contact with soil and tree cuttings (23). The distribution of isolates recovered from human and animal sources and from the environment is shown in the Figure.
Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance—Based Metabonomics for Rapid Diagnosis of Meningitis and Ventriculitis
Muireann Coen1a, Matthew O'Sullivan2, William A. Bubb1, Philip W. Kuchel1, and Tania Sorrell2
+ Author Affiliations
1School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences, Australia
2Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Westmead Millennium Institute, University of Sydney, Australia
+ Author Notes
↵a Present affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, Imperial College London, United Kingdom.
Reprints or correspondence: Dr. Muireann Coen, Dept. of Biological Chemistry, Biomedical Sciences Div., Imperial College London, Sir Alexander Fleming Bldg., South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ ([email protected]).
Abstract
Background. Reduction of mortality associated with bacterial meningitis and postsurgical cerebral ventriculitis is dependent on early diagnosis and institution of appropriate therapy. Metabonomics rapidly defines metabolic profiles of biological fluids through the use of high-throughput analytical techniques combined with statistical pattern recognition tools.
Methods. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR)-based metabonomics was applied to (1) lumbar cerebrospinal fluid samples collected prospectively from a cohort of patients with bacterial, fungal, or viral meningitis and from control subjects without neurological disease and (2) ventricular cerebrospinal fluid samples from patients with ventriculitis associated with an external ventricular drain and from control subjects. 1H NMR spectra were analyzed by the unsupervised statistical method of principal components analysis.
Results. Metabonomic analysis clearly distinguished patients with bacterial or fungal meningitis (11 patients) from patients with viral meningitis (12) and control subjects (27) and clearly distinguished patients with postsurgical ventriculitis (5) from postsurgical control subjects (10). Metabolites of microbial and host origin that were responsible for class separation were determined. Metabonomic data also correlated with the onset and course of infection in a patient with 2 episodes of bacterial ventriculitis and with response to therapy in another patient with cryptococcal meningitis.
Conclusions. Metabonomic analysis is rapid, requires minimal sample processing, and is not targeted to specific microbial pathogens, making the platform potentially suitable for use in the diagnostic laboratory. This pilot study indicates that metabonomic analysis of cerebrospinal fluid is feasible and a potentially more powerful diagnostic tool than conventional rapid laboratory indicators for distinguishing bacterial from viral meningitis and for monitoring therapy. This should have important implications for early management, reduced empirical use of antibiotics, and treatment duration.
Received June 8, 2005.