Infected

The story of a 24-year-old Georgia graduate student fighting a flesh-eating disease has prompted a microbiologist with the Veterans Affairs Maryland Health Care System to speak out about the infection. Aimee Copeland lost most of her left leg after the flesh-eating bacteria necrotizing faciitis is believed to have entered a cut on her leg, according to the Associated Press, which reports she may also have to have her fingers amputated. The waterborne bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila is believed to have caused the infection.

The story of a 24-year-old Georgia graduate student fighting a flesh-eating disease has prompted a microbiologist with the Veterans Affairs Maryland Health Care System to speak out about the infection. Aimee Copeland lost most of her left leg after the flesh-eating bacteria necrotizing faciitis is believed to have entered a cut on her leg, according to the Associated Press, which reports she may also have to have her fingers amputated. The waterborne bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila is believed to have caused the infection.

WASHINGTON -- A federal investigation has found that three patients of a Florida dentist with AIDS were all infected with strains of the human immunodeficiency virus extremely similar to that of the dentist -- but unlike other strains found in the community -- indicating that they were infected in his office, the Los Angeles Times has learned.The case, expected to be reported next week by the federal Centers for Disease Control, is significant because it has ignited a national controversy over whether HIV-infected health care professionals should be restricted from performing surgery and other invasive procedures.

Hospitals in the state are continuing to reduce the number of preventable infections that result from catheter use in the intensive care units, among the most deadly and costly infections. These central line associated bloodstream infections were rising in Maryland at a rate faster than most states. But the hospitals agreed to take steps proven effective by a Johns Hopkins doctor. They've been required to report their findings to the Maryland Health Care Commission since 2008.

Malaria-infected mosquitoes have been found on an uninhabited Montgomery County island in the Potomac River that is a state wildlife refuge, the second time this month that infected mosquitoes have been found on an uninhabited county island. Montgomery County health officials said the mosquitoes were discovered in one of 10 traps on Van Deventer Island, a small tract just south of the site on Selden Island where malaria-infected mosquitoes were discovered last week. Lynn Frank, chief of public health services for Montgomery County, said the mosquitoes were trapped Thursday and tested Friday by researchers from the Bethesda-based Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

The state health department has dramatically reduced its estimate of how many Marylanders are infected with the AIDS virus -- suggesting that the true number is one-quarter to one-half previous estimates.Cautioning that the lower estimates should not lull people into complacency, top health officials said yesterday they believe that between 16,000 and 28,000 people across Maryland were infected at the close of 1990.That compares with a previous estimate of 60,000, a projection that officials said was based, in part, on an outmoded formula and the belief that infected individuals were transmitting the virus at an unrealistically fast rate.

A Carroll County man who had active tuberculosis in February infected 12 Pennsylvania residents in addition to the 17 people he infected in Carroll, according to health officials in both states.Three of the Pennsylvania residents developed active cases of tuberculosis, said Robert Walter, community health nurse supervisor for York and Adams counties.Carroll and Pennsylvania health officials have tested 255 people who were exposed to the man. He was diagnosed with infectious tuberculosis during a routine health screening at the Carroll County Detention Center in February.

THE LAST PLACE I saw Vicki Tepper was that rowhouse off Loch Raven Boulevard. While men from the March Funeral Home quietly removed mourners' chairs from the little living room, Tepper consoled the grandmother of an 11-year-old boy named John-John who had just died from the effects of AIDS. Tepper went to a lot of funerals in those days. It was six years ago, but it feels longer. Tepper, 45, is director of the Pediatric AIDS program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She has 175 children, infants to 18-year-olds, under her treatment there.

NEW YORK - Asian longhorned beetles, which have destroyed nearly 3,000 trees in New York City since their first appearance in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn four years ago, have invaded the trees that line Luther Gulick Playground near the Williamsburg Bridge, Parks Commissioner Henry Stern says. The infected trees at least six of the parks 34 Norway maples will be removed immediately, he said. The beetles pose an enormous long-term danger to the citys forests and to trees all along the Northeast, Stern said.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Acquired immune deficienc syndrome came relatively late to most of Asia, but it is now spreading so rapidly and so randomly that scientists are convinced AIDS will kill more people on this continent than on any other.Conservative estimates suggest that by 2000, the AIDS virus will be infecting more than 1 million Asians each year, more than in the rest of the world combined.Some researchers fear that the infection rate in Asia will be closer to 3 million or 4 million a year, and that tens of millions of Asians will become infected and die of AIDS over the next two decades.

Orioles closer Jim Johnson remained hospitalized Wednesday as doctors tried to determine what is causing flu symptoms and an infection that has dogged him for more than a week. "They want to identify it, and [with] bacteria, you're talking about some things you've got to be careful with," manager Buck Showalter said. "But he's in great hands … and at some point, he'll rejoin us and then we'll start talking about baseball. Right now, he's about getting the body healthy.

Federal health regulators have linked a recent salmonella outbreak in several states, including 11 people infected in Maryland, to yellowfin tuna produced at a California company. Moon Marine USA Corp. of Cupertino, CA. , has voluntarily recalled more than 58,000 pounds of tuna labeled Nakaochi Scrape, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday.  Nakaocho Scrape is tuna backmeat with a ground up appearance that is scraped from the bones of the fish. The product isn't sold to individual consumers, but may have been used to make sushi, sashimi, ceviche and other dishes available at grocery stores and restaurants.

Eight people in Maryland are among 93 across the country who have been sickened by a salmonella outbreak with a possible link to sushi, according to state health officials. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began investigating the outbreak in January, and the first Maryland cases were discovered last month, said Alvina Chu, an epidemiologist and chief of the division of outbreak investigation at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The strain being investigated is salmonella bareilly , and infections have been reported in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

State health officials are warning Marylanders that baby rabbits, turtles, chicks, ducklings and other animals popular around the Easter holiday can spread salmonella and other harmful bacteria to people. Since September 2001, six people in Maryland have contracted bacterial infections from baby turtles, or those with shells less than four inches wide, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Five of the cases required hospitalizations. U.S. Food and Drug Administration rules don't allow the sale of baby turtles, but in three of the cases the turtles were bought from a neighborhood baby turtle vendor.

A female condom program was highly effective in preventing HIV infections, according to a new economic analysis by researchers in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health . The analysis, published in the journal AIDS and Behavior , found the DC Females Condom program, a public-private partnership to provide and promote a type of female condom, prevent enough infections in one year to save more than $8 million in future medical...

A coalition formed after a 12-year-old boy from Prince George's County died from an untreated tooth infection will launch a healthy teeth campaign today aimed at families with children who can get free dental care through Medicaid. The campaign, organized by the Maryland Dental Action Coalition , will be the first statewide awareness program focused on educating pregnant women and children up to 6-years-old. The campaign, paid for with $1.2 million in federal money, will be outlined today at The National Dental Museum.

The state's mosquito-spraying campaign moved into eastern Baltimore County last night after two dead crows infected with the West Nile virus were found in Eastpoint and Dundalk. Four more infected crows were also found in Baltimore, and two in Montgomery County - the first in the Washington suburbs. In all, 21 infected crows have been found this year in Maryland. Also yesterday, Washington officials announced the discovery of two infected crows in that city's northwest section. The southward movement of the virus in September and October is consistent with a federal government prediction last week that the virus would spread south with fall bird migrations.

A fifth crow infected with West Nile virus was found in Howard County last week, according to county health authorities. The dead bird was found Aug. 27 in the 8100 block of Woodloo Road in Ellicott City, and it tested positive for the virus two days later, county health officials announced yesterday. The four other infected birds found in Howard County were in Owen Brown and Long Reach villages in east Columbia. In addition, state investigators found a mosquito pool containing insects infected with the virus on Junction Drive in a Savage industrial park.

African-American women in Baltimore and five other U.S. cities are becoming infected with HIV at a rate five times the national average for black women, and closer to the rates of some African countries, according to a new study. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University and around the country who made the findings suspected the rates were higher in these "hot spots" that have battled the epidemic for decades, but the numbers still came as a surprise in a field that tends to focus more on black and gay men. "This is why it's important to remind people that this is going on right here in our hometown," said Dr. Charles Flexner, the principal investigator for the Baltimore part of the study and a clinical pharmacologist and infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins.

Six people were infected with Campylobacter by raw milk from the Family Cow dairy store in Chambersburg, Pa., including three in Maryland, the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Friday. The bacteria causes diarrhea, nausea and vomiting and can progress into a more serious bloodstream infection, usually two to five days after exposure. The state agency and the health department in Pennsylvania are advising consumers to discard any product bought from this farm since Jan. 1. The implicated milk comes in plastic gallon, half gallon and pint containers and is sold directly to consumers on the farm and at drop off points and retail stores in Pennsylvania.