Infectious Diseases

Washington. -- "Certain infections that are essentially untreatable have begun to occur as epidemics both in the developing world and in institutional settings in the United States.''That disturbing report is from a recent article in the distinguished journal Science by a researcher from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Mitchell L. Cohen.Reflecting a widely held view in the health community, he calls for a decisive response in prevention, treatment and development of new drugs.Another warning of wholesale doom unless government acts at once?

With some exceptions, any illness can strike anyone at any time. One of the more dangerous to emerge in recent decades is Lyme disease. Harford County, as many of us know either first-hand or because of someone we know, is not immune from the tick-borne disease. The revelation last week that Harford County Council President Billy Boniface has contracted the sickness is yet another reminder. Lyme disease is treatable, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it can also be debilitating.

Dr. Pamela C. Tucker, a Johns Hopkins physician who fought rare infectious diseases, died Tuesday of breast cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was 52 and lived in North Baltimore. Dr. Tucker worked with patients who had medically compromised immune systems that led to unusual, difficult-to-diagnose and hard-to-treat infections. She often saw people who had recently received new organs - livers, hearts or lungs - and those undergoing bone-marrow transplants. "She was a pioneer in this particular subspecialty of disease at Hopkins," said Dr. Patricia Barditch-Crovo, a Hopkins colleague.

Maryland again got a middle-of-the-pack ranking among states for the health of its residents, according to a report issued Tuesday from health research and advocacy groups that looked at a host of government measures and private data. Maryland was unmoved from last year's ranking at 21st by the United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention. To make its ranking, report authors assess behaviors, public and health policies, community and environmental conditions and clinical care data.

Due to an editing error, an article about a speech by Dr. Rita Colwell in some editions of the Sunday Sun incorrectly explained how women in Bangladesh can use the fabric of their saris to prevent cholera, which is spread by organisms in water. Four layers of the fabric are used to filter drinking water.The Sun regrets the errors.Carrying her young son in her arms, the woman is rushing into a hospital. There, doctors look at his shrunken, wrinkled abdomen. They diagnose him with cholera.Rita R. Colwell showed slides of this boy last night as she warned her fellow scientists that environmental factors are also implicated in the spread of the devastating disease, which is traditionally linked with the man-made problem of raw sewage mixing with drinking water.

WASHINGTON - As evacuees received medical aid in shelters across the South yesterday, federal health authorities said they were investigating four deaths from infections, as well as reports of tuberculosis and intestinal diseases among those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. But officials expressed more concern about common colds and less exotic ailments flourishing in the crowded, makeshift relief centers. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said she would not be surprised to see outbreaks of digestive tract diseases, such as the noroviruses that sicken cruise ship passengers.

DMITROVGRAD, Russia -- This pleasant, tree-lined city had a nasty visitor recently: a dysentery outbreak that sickened almost 1,900 people and left residents wondering whether they could trust their tap water.It is a problem that no longer is a rarity. With basic sanitation and water treatment facilities deteriorating in cities across Russia, the incidence of dysentery, which is spread by fecal contamination in water or food, is up 26 percent over the past year. In the first half of 1995, 17 people died in Moscow of this easily curable malady.

With some exceptions, any illness can strike anyone at any time. One of the more dangerous to emerge in recent decades is Lyme disease. Harford County, as many of us know either first-hand or because of someone we know, is not immune from the tick-borne disease. The revelation last week that Harford County Council President Billy Boniface has contracted the sickness is yet another reminder. Lyme disease is treatable, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it can also be debilitating.

Did you know?--An estimated 76 million people suffer foodborne illnesses each year in the United States. -- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

The word vaccine comes from the Latin vaccinus, meaning "from cows." The first vaccine was based on the cowpox virus, which infected cows as well as people. -- National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases

Americans are generous people. To see our generosity, one need only look at the outpouring of aid in response to natural disasters. From the earthquake in Haiti to flooding in Tennessee to the Gulf Coast oil spill, when Americans see people in need, they don't hesitate to help. Working in global health, we often witness human tragedy on an overwhelming scale. Yet because the burden of infectious disease is constant rather than the result of one terrible event, the scope of the problem evades the front-page headlines and the public consciousness.

ABC's 'This Week' Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. 9 a.m.:WMDT (Channel 47), 10 a.m.: WJLA (Channel 7), 10:30 a.m.: WMAR (Channel 2) CBS' 'Face the Nation' Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.; Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. 10:30 a.m.:WUSA (Channel 9) and WJZ (Channel 13) CNN's 'State of the Union' Giuliani; White House senior adviser David Axelrod; Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H.; Gov. Brian Schweitzer, D-Mont.

Mercy High School alumna named Fulbright scholar 2 Mercy High School alumna Dorothy Smith, a recent Boston College graduate, has been named a Fulbright scholar. Smith, a Parkville resident who graduated from Mercy in 2005, will travel to Jordan to study Arabic for two months before arriving in Oman in August. During her year in Oman, she will conduct research on water conservation education and awareness. She is the first alumna in Mercy's 49-year history to be named a Fulbright scholar.

In the rush of constant news updates on swine flu, we must recognize that controlling the spread of this disease is not simply a health concern but also one of national security. And in today's globalized world, the spread of swine flu has become not just a U.S. national security threat but every country's national security threat. The serious implications of this epidemic can be seen in the language used by officials and by the appearance of government leaders taking the podium. The World Health Organization has elevated its pandemic alert level from 3 to 5, indicating increasing likelihood (albeit not inevitability)

When Mary Patricia Sullivan returned with her three daughters to Maryland in 2003 after spending seven years researching HIV/AIDS in Uganda, she was intent on giving them the best American school experience possible, friends said. After researching several school systems, Ms. Sullivan moved her family into a two-story house with light purple shutters on York Road in Hereford to take advantage of the schools in northern Baltimore County, they said. Ms.

Dr. Stephen C. Schimpff, retired chief executive of the University of Maryland Medical Center, will discuss the effects of rapid advances in science and technology on the nature of health care in the future. The Columbia resident, who continues to teach in the fields of oncology and infectious diseases and to practice, will speak at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the central library, 10375 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. Copies of his book, The Future of Medicine: Megatrends in Health Care That Will Improve Your Quality of Life, will be available for purchase and signing.

In a first-ever analysis, 25 percent of all teenage girls in the U.S. and nearly half of African-American girls ages 14 to 19 were found to have a sexually transmitted disease. Those alarming rates suggest that admonitions to teenagers about safe sex are falling on deaf ears and that when it comes to infectious diseases, a lot more effort must be put into education, screening and prevention. Some experts familiar with high levels of sexual activity among teenagers as well as young women's greater vulnerability to STDs weren't surprised by the results.

FREDERICK -- Construction is already under way on a new $1 billion biodefense research center at Fort Detrick, but some neighboring residents - and at least one elected official - are questioning how safe it is to expand laboratories working with dangerous disease agents such as Ebola and smallpox in the midst of the densely populated Frederick community. Fort Detrick, which has been working with deadly pathogens since World War II, is an economic engine for Frederick County and has enjoyed staunch support from local business and political leaders for decades.