News Scan for Feb 12, 2014

News brief

Ohio scientists find new coronavirus in pigs

Scientists with the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) have identified a new coronavirus in pigs on four Ohio farms that recently had outbreaks of diarrheal disease, the ODA announced yesterday.

Clinical signs in the swine outbreaks were similar to those of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus and transmissible gastroenteritis (TGE) viruses, both of which are coronaviruses, the agency said. But at one of the farms, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for currently circulating PED and TGE viruses were negative, and all the samples tested positive for a new virus.

Both PED virus and the new virus were subsequently found in fecal samples from the other three farms, the agency said.

Genetic sequence analysis of the new virus, discovered by Yan Zhang, DVM, PhD, a virologist with ODA's Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, showed that it is a deltacoronavirus and is distinct from PED and TGE viruses. The virus has been named swine deltacoronavirus (SDCV).

The virus, which is closely related to a coronavirus that was detected in Hong Kong in 2012, can't spread to humans and poses no risk to food safety, the ODA said. It said further study is needed to determine if it causes diarrheal disease in pigs.

The coronavirus group includes several human viruses, among them the SARS coronavirus and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, currently circulating in the Middle East. Last week researchers reported the discovery of a new coronavirus in camels.
Feb 11 ODA press release
Feb 11 CIDRAP News story on new coronavirus in camels

In a related development, the ODA announced that it has sequenced a new PED virus strain that could open the way for a vaccine against the pathogen, which is reported to have killed millions of US pigs—mostly piglets—since its discovery in 2013.

Zhang and colleagues sequenced the new PED strain, which differs from other strains in its spike protein gene. The virus is associated with reduced mortality in piglets, which may enhance its use as a vaccine, the ODA said.

Such a vaccine would be given to sows, which would pass on the immunization to their piglets via nursing, the statement said. This might significantly reduce piglet deaths.
Feb 11 ODA press release
Feb 5 CIDRAP News item about PED virus

Housing type key in 2012 hantavirus outbreak: report

The 10-case hantavirus outbreak in Yosemite National Park in California over the summer of 2012 was tied to a certain type of housing and not to any specific behavior, researchers who wrote the most extensive report yet on the outbreak said today in Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Eight of the 10 patients had hantavirus syndrome, of whom 5 required intensive care and ventilator support and 3 died.

Nine of the patients stayed overnight in what Yosemite calls its signature tent cabins, a factor that was significantly (P < 0.001) associated with becoming infected with hantavirus. Investigators found rodent nests and tunnels in the insulation of the cabin walls, and 10 of 73 captured deer mice in the area tested positive for Sin Nombre virus, which was the outbreak strain.

All signature tent cabins were subsequently torn down and replaced with regular tent cabins designed specifically with rodent-proofing features. The authors note that the early closure of the signature tent cabins, before all patients were identified and all data collected, may have prevented further cases.

"Continuous public awareness and rodent control and exclusion are key measures for minimizing the risk for hantavirus infection in areas inhabited by deer mice," the authors conclude.
Feb 12 Emerg Infect Dis report

18 surgery patients in NC may have been exposed to CJD

Eighteen neurosurgery patients at a North Carolina hospital may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) after an earlier patient tested positive, CBS News reported yesterday.

Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., said in a statement that it had performed a procedure on a patient with neurologic symptoms on Jan 18 who afterward tested positive for CJD. The equipment used in the patient's surgery was sterilized but not to the enhanced standards required in CJD cases.

CJD is an incurable brain disease that is typically caused by abnormally folded proteins called prions and typically produces rapid dementia and can lead to death within months. Enhanced sterilization of surgical instruments is required because prions can survive routine operating-room cleaning. All surgical equipment since the infection became known has undergone enhanced sterilization, CBS reported.

"There were reasons to suspect that this patient might have had CJD," the hospital said in the statement. "As such, the extra precautions should have been taken, but were not."

Novant's Jim Lederer, MD, told CBS that the risk of illness to the 18 exposed patients is remote but not nonexistent. CJD affects about 200 Americans each year, the story said.
Feb 11 CBS News report
Novant statement

Beef producer involved in massive recall shuts down

A beef producer that recalled 8.7 million pounds of meat on Feb 8 has halted operations, and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it is investigating the company's facilities, Food Safety News (FSN) reported yesterday.

Rancho Feeding Corp. of Petaluma, Calif., is trying to locate any remaining shipments of beef products made in 2013 through Jan 7, 2014, because the company processed diseased and unsound animals without full federal inspection. The USDA, meanwhile, will initiate an "immediate and thorough" analysis of the company's practices, an agency spokesperson said.

As yet no illnesses have been linked to the company's beef.
Feb 11 FSN story

Flu Scan for Feb 12, 2014

News brief

Young Cambodian siblings die of H5N1

A 7-year-old Cambodian boy and his 3-year-old sister died from H5N1 avian flu late last week, a health official said today, but only the boy was tested, according to Xinhua, China's state news agency.

"They died on the same day [Feb 7] at Kampong Cham Provincial Referral Hospital," said Sok Touch, MD, MPH, director of the Communicable Disease Control Department in Cambodia's health ministry. The siblings were from northeastern Kratie province, which adjoins Kampong Cham province. They contracted the virus on Feb 1, the story said.

"Chickens were found died in their village, and they had touched and eaten poultry before getting sick," Touch said. The boy tested positive for H5N1, but the girl was not tested, he said. The patients, though, had similar symptoms.
Feb 12 Xinhua story

WHO says flu rising in Europe, parts of Asia

The global influenza activity portrait offered by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its latest update today features mostly decreasing levels in North America and increases in Europe and parts of Asia.

The update, dated Feb 10 but posted today, says flu activity has decreased in Canada and the United States in recent weeks but has increased in Mexico, with the 2009 H1N1 virus predominant.

Flu continued to increase in Europe, especially in southern regions, with both H3N2 and 2009 H1N1 viruses circulating, the agency said.

In central and western Asia, increasing H3N2 activity was reported by Iran, Jordan, Pakistan, and Turkey, but activity remained low in the rest of the region. Meanwhile in eastern Asia, cases remained low overall, but activity was high in southern and northern China and increased in Mongolia and South Korea. The 2009 H1N1 virus has been generally predominant.

Flu activity in tropical regions varied, while it remained low in the Southern Hemisphere, the WHO reported.

From Jan 12 to 25, WHO-affiliated flu labs in 97 countries tested 68,458 respiratory specimens, of which 19,547 (28.6%) were positive for flu. Of the positive specimens, 92% were influenza A and 8% were influenza B.

Among type A viruses that were subtyped, 79.8% were 2009 H1N1 and 20.2% were H3N2, the WHO said. One virus was an H5N1 strain.
Feb 10 WHO flu update