Chikungunya cases jump by 12,000; Colombia and Guatemala hit hard

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported 12,294 cases of chikungunya in the Caribbean and Americas on Jan 16, bringing the outbreak total to 1,133,561.

The new total includes 1,106,488 suspected and 24,127 confirmed locally acquired cases and 2,946 imported cases of the mosquito-borne disease.

Cases continue to climb in Colombia, which reported 7,252 new cases, bringing its total to 90,481. Guatemala also reported a sharp rise in illness, with 5,155 new cases for an outbreak total of 27,014 cases.

Canada reported 79 new imported cases of chikungunya, bringing its total number of cases, all imported, to 87.

Puerto Rico, which had recently seen sharp increases in case numbers, reported a decrease of 4,239 last week, suggesting that more than 4,000 suspected cases were confirmed to be the result of another illness. Puerto Rico's outbreak total stands at 20,110.

In related news, Jamaica's University Hospital of the West Indies in St. Andrew has observed an increase in Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) related to chikungunya virus infection, according to the Jamaica Observer. The hospital, which normally sees one GBS case per year, treated five cases of the post-viral paralytic syndrome from October to November 2014.
Jan 16 PAHO update
Jan 18 Jamaica Observer story

2 new MERS cases, 1 death, 1 recovery in Saudi Arabia

Two new cases, one recovery, and one death from MERS-CoV, all in Riyadh, have been announced by Saudi Arabia's ministry of health (MOH) in the past 2 days, bringing the total cases to 837 since June 2012.

The new case-patients are a 62-year-old man and a 67-year-old man. Neither is a healthcare worker, but both had preexisting disease. Both are in stable condition. Neither has known animal exposure or exposure to suspected or confirmed MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) patients in the community; the older man's potential exposure to case-patients in the healthcare setting is under investigation.

The death occurred in a 25-year-old woman whose case had been reported earlier. She was not a healthcare worker and had preexisting disease. This brings the total Saudi MERS deaths since June 2012 to 361.

The recovered patient is a 69-year-old man who was not a healthcare worker and had preexisting disease. His case brings to 471 the number of people in the country who have recovered, leaving 5 active cases.
Jan 18 MOH update
Jan 19 MOH update

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) published an update of MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia today giving details on five cases reported by the MOH to WHO between Jan 6 and 9 and reported previously in CIDRAP News scans. Two of the patients remain under treatment, 2 are stable but remain in isolation, and 1 has died.

The WHO says household and healthcare contact tracing continues for these cases.

The agency says it has received notification of 955 laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV cases globally, with at least 351 deaths
Jan 20 WHO update

Probable measles strikes 3 more California children

Three more probable cases of measles in children who recently visited Disneyland were reported yesterday by the Associated Press (AP). This brings the total to 52 as of last night, according to a story today in Forbes.

Two of the three new case-patients have recovered, and one remains ill at home, says the AP article, citing the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency. All of them visited Disneyland in December. None had been vaccinated against measles. Confirmation through blood tests is expected this week.

The Forbes article focuses on dispelling myths circulating about the outbreak, such as that it began with undocumented immigrants. The disease is spreading, the story says, because of its extreme infectiousness and the low levels of community immunity in some areas of southern California where parents have decided not to vaccinate their children and where, the author claims, vaccination rates "are below some developing countries' rates."
Jan 19 AP story
Jan 20 Forbes story

MSF urges $5 pneumococcal vaccines for developing countries

In a news release announcing the release of the 2nd edition of its report "The Right Shot: Bringing Down Barriers to Affordable and Adapted Vaccines," the organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) urges pharmaceutical companies to reduce the cost of pneumococcal vaccines to $5 per child in developing countries, where it says the disease causes about a million childhood deaths each year.

MSF states that 1 in 5 children is not fully vaccinated, meaning they are at risk of dying from preventable diseases. "The price to fully vaccinate a child is 68 times more expensive than it was just over a decade ago, mainly because a handful of big pharmaceutical companies are overcharging donors and developing countries for vaccines that already earn them billions of dollars in wealthy countries," said Rohit Malpani of MSF's Access Campaign.

The companies being called upon to reduce prices are GSK and Pfizer, which make pneumococcal vaccines. Those vaccines, says MSF, account for 45% of the total cost of fully covering children with vaccines against 12 diseases. The $5 cost being advocated would include three doses of pneumococcal vaccine; Pfizer's PCV13 vaccine costs over $63 in Morocco and over $67 in Tunisia at present, says the report.
Jan 20 MSF news release
MSF Web page with link to full report