[LI] Meanwhile, cruisers being isolated after hantavirus exposures return home and the first Clade 1 monkeypox case is reported in Connecticut.
There have been some intriguing developments in several infectious disease stories recently covered at Legal Insurrection.
In terms of the current Ebola outbreak, there are roughly 1,000+ suspected and confirmed cases and around 230–240 deaths across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda involving the Bundibugyo strain, with transmission still not fully contained.
As a reminder, the Bundibugyo strain has more than 30% genetic divergence from other orthoebolaviruses, including Zaire. This means that the vaccines and monoclonal therapies that have been developed to battle this hemorrhagic disease do not work, which is complicating efforts to contain this outbreak.
Another challenge is the community in which the outbreak is occurring. A burial team transporting the bodies of deceased Ebola patients was attacked en route. Meanwhile, 11 Ebola patients fled isolation.
Interestingly, Ebola has made its way to the region of the DRC controlled by Islamic State militants.
A rare strain of Ebola has reached a corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo controlled by Islamic State militants, a place too dangerous for health workers fighting to stop the deadly virus.
The Bundibugyo strain has killed one person in the militant-controlled territory of Mambasa, which is some 100 miles from the outbreak’s epicenter in a gold-mining town of Mongbwalu. Mambasa is the stronghold of the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamic State affiliate conducting an insurgency against Congolese and Ugandan troops.
Their ISIS designation is ISCAP, ISIS in the Central Africa Province. |