Chikungunya
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Can You Forecast The Spread Of A Deadly Disease?
How do you accurately predict the spread of a painful and sometimes deadly disease? The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is hoping to do just that, with its latest crowdsourcing project...
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Chikungunya Has Sickened More Than 10,000 In Puerto Rico
It's an unfamiliar tropical virus with an exotic name that causes painful symptoms and has no known treatment or vaccine. It's spreading in the USA...
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Costa Ricans Design Mobile App to Report Dengue Breeding Sites
A free app that allows the public to report pools and other areas of water where dengue-carrying mosquitoes have laid their eggs could help control outbreaks of the disease in Costa Rica and beyond, say its developers and health officials. Costa Rican company GeoTecnologías joined forces with the country’s Ministry of Health to develop the Dengue Breeding Report application. The app allows the public to report mosquito ‘hatcheries’ to the ministry and will allow the ministry to map this data. Read More »
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Flesh-eating Bacteria, Cancer-causing Chemicals, and Mold: Harvey and Irma's Lingering Health Threats
In the weeks following Hurricane Irma, parts of Florida have been awash in millions of gallons of sewage. Meanwhile, in Texas, oil refineries and chemical plants have dumped a year’s worth of cancer-causing pollutants into the air following Hurricane Harvey. In both states, doctors are on the lookout for an uptick in respiratory problems, skin infections, and mosquito-borne diseases brought on by the water and mold the storms left behind...
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IBM Intensifies Fight Against Zika
IBM today announced that it is committing powerful resources, technology and pro bono expertise to help scientists, the public health community, and humanitarian agencies in the fight against the Zika virus. As part of its IBM Impact Grant programs, IBM is providing technology and talent to Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), a research institution affiliated with the Brazilian Ministry of Health and one the most prominent science and technology health institution in Latin America...
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New Data Sources Fuel Understanding of Public Health Emergencies
Remember when Google search results were first used to predict the flu? Now, data from mobile phones, social media and even grocery scanners has been shown to be effective at identifying patterns in epidemics. Standard travel data collection methods, however, are limited and often provide outdated data. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are nearly ubiquitous, and can serve as a rich data resource. Call data, which automatically provides time and location details, can help in understanding human mobility...
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Sewage, Debris, Mosquitoes: Flood Waters Increase Health Risk for Harvey Victims
Tropical storm Harvey continues to threaten lives in Houston, where officials are focused on evacuating hospitals and securing life-saving emergency transportation, knowing they face long-term health threats. “Our number one priority now,” said Chris Van Deusen, a clearly frayed spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, is “to make sure hospital patients and those with medical needs are taken care of.”...
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Will Flooding in Texas Lead to More Mosquito-Borne Illness?
The devastating floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey will damage many human habitats, but after the flood recedes, the waterlogged city may become a more welcoming habitat for mosquitoes. And that means that residents already made vulnerable by the hurricane might also eventually be at increased risk for mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile virus and Zika. West Nile virus has been endemic in Texas since 2002. In 2016, the state had 370 cases; so far in 2017, there have been 36 confirmed cases. Harris County, where Houston is located, has seen cases of West Nile in humans this year, and detected the virus in local mosquitoes...
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