Health Alerts

Thirty states were reporting widespread flu activity in the most recent reporting week (ending Jan 5). CDC modelling suggests the number of hospitalisations for flu is between 69,000 and 84,000 which is lower than for previous years. An ECDC infographic for the first week of January shows low levels of flu activity for most of Europe, with the exception of the UK and Portugal (medium). Type A influenza viruses predominate according to the Communicable Disease Threats Report, week 2.

LAST month Ohio Dept. of Health declared a hepatitis A outbreak and is currently reporting over 50 new cases per week. In the past 12 months, over 1,400 cases have been identified - 60 percent were male. The adjacent states of Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and West Virginia are also implicated in the multi-state outbreak which has been monitored by the CDC since March 2017 when the first infections emerged among homeless people and users of illicit drugs.

A TRAVEL notice (Level 2) was issued by the CDC last week in response to a number of antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections which were diagnosed in people who had invasive medical procedures performed in Tijuana, Mexico.  Read more