Disease

Cholera – Kenya

Twenty people have been infected with cholera in Nakuru and Baringo counties, Nakuru public health official Samuel King'ori has said.

He said the new cases have been reported in Rongai and Mogotio constituencies.

Mysterious disease threatens snake populations across the United States

A new disease in snakes has been quietly spreading across the U.S. The disease known as Snake Fungal Disease (SFD) is believed to be caused by a fungus called Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola and so far has been found in 15 states in the eastern half of the U.S. The disease has been discovered as far west as Minnesota, but biologists suspect that SFD is more widespread in the U.S. than is currently documented.

A strange skin disease affecting snakes have been known to wildlife biologists since the mid-2000s, but “over the past few years, the number of snakes with the disease appears to be increasing,” says Jeffrey Lorch, a microbiologist at the USGS National Wildlife Health Centre in Madison, Wisconsin, who recently developed a rapid molecular test for the fungus. The disease affects different species of snakes differently; however, snakes with SFD commonly have crusty-looking scales, scabs, nodules under the skin, or experience premature moulting. Some may also have nodules in deeper tissues and swelling of the face.

The disease was first documented in 2006 in New Hampshire, where there was a 50% decline in a population of timber rattlesnakes due to the disease.