Disease

Influenza - San Diego, USA

San Diego County health officials have recorded a record number of influenza deaths this season and a California deer mouse caught in routine trapping in the Santa Ysabel area has tested positive for hantavirus. Flu deaths A total of 142 flu deaths have been reported through Jan. 13, 2018, the highest ever since the County began keeping records.

Guinea Worm Disease

The provisional reports for 2017 totaled 15 cases in Chad and 15 cases in Ethiopia, the only remaining countries reporting ongoing cases of the disease. All of the cases in Ethiopia occurred in migrant workers from Oromia region on an industrial farm in Abobo district of adjacent Gambella region, where in 2016 individuals drank unfiltered water from a contaminated pond, resulting in an outbreak from September through December 2017. (It takes 12-14 months for the worm to emerge after contaminated water has been consumed.)

This image depicts a method used to extract a Guinea worm from the leg vein of a human patient.