Disease

Dengue Fever - France

In a follow-up on the locally-acquired dengue fever cases in metropolitan France, Public Health France now reports 57 indigenous cases of dengue as of September 26, 2022.

Dengue Fever - Malaysia

The Malaysia Ministry of Health reports the number of dengue fever cases reported in 2022 to date have more than doubled the numbers seen during the same period in 2021. Through September 24, Malaysia has seen a cumulative 42,084 cases compared to 19,423 cases for the same period in 2021.

Ebola - Uganda

The Uganda Ministry of Health reported today an update on the Sudan Virus Disease (SVD) outbreak. They reported four new confirmed cases and one death, bringing the cumulative confirmed totals to 35 cases and seven deaths.

Malaria spike linked to amphibian die-off in Central America

Dozens of species of frogs, salamanders and other amphibians quietly disappeared from parts of Latin America in the 1980s and 2000s, with little notice from humans, outside of a small group of ecologists. Yet the amphibian decline had direct health consequences for people.

The study links an amphibian die-off in Costa Rica and Panama with a spike in malaria cases in the region. At the spike’s peak, up to 1 person per 1,000 annually contracted malaria that normally would not have had the amphibian die-off not occurred.

Stable ecosystems underpin all sorts of aspects of human well-being, including regulating processes important for disease prevention and health. If we allow massive ecosystem disruptions to happen, it can substantially impact human health in ways that are difficult to predict ahead of time and hard to control once they’re underway.

From the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, a deadly fungal pathogen called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or “Bd,” traveled across Costa Rica, devastating amphibian populations. This amphibian chytrid fungus continued its path eastward across Panama through the 2000s. Globally, the pathogen led to the extinction of at least 90 amphibian species, and to the decline of at least 500 additional species.

Shortly after the mass die-off of amphibians in Costa Rica and Panama, both countries experienced a spike in malaria cases.