Global Health

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Global Alert and Response (GAR)

3 June 2013 - In Israel, wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) was isolated from sewage samples collected on 9 April 2013 in Rahat, southern Israel. The virus has been detected in sewage only; no case of paralytic polio has been reported. Genetic sequencing and epidemiological investigations are ongoing to determine its origin. Preliminary analyses indicate the strain is not related to the virus currently affecting the Horn of Africa. The virus isolate was detected through routine environmental surveillance in Israel that involves regular testing of sewage water. Israel has been free of indigenous WPV transmission since 1988. In the past, wild poliovirus has been detected in environmental samples collected in this region between 1991 and 2002 without occurrence of cases of paralytic polio in the area.

http://www.slideshare.net/YALE-ESF8--VMOC

In light of Typhoon Haiyan, the Yale-Tulane ESF #8 Planning and Response Program has produced special reports for current efforts. To access these reports, click here.

The Yale-Tulane ESF #8 Program is a multi-disciplinary, multi-center, graduate-level program designed to produce ESF #8 planners and responders with standardized skill sets that are consistent with evolving public policy, technologies, and best practices. The group that produced this summary and analysis of the current situation are graduate students from Yale and Tulane Universities. It was compiled entirely from open source materials.

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A corpse was carried on Thursday to a mass grave in Tacloban, the city of 220,000 that was flattened by the storm that made landfall a week ago. The number of dead still remains uncertain.  Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

nytimes.com - by Rick Gladstone - November 14, 2013

The aftermath of the Philippines typhoon is now threatening the country with outbreaks of debilitating and potentially fatal diseases, including some thought to have been nearly eradicated, because of a collapse in sanitation, shortages of fresh water and the inability of emergency health teams to respond quickly in the week since the storm struck, doctors and medical officials said Thursday.

Illnesses including cholera, hepatitis, malaria, dengue fever, typhoid fever, bacterial dysentery and others that thrive in tropical, fetid environments, where sewage and water supplies intermingle, could form what doctors fear is the disaster’s second wave.

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