Africa's top public health agency said on Friday that there was a confirmed Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo's Ituri province, with 65 deaths out of 246 suspected cases so far. The agency said initial findings suggested the presence of a non-Zaire strain of the virus, with sequencing ongoing to further characterise it.
The World Health Organization learned of suspected cases on May 5 and dispatched a team to Ituri to help investigate, but samples collected in the field initially tested negative, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press briefing on Friday. The new outbreak is unfolding against the backdrop of a deepening security crisis in Ituri, where clashes between rival militia groups have killed scores of civilians in recent weeks.
Ebola virus disease is a severe and often fatal illness that is endemic to Congo's vast tropical forests. It spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected persons, contaminated materials or persons who have died from the disease, the Africa CDC said. "Given the high population movement between affected areas and neighbouring countries, rapid regional coordination is essential," Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya said in the statement.
Tap the link in our bio to learn more.
On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the 41 people include passengers who had returned to the United States before the outbreak was identified and others who may have been exposed on flights where a symptomatic case was present.
The University of Nebraska Medical Center, where 16 of the 18 passengers who were flown back are currently being monitored, said on Wednesday that one passenger initially placed in a biocontainment unit had been medically cleared to move to a quarantine unit with the others.
The CDC did not give additional information about the patient, whom it initially said had tested "mildly positive" before saying the results were inconclusive and the person would be tested again. "What I can say is that there are no cases in the United States," said Dr. David Fitter, the incident manager for the CDC's hantavirus response on a press call when asked how many people had been tested in the United States. Most of the people being monitored should stay at home and avoid contact with others during the six-week monitoring period.
Tap the link in our bio to learn more.
The historical advice to delay peanut introduction until age 3 may have backfired, contributing to a threefold increase in allergy prevalence. As clinical guidelines evolve, the focus has shifted from avoidance to early introduction for allergy prevention. Watch more from Dr. Christopher Labos by tapping the link in our bio.
When a patient fails to meet remission criteria after two antidepressant trials of six to eight weeks, they meet the definition for treatment-resistant depression. Identifying the root cause is essential for determining the next clinical step. Watch more on options for treatment resistant depression by tapping the link in our bio.
The study, published in Nature Methods and co-led by Shigenori Inagaki, PhD and Takeshi Imai, PhD, describes SeeDB-Live, the first tissue-clearing technique that works on living mammalian tissue without disrupting cellular function. It’s the third generation of Imai’s clearing platform
Imai had been asked whether live tissue clearing was possible roughly a hundred times over those years, and he always said no. When asked whether there was a point during the decade when he stopped thinking about it, his answer was blunt: “I totally gave up.”
Why had this problem proven itself to be so intractable? For one, tissue transparency isn’t the actual problem; making tissue transparent is straightforward optics. The problem was doing it without killing anything.
The field of tissue clearing has historically given neuroscience exquisitely detailed maps of dead brains. SeeDB-Live doesn’t replace those maps, but it offers something the field has never had: a way to watch the living brain at depths it couldn't reach before, using a protein that evolution put there long before anyone thought to look. Tap the link in our bio to learn more about the new discovery.
According to a report in The Lancet, the new name, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS, was chosen by a global coalition of patients, clinicians, and medical organizations to better reflect the condition’s wide-ranging hormonal and metabolic impacts.
The focus on ovarian cysts has led to delays in diagnoses and fragmented care, while the new name aims to improve how the condition is detected, treated, and explained, the researchers said.
Symptoms of PMOS include irregular or absent menstrual cycles, infertility, pregnancy complications, excess hair growth, acne, anxiety and depression, weight gain, obesity, diabetes and other disturbances in insulin, and cardiovascular disease.
Tap the link in our bio to learn more about the transition to the new terminology.
Compassion fatigue is a clinical reality that often persists beyond residency, manifesting as emotional exhaustion or a sense of detachment from patient care. By implementing deliberate strategies like setting clear boundaries, seeking peer support, and utilizing professional coaching, physicians can replenish their emotional reserves and ensure long-term career sustainability.
Unlike previous HIV "cures" involving cancer patients given bone marrow stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists HIV infection, researchers said CAR-T could be used by a much broader patient population. The Phase 1 trial involved CAR-T, a one-time therapy in which a patient's T-cells are extracted, altered and multiplied in a lab and infused back into their body. In this case, the CAR-T targeted the CD4 and CCR5 binding sites of the HIV.
Of three trial patients treated with a standard CAR-T dose, researchers said two maintained undetectable to very low levels of HIV after stopping antiretroviral therapy - one for over two years so far and another for nearly a year. "The two that have been off (HIV drugs) the longest and doing well were importantly diagnosed pretty quickly and put on therapy pretty quickly," said Dr. Steven Deeks, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and the study's lead investigator.
Currently, CAR-T treatments are available for several types of blood cancer, and are being developed for autoimmune diseases like lupus and scleroderma. Tap the link in our bio to learn more about the recent study.
Looking for dedicated clinical education?
Follow our new account for expert insights, clinical pearls, and CME delivered direct to your feed.
Follow @MedscapeEducation .
A new modeling study suggests that if Black adults in the US achieved the same median blood pressure as White adults, more than 75,000 deaths over the course of a decade could be prevented. The new analysis serves as a powerful reminder that equity is a key component of disease prevention, according to the researchers, who published their findings in JAMA Network Open.
Tap the link in our bio to learn more about recent study.
A recent study published in March in the Journal of American Medicine explored the perceptions of 274 patients on their physicians’ attire. Using the modified Trust in Physician Scale survey, they assessed the level of trust that the patients put in their physicians, based on their attire. According to the results, it didn’t matter to the patients if their physicians wore surgical scrubs or traditional attire with a white coat.
Amy Edwards, MD, associate professor of pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, developed a habit of wearing a white coat during her training years, when it was required. She still wears one when seeing patients in the hospital. “Though lately, I have been slowly starting to not wear it when I am seeing patients in the outpatient clinic to try to seem more approachable and less intimidating,” said Edwards, who is also a senior attending physician for pediatric infectious diseases at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.
In fact, today patients can’t be sure if a person wearing a white coat is even a physician. They might encounter any number of hospital staff members in white coats, from phlebotomists to x-ray technicians to occupational therapists to nursing administrators. So perhaps it’s become a choice: a white coat, a fleece jacket, both, or neither. As a result, the white coat has become largely symbolic for many physicians now. Tap the link in our bio to read more about the study.
According to health officials, two people have tested positive for hantavirus after being evacuated from a luxury cruise ship hit by a deadly outbreak. A French passenger who was evacuated from the MV Hondius tested positive for the virus and her condition is deteriorating, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said on Monday. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said one of the 17 Americans being repatriated had also tested mildly positive for the Andes virus. The Spanish Health Ministry said a test of another sample of the American at a different lab had been inconclusive.
The WHO has recommended a 42-day quarantine for all passengers from the boat from May 10, its director of epidemic and pandemic management, Maria Van Kerkhove, told a briefing. Additionally, health officials have urged the general population to remain calm, reminding a public scarred from the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic that this virus is far less contagious and poses little risk to the general population.
Tap the link in our bio to learn more.
