3 August 2012

Army Public Health Weekly Update

The Army Public Health Update is a collection of articles taken verbatim

from public sources to offer awareness of current health issues and the

media coverage given to them. The articles do not necessarily represent

US Army Medical Department opinions, views, policy, or guidance, and

should not be construed or interpreted as being

endorsed by the US Army Medical Department.

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Contents

U.S. MILITARY

 Bacteria might help protect military with new vaccines

 DOD leads drive toward healthier lifestyles

 Incident diagnoses of and mortality from cancer, active component, U.S. Armed Forces, January 

2000 – December 2011

 The Military Health System wants to help you quit tobacco

GLOBAL

 Amazon study reveals that untreated rabies may not be lethal

 Global AIDS conference wraps up

 New drug combo shows promise against TB, HIV co-infections

 Wrong medical equipment 'undermining aid effort'

INFLUENZA

 Australia: Perth Tamiflu stocks run out amid flu outbreak

 CDC: Weekly Influenza Surveillance Report

 Google.org: Flu Trends

 Naval Health Research Center: Febrile Respiratory Illness Surveillance Update

 Novel H3N8 strain found in dead seals may pose human threat

 Ohio, Indiana report 10 more cases of variant H3N2

VETERINARY/FOOD SAFETY

 Re-emergence of brucellosis in cattle in France and risk for human health

 Study: Dispersants used in Gulf oil spill could damage marine food web

 U.S.: 2011 brought little change in foodborne disease incidence

WELLNESS

 Distractions come naturally to teenage drivers
Crisis and 

Emergency Risk 

Communication 

Train-the-Trainer 

Course

The Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention 

(CDC) will provide a CERC 

Train-the-Trainer course

at CDC Headquarters. 

CERC is an approach used 

by scientists and public 

health professionals to 

provide information during 

natural or manmade 

disasters when an 

individual or an entire 

community has to make 

health-related decisions 

under time constraints. 

The course is designed to 

train those who have 

completed the Basic CERC 

course to conduct future 

CERC trainings.

Date: August 14-16, 2012

Location: Atlanta, GA

 Driving sobriety tests likely to miss medical pot

 Mild mental illness 'raises risk of premature death'

 Most Americans with celiac disease don't realize it: study

 Scientists uncover gene variation linked to melanoma

USAFRICOM

 Uganda: Ebola outbreak kills 13

 Zimbabwe: Typhoid and cholera return

USCENTCOM

 Afghanistan: Disarming IEDs - big job, too few trained

 Syria: Anticipating a hungry winter

 Pakistan: UN polio suspension hits 22,000 children

 Yemen battles hunger while struggling with multiple crises

 29 July -

USEUCOM

 United Kingdom: 2012 Olympics shines spotlight on mobile health and fitness apps

 United Kingdom: NHS considers organ donation shakeup

USNORTHCOM

 Consumption of cigarettes and combustible tobacco — United States, 2000–2011

 U.S.: National biosurveillance strategy aims to detect manifold threats

 U.S.: Only 1 in 4 Americans with HIV has virus under control

 U.S.: West Nile virus makes a comeback this summer

USPACOM

 China: Human rights group questions ethics of Chinese drug treatment study

 India confirms drought as El Nino looms

 Indonesia: Low health awareness deadly for children

 North Korea hit by devastating floods

USSOUTHCOM

 How Latin America is reinventing the war on drugs

U.S. MILITARY

Bacteria might help protect military with new vaccines

29 July - Military researchers studying radiation-resistant bacteria say 

they’ve discovered a faster way to make vaccines, which could help 

protect against biological warfare agents and pandemic infections. The 

research could eventually lead to developing methods to help protect 
Disaster Resilience: 

A National 

Imperative

One way to reduce the 

impacts of disasters on the 

nation and its communities 

is to invest in enhancing 

resilience--the ability to 

prepare and plan for, 

absorb, recover from and 

more successfully adapt to 

adverse events. Disaster 

Resilience: A National 

Imperative addresses the 

broad issue of increasing 

the nation's resilience to 

disasters. 

troops and others responding to nuclear disasters like last year’s meltdown in Fukushima, 

Japan. A team of Uniformed Services University researchers who have been studying the 

radiation-resistant Deinococcus radiodurans bacterium published its findings in the 

scientific journal Cell Host and Microbe this month. Stars and Stripes

DOD leads drive toward healthier lifestyles

17 July - The Defense Department is taking a leading role in a governmentwide effort to 

stop the nation’s obesity problem, Barbara Thompson, the director of DOD’s Office of 

Family Policy/Children and Youth, said. DOD is one of 17 federal departments and agencies 

working together to identify opportunities for promoting healthy living as part of the White 

House’s National Prevention Council strategy, she explained. “One part of that is preventing 

obesity,” Thompson told American Forces Press Service and The Pentagon Channel. “It has a 

huge impact on our quality of life, both for children and adults.” Thompson noted a national 

increase in Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease, believed caused by increased fat, 

salt and sugar in Americans’ diets at the same time that many children are less active than in 

previous generations. There was a 40 percent rise in childhood obesity between 1998 and 

2008, she said. Defense.gov

Incident diagnoses of and mortality from cancer, active 

component, U.S. Armed Forces, January 2000 –

December 2011

June 2012 - During the 12-year surveillance period, 9,368 active component members were 

diagnosed with at least one of the cancers of interest for this report. Over the 12-year 

period, the crude rate of incident diagnoses of the subject cancers was 55.2 per 100,000 

person-years (p-yrs); the lowest annual incidence rate was 50.3 per 100,000 p-yrs in 2003, 

and the highest annual incidence rate was 60.1 per 100,000 p-yrs in 2009... Over the past 

twelve years, rates of diagnoses of the cancers of interest for this report have been stable 

among active component members of the U.S. military. Medical Surveillance Monthly 

Report

The Military Health System wants to help you quit 

tobacco

24 July - While tobacco use, in any form, is highly addicting and can lead to serious health 

problems there is good news; effective treatments and helpful resources exist for anyone 

who wishes to make a change towards lifelong health and vitality...The 2008 DoD Health 

Related Behaviors Survey indicated that smoking among service members has decreased 

only slightly since 2002 (three percent decrease, from 34 to 31 percent). The use of 

smokeless tobacco in the military remained steady from 2005 to 2008 with a mere one 

percent decrease (from 15 to 14 percent). Although tobacco usage can be a difficult habit to 

break, there is help readily available. Individual and group counseling and support groups 

and programs have been found to be effective in treating tobacco dependence, often in 

conjunction with either over-the-counter or prescription nicotine replacement products.

Other treatments include brief clinical interventions and behavioral cessation therapies.
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TRICARE offers smoking and tobacco cessation coverage for all beneficiaries not eligible for 

Medicare. The TRICARE Tobacco Cessation Program covers most inpatient and outpatient 

care that is medically necessary and considered proven. MHS

top of page...

GLOBAL

Amazon study reveals that untreated rabies may not be 

lethal

2 August - In an apparent reversal of a commonly held belief, people in two communities in 

a remote part of Peru’s Amazonian region have survived after being exposed to rabies even 

without being vaccinated, according to a study by the Center for Disease Control and 

Prevention. The study, “Evidence of Rabies Virus Exposure among Humans in the Peruvian 

Amazon,” speculates that while avoiding rabid animals and receiving injections administered 

after a person is exposed to rabies virus are the best way to protect oneself against the fatal 

disease, people living in certain communities where they are regularly exposed to the virus 

may develop an immune response to rabies. “Nearly all rabies virus exposures that proceed 

to clinical infections are fatal,” said Amy Gilbert, PhD, of CDC’s National Center for Emerging 

and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. “Our results support the idea that under very unique 

circumstances there may be some type of enhanced immune response in certain 

populations regularly exposed to the virus, which could prevent onset of clinical illness.” The 

CDC study, which was conducted in collaboration with the Peruvian Ministry of Health, 

surveyed 92 people, 50 of whom reported previous bat bites. Of the 63 people whose blood 

was sampled, 11 percent had “rabies virus neutralizing antibodies.” Fox News Latino

Global AIDS conference wraps up 

28 July - The 19th International AIDS Conference drew to a close in Washington, D.C., on 

Friday. Under the banner of "Turning the Tide Together," more than 20,000 delegates 

attended the six-day gathering, where speakers ranged from famous entertainers to highlevel politicians to people working on the front lines of AIDS research. VOA

New drug combo shows promise against TB, HIV coinfections 

26 July - There may be a powerful new weapon in the fight 

against tuberculosis, a bacterial respiratory disease that 

kills an estimated 1.4 million people around the world each 

year. Early results of a clinical trial show a novel triple-drug 

combination destroys nearly 100 percent of the TB bacteria 

in infected patients -- within two weeks. While full treatment would take longer, the 

regimen promises to cut in half the duration of TB therapy for drug-resistant cases of the 
disease. And it could be a life-saver for hard-to-treat HIV-positive individuals who are coinfected with TB. An estimated 25 percent of people infected with HIV, the virus that causes 

AIDS, die of tuberculosis because they cannot withstand the nausea, vomiting and loss of 

appetite that can be the debilitating side effects of the rigorous antibiotic regimen now 

used to treat TB. VOA

Wrong medical equipment 'undermining aid effort'

31 July – Inappropriate equipment is undermining the 

medical aid effort in developing countries, experts say. A 

joint Lancet and Imperial College London review found 

poor countries were being given devices they could not 

use or maintain. It said richer nations should aim their 

efforts at lower-cost equipment tailored for the developing world. Research has shown 40% 

of devices in poor countries are out of service, compared to 1% in the developed world. BBC

top of page...

INFLUENZA

Australia: Perth Tamiflu stocks run out amid flu outbreak

3 August - Pharmacies across Perth have run out of Tamiflu, commonly prescribed to 

alleviate flu symptoms, and claim they are unable to get more amid a higher-than-normal 

incidence of the illness. The Australian Medical Association WA is calling on the state 

government to immediately release its stocks of the anti-viral drug, reserved for public 

hospitals, during what it says is a flu epidemic... There had been 2712 recorded cases of 

influenza at the end of July, compared to 529 for the same period in 2011. By comparison 

there were 1887 reported cases for the entire 2011 year, including 22 reported deaths. But a 

health department spokesperson said the 2012 season appeared to have peaked. Sydney 

Morning Herald

CDC: Weekly Influenza Surveillance Report

During week 29 (ending July 21, 2012), 5.6% of all deaths reported through the 122-Cities 

Mortality Reporting System were due to pneumonia and influenza. This percentage was 

below the epidemic threshold of 6.6% for week 29. FluView

Google.org: Flu Trends

2August – Estimates of flu activity based on flu-related Internet search queries indicate that 

the level of flu activity in the northern hemisphere is minimal and ranges from minimal high

in the southern hemisphere. Australia and New Zealand both indicate high levels of flu 

activity. Google.org Flu Trends
Naval Health Research Center: Febrile Respiratory 

Illness Surveillance Update 

For the week ending 28 July 2012, FRI surveillance at all eight U.S. military basic training 

centers indicated FRI rates were at or below expected values. NHRC Febrile Respiratory 

Illness Surveillance Update 

Novel H3N8 strain found in dead seals may pose human 

threat

31 July - A research team that analyzed the strain of H3N8 influenza linked to a baby seal 

die-off in New England last year found that it originated in birds and has adapted to 

mammals, signaling a possible threat to humans and animals alike. The study, which 

appeared today in mBio, the online journal of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), 

also revealed mutations that are known to make flu viruses more transmissible and able to 

cause severe disease. CIDRAP

Ohio, Indiana report 10 more cases of variant H3N2

2 August – Nine people in Ohio and one in Indiana, all of whom had visited county fairs or 

had contact with pigs, have tested positive for variant swine-origin H3N2 influenza, health 

officials in the two states have announced, raising the apparent number of such flu cases 

reported in the past year to 28. Variant H3N2 (H3N2v) flu cases have been confirmed in 9 of 

10 people who were tested after they had symptoms following contact with pigs at the 

Butler County Fair in Hamilton, Ohio, said Robert Jennings, a spokesman for the Ohio 

Department of Health (ODH), today. He told CIDRAP News that the 10th person is being 

retested. Yesterday officials said the illnesses resembled seasonal flu, and none of the 

patients were hospitalized. The nine cases apparently make the Butler County outbreak the 

biggest one since this H3N2v strain emerged in the United States last summer. Most of the 

patients have been children, and most had contact with pigs. CIDRAP

top of page...

VETERINARY/FOOD SAFETY

Re-emergence of brucellosis in cattle in France and risk 

for human health 

26 July - A case of human brucellosis was diagnosed in France in January 2012. The 

investigation demonstrated that the case had been contaminated by raw milk cheese from a 

neighbouring dairy farm. As France has been officially free of bovine brucellosis since 2005, 

veterinary investigations are being conducted to determine the origin of the infection and 

avoid its spread among other herds. Hypotheses about the source of this infection are 

discussed. Eurosurveillance
Study: Dispersants used in Gulf oil spill could damage 

marine food web

2 August - During the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which 

dumped nearly 5 million barrels of crude into the water, responders applied some 1.8 

million gallons of chemical dispersant to break up the oil slick. The chemicals, which were 

sprayed on the surface and pumped near the gushing pipe on the ocean floor, largely 

prevented the slick from saturating delicate coastal marshes, but they had their own 

environmental impact that scientists are only now beginning to understand. A study 

published Tuesday provides one possible piece to that puzzle, indicating that chemical 

dispersants of the type used in 2010 hurt microorganism populations that are a key link in 

the marine food chain, with dire implications for fish and larger sea animals... The research 

conducted in a controlled lab setting showed that dispersants and dispersed oil 

"significantly reduced" the growth of phytoplankton and ciliates — essentially, fish food. It 

also showed that oil that was left alone — and thus degraded while floating on the water's 

surface — was found to cause no significant damage to these organisms. NBC News

U.S.: 2011 brought little change in foodborne disease 

incidence

30 July - The incidence of illnesses caused by the most common foodborne pathogens, with 

the exception of Escherichia coli O157:H7, has stayed about the same or increased a bit over 

the past few years, according to 2011 data released by the Centers for Disease Control and 

prevention (CDC). CIDRAP

top of page...

WELLNESS

Distractions come naturally to teenage drivers

31 July - Distracted driving is a problem for all drivers, but teens 

are at higher risk. Yes, it's true that drivers under 25 are up to 

three times more likely to send text messages or emails while 

behind the wheel than older drivers, according to the National 

Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But there's a deeper 

problem: Teenagers are also at a developmental stage where getting distracted is more 

problematic than it is for older drivers. Teenagers are still developing something called 

"regulatory competence." That's the ability to regulate their attention and emotions so they 

can function well under challenging circumstances. NPR
Driving sobriety tests likely to miss medical pot

27 July - A new, small study suggests medicinal marijuana may impair users' driving skills -

but might be missed by typical sobriety tests. At doses used in AIDS, cancer and pain 

patients, people weaved side to side more and had a slower reaction time in the hours after 

using the drug, researchers from the Netherlands found. For people who hadn't built up a 

tolerance to marijuana, those effects were similar to driving with a blood alcohol content of 

0.08, the point at which drivers are considered legally impaired, they said. "At this time, we 

know very little about the possible effects that medical marijuana may have on, say, motor 

vehicle crash rates, injury rates and mortality rates," said Dr. Guohua Li, who has studied 

marijuana and traffic accidents at Columbia University in New York but wasn't involved in 

the new research. "There is a concern medical marijuana may interact with other drugs such 

as alcohol that may further compromise driving safety," he added. Medline Plus

Mild mental illness 'raises risk of premature death'

31 July - People with mild mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression are more likely to 

die early, say researchers. They looked at the premature deaths from conditions such as 

heart disease and cancer of 68,000 people in England. The research suggested low level 

distress raised the risk by 16%, once lifestyle factors such as drinking and smoking were 

taken into account. More serious problems increased it by 67%, the University College 

London and Edinburgh University team said. BBC

Most Americans with celiac disease don't realize it: study

2 August - New research suggests that 1.4 million Americans have celiac disease but don't 

realize it, while 1.6 million people are on gluten-free diets -- a treatment for celiac disease --

even though they might not need it. The findings, which estimate that 1.8 million Americans 

have celiac disease -- an autoimmune condition -- suggest that a whopping 78 percent of 

sufferers don't realize they have the condition. "This provides proof that the disease is 

common in the United States," said study co-author Dr. Joseph Murray, a gastroenterologist 

at the Mayo Clinic, in a clinic news release. "If you detect one person for every five or six 

[who have it], we aren't doing a very good job detecting celiac disease." People with celiac 

disease have trouble digesting wheat, rye and barley. A gluten-free diet can help, but about 

80 percent of people on such a diet haven't been diagnosed with celiac disease. US News 

and World Report

Scientists uncover gene variation linked to melanoma

29 July - New gene mutations associated with the development 

of melanoma have been identified by scientists who conducted 

what is believed to be the largest DNA-sequencing study of the 

deadly disease to date. Melanoma accounts for the vast 

majority of skin cancer deaths. The main cause of melanoma is 

excessive exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. The Yale Cancer Center team 

used DNA-sequencing technologies to analyze 147 melanomas originating on both sunexposed and sun-shielded sites on patients' bodies. They found a large number of UV-
induced mutations in sun-exposed melanomas, but most of these are "passenger" 

mutations that don't have a functional role in melanoma. Medline Plus

top of page...

USAFRICOM

Uganda: Ebola outbreak kills 13

28 July - An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus has killed 13 people in Uganda and efforts 

are under way to contain the hemorrhagic fever, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said 

on Saturday. There is no treatment and no vaccine against Ebola, which is transmitted by 

close personal contact and, depending on the strain, kills up to 90 percent of those who 

contract the virus. Joaquim Saweka, WHO's representative in Uganda, said that although 

suspected Ebola infections emerged in early July in Kibale district, about 170 km (100 miles) 

west of the capital Kampala, the outbreak was not confirmed until Friday. Reuters

Zimbabwe: Typhoid and cholera return

27 July - More than 100 people in the Zimbabwean capital 

Harare and Chitungwiza, a dormitory town 35km southeast of 

the city, have contracted typhoid this month, and the 

dilapidated water and sanitation systems are again being 

blamed for another round of water-borne diseases. According 

to health officials cited in the local media, 83 cases of typhoid have been confirmed in 

Chitungwiza and a further 28 in Harare, of which 25 were linked to a supermarket in the 

Avenues area of the city centre. Portia Manangazira, the chief disease control officer in the 

Health Ministry, told IRIN that in June 22 cases of suspected cholera, 10 of which were 

confirmed, were reported in Chiredzi - a town in Masvingo Province close to neighbouring 

South Africa - and one confirmed case of cholera was reported in Manicaland Province, 

which borders Mozambique. “We are monitoring the situation very closely to make sure the 

cholera does not spread. The health sector is on high alert,” she said. IRIN

top of page...

USCENTCOM

Afghanistan: Disarming IEDs - big job, too few trained

29 July - Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, remain one of the biggest killers in 

Afghanistan. As NATO forces prepare to withdraw from the country, Afghans are learning 

the special skills needed to find and disarm these deadly weapons. The training area near 
the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif is a large expanse of dirt and gravel, dotted with a few 

beat-up old taxis and scattered bunkers... So far, the students appear to be on their way to 

joining the ranks of soldiers and police certified in IED disposal. But the school can train 

only about 30 students at a time... Ahmadullah says there is still a long way to go. He says 

Afghanistan needs 400 to 500 people trained for each of those levels, which he predicts will 

take three to four years. KERA News

Syria: Anticipating a hungry winter

24 July - The fields in the fertile al Ghab plain stretching across 

eastern Syria would normally be full of crops at this time of year, 

but this summer some are lying fallow. "The army has deployed in 

the fields, and there are checkpoints around our village," said 

Muhammad al-Ashab*, a farmer in al Madeeq Citadel. "Sometimes 

the soldiers let us pass, sometimes they don't." Some farmers, he said, have not been able 

to plant anything. Others suffered losses as their crops withered, either because they could 

not access them regularly, or they were lacking the means necessary to attend to them. The 

violent conflict in Syria appears to be hampering agriculture. Farmers are struggling with 

obstructions due to intermittent fighting as well as soaring prices of farming supplies and 

shortages of diesel. The fuel is needed not only for tractors and harvesters, but also for 

pumps to water the fields. IRIN

Pakistan: UN polio suspension hits 22,000 children

2 August - Around 22,000 Pakistani children are at risk in Karachi after the World Health 

Organization suspended polio vaccinations over a spate of shootings, a UN official warned 

Thursday. WHO, a partner in government efforts to eradicate the disease, suspended 

activities in part of Pakistan's largest city last month and has not yet been approved to take 

part in the next campaign due in September. On July 17, a UN doctor from Ghana working 

on polio eradication and his driver were shot in Gadap town and three days later a local 

community worker who was part of the same campaign was shot dead in the same area.

"We had a successful campaign in Karachi until those attacks," said Elias Durry, senior WHO 

coordinator for polio vaccination in southern Sindh province. The campaign targeted 2.2 

million children in Karachi, but 22,000 children in Gadap town were not administered polio 

drops because of security fears, he added. AFP

Yemen battles hunger while struggling with multiple 

crises

29 July - ... Yemen is struggling with multiple crises: If an ongoing uprising and endless 

clashes between Yemen’s security forces and al-Qaida militants weren’t enough of a 

challenge for the impoverished nation, nearly half of Yemen’s people are going hungry, with 

many facing the danger of starvation. The World Food Program (WFP) estimates that nearly 

10 million Yemenis are “food insecure.” They fall into two categories - five million are 

classified as “severely food insecure,” that is, those who are unable to buy or grow food 

themselves, and another five million who are “moderately food insecure,” that is, they are at 

risk of going without food due to rising food prices and the ongoing civil conflict. 
Combined, they account for 44.5 percent of Yemen’s population of close to 25 million. Voice 

of America

top of page...

USEUCOM

United Kingdom: 2012 Olympics shines spotlight on 

mobile health and fitness apps

2 August - The 2012 Olympic Games playing out in London July 27 through Aug. 12 put a 

spotlight on a number of mobile apps that can help athletes and the more sedentary 

spectators watching them to stay fit and manage their health. Wireless devices allow people 

to track their heart rate, speed and geographic elevation during workouts and transmit the 

data to a smartphone or a cloud personal health platform such as Microsoft HealthVault. 

The U.S. women's cycling team is using a series of apps that track genetics, sleep patterns 

and blood glucose levels. Other apps incorporate GPS functionality to track distance and 

mix health goals with social gaming. The market for mobile health apps will exceed $400 

million in revenue by 2016, according to ABI Research. In addition, as of April 2012, more 

than 13,600 iPhone health and fitness apps were available to consumers. eWeek

United Kingdom: NHS considers organ donation 

shakeup

27 July - The NHS is considering its biggest shakeup of the ethical, legal and professional 

rules governing transplants, floating ideas to prolong the lives of people who have no 

chance of surviving in order to harvest their organs, and to make people opt out rather than 

in to the donor register. The options are included in a survey of medical, scientific and 

public opinion to be launched this week to test the boundaries of what might be 

acceptable, as a precursor to significant reforms. Guardian

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USNORTHCOM

Consumption of cigarettes and combustible tobacco —

United States, 2000–2011

3 August - ... Despite continued decreases in cigarette smoking in the United States, 

consumption of pipe tobacco and large cigars has increased substantially since the federal 

tobacco excise tax was increased in 2009, creating tax disparities that made 1) pipe tobacco 
less expensive than roll-your-own tobacco and manufactured cigarettes, and 2) large cigars 

less heavily taxed than small cigars and manufactured cigarettes (7,8). Because loose 

tobacco products are classified based on how they are labeled, the loose tobacco tax 

disparity of $21.95 per pound led manufacturers to relabel roll-your-own tobacco as pipe 

tobacco and then market this relabeled pipe tobacco for roll-your-own use (7–9). In 

addition, manufacturers were able to increase the per-unit weight of certain small cigars to 

take advantage of a tax benefit when classified as large cigars, which are taxed based on the 

product price rather than per cigar (7). As a result of relatively minor increases in per-unit 

weight, the new "large cigar" can appear almost identical to a "small cigar," which resembles 

a typical cigarette and can cost as little as 7 cents per cigar. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly 

Report

U.S.: National biosurveillance strategy aims to detect 

manifold threats

2 August – The Obama Administration this week unveiled the nation's first national 

biosurveillance strategy, designed to detect a range of threats, including bioterror attacks, 

infectious disease outbreaks, agricultural threats, and foodborne illness outbreaks. In a letter 

prefacing the 8-page plan, which the White House unveiled on Jul 31, President Barack 

Obama wrote that this step is part of his National Security Strategy... The text of the 

strategy acknowledges that there have been dedicated efforts over the years to improve 

biosurveillance and that the tiered system—from federal departments to the private 

sector—can benefit from an approach that focuses attention on a few core functions and 

better integration efforts... It spells out four guiding principles: leveraging existing 

capabilities, taking an all-nation approach, adding value for participants without radically 

altering or burdening participants, and maintaining a global perspective. CIDRAP

U.S.: Only 1 in 4 Americans with HIV has virus under 

control

27 July - Among the 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, just one in four has the virus 

under control, U.S. health researchers say. In a report presented Friday at the International 

AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention said the problem applies to patients of all ages, races and ethnic groups, but 

especially to young people and blacks. "This is the first time that we have ever looked at the 

outcome of continuum of care across all patient groups," said CDC epidemiologist Irene 

Hall. "And what we found is that, overall, too few people with HIV have viral suppression." 

People with viral load suppression are healthy and less likely to transmit the virus to others.

Medline Plus
U.S.: West Nile virus makes a comeback this summer

2 August - The West Nile virus is back, and it's looking like 

it could be particularly bad this year... There have already 

been at least 241 cases of West Nile disease reported in 42 

states this summer, including 144 serious infections. At 

least four people have died. There hasn't been this many 

cases this early since 2004. By this time last year, only 15 severe cases had been reported. 

"The bulk of the West Nile cases in the U.S. generally occur in August and September," 

Nasci says, "and we're just entering August and we've already seen this uptick compared to 

previous years." Most of the cases have occurred in just three states — Texas, Mississippi 

and Oklahoma. But cases are occurring throughout the country. The reason for the increase 

is complicated. But the unusually warm winter, early spring and hot summer are playing a 

role, Nasci says. NPR

top of page...

USPACOM

China: Human rights group questions ethics of Chinese 

drug treatment study

2 August - A Chinese research team's study of drug addiction treatments published in 

Science on 13 April is coming under fire from Human Rights Watch (HRW), the New York 

City-based advocacy group. This week's issue of Science contains a letter from the group 

accusing the Chinese team of not making it clear whether their research subjects were held

"without due process" in compulsory treatment centers and subjected to "forced labor." But 

a response from the study authors describes their considerable efforts to ensure that the 

research was conducted in an ethical manner, and bioethicists based in both the United 

States and China have also defended the Chinese researchers, calling the accusations unfair. 

The researchers, led by Yan-Xue Xue of Peking University in Beijing, tested a psychological 

technique for reducing cravings in drug addicts that can threaten a relapse into drug abuse. 

Those cravings are usually triggered by specific environmental cues, such as the sight of a 

syringe, spoon, and tourniquet for a heroin addict. The Chinese team's goal was to weaken 

the link between those environmental cues and the memories of drug abuse, thus reducing 

the craving. Science

India confirms drought as El Nino looms

2 August - India's monsoon rains will not be enough to save the country from its first 

drought in three years, the weather office said on Thursday as it forecast that the El Nino 

weather pattern should reduce rains again in the second half of the June to September 

season. India, one of the world's largest food producers and consumers with a population of 
1.2 billion, last suffered a drought in 2009, which forced it to import sugar, pushing global

prices higher. This time around, global grain prices are soaring as the United States wilts in 

its own drought - the worst in the country for half a century. Reuters

Indonesia: Low health awareness deadly for children

30 July – Poor knowledge of basic healthcare and lack of sanitation 

are contributing to the high number of deaths among children 

under the age of five in Indonesia. Among poorer households 

child deaths are more than three times higher than in richer ones. 

According to Countdown 2015, a global collaboration to achieve 

health-related Millennium Development Goals, 151,000 Indonesian children died in 2010 

before they reached the age of five - 35 out of every 1,000 live births. To reach the target of 

reducing child deaths by two-thirds of the 1990 death rate, seven more children out of 

every 1,000 births need to survive. Causes of children under five years dying in 2010 

included pneumonia, which accounted for 14 percent of deaths, preterm births caused 21 

percent, injuries 6 percent, and measles and diarrhoea 5 percent each, according to the 

World Health Organization (WHO). The agency noted that 48 percent of children's deaths 

took place in their first 28 days of life. IRIN

North Korea hit by devastating floods

1 August - North Korea said 31 people were killed in landslides and lightning during heavy 

rains and flooding, in addition to the 88 killed in a typhoon that hit the nation two 

weeks ago. Heavy rains on Sunday and Monday destroyed or damaged more than 4,900 

homes and flooded 8,530 others, leaving 21,370 people homeless, the official Korean 

Central News Agency said Tuesday. More than 179,000 tons of coal were washed away, and 

scores of pits were inundated at coal mines northeast of Pyongyang, the capital, KCNA said 

in a separate report. Flooding threatens the impoverished nation's ability to export its 

underground minerals, one of the few legitimate ways for the totalitarian regime to earn 

foreign currency. San Francisco Chronicle

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USSOUTHCOM

How Latin America is reinventing the war on drugs

30 July - Frustrated with US dictates, countries across the 

region are floating new ideas to curb drug trafficking, from 

'soft' enforcement to legalization... Countries across the region 

are adopting a more autonomous, sometimes nationalistic, 

response to narcotics control that increasingly questions 

Washington's priorities and prescriptions. From Bolivia, where drugs are produced, to 
Mexico and Guatemala, where they transit through, to Brazil, where they are increasingly 

consumed, officials are forging new policies or floating ideas to deal with a problem they 

believe 40 years of US-dictated solutions hasn't curbed... The restiveness reflects a growing 

political assertiveness in the region. While Latin America has always been weary of the heavy 

hand of the US, Bolivia and Venezuela have taken their indignation to a new level, refusing 

to cooperate with the DEA and other US officials. Many countries also seem less inclined to 

genuflect toward Washington on other issues, from trade to foreign policy. Yet it is the drug 

issue that will most define US relations with the hemisphere – and have the most impact 

around the world. Latin America remains the world's No. 1 supplier of cocaine, and how 

various countries deal with their coca tracts will not only affect the flow of narcotics, but 

might lead to new strategies in the drug fight. Christian Science Monitor

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