BACKGROUND Klebsiella pneumoniae is a frequent nosocomial pathogen causing difficult-to-treat infections worldwide. The prevalence of Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC)-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae (KPC-KP) is increasing in China. The aim of this study was to investigate the molecular epidemiology of KPC-KP in a nosocomial outbreak. METHODS Fifty-four KPC-KP isolates were consecutiv...

Investigating the recovery capacity of wildlife populations following demographic crashes is of great interest to ecologists and conservationists. Opportunities to study these aspects are rare due to the difficulty of monitoring populations both before and after a demographic crash. Ebola outbreaks in central Africa have killed up to 95% of the individuals in affected western lowland gorilla (G...

The latest emergence of influenza A (H1N1) virus outbreak demonstrated how swiftly a new strain of flu can evolve and spread around the globe. The A/H1N1 flu has been spreading at unprecedented speed, and further spread within the countries being affected and to other adjacent or far way countries is considered inevitable due to the rapid emigration of infected individuals across the world. In ...

Introduction The New York City (NYC) syndromic surveillance system has monitored syndromes from NYC emergency department (ED) visits since 2001, using the temporal and spatial scan statistic in SaTScan for aberration detection. Since our syndromic system was initiated, alternative methods have been proposed for outbreak identification. Our goal was to evaluate methods for outbreak detection and...

Nineteen years after John Snow deduced the famous link between London’s Broad Street water pump and a deadly cholera epidemic ravaging the English capital, a second consequential cholera outbreak erupted on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The outbreak began in New Orleans in 1873 and spread along the major mercantile routes, killing hundreds of people.At the 1879 meeting of the Sanitary C...

A measles outbreak occurred from November 2015 to April 2016 in two northern Italian regions, affecting the Roma/Sinti ethnic population and nosocomial setting. Overall, 67 cases were reported. Median age of 43 cases in three Roma/Sinti camps was four years, nosocomial cases were mainly adults. The outbreak was caused by a new measles virus B3.1 variant. Immunisation resources and strategies sh...

We investigated an outbreak of Coxsackie B4 arthritis in a neonatal unit involving 20 neonates and 12 staff members, over an eight-month period. Laboratory investigations, serology tests, indicate that the outbreak was caused by Coxsackie B4 virus. Contamination of one of the overhead water reservoirs, supplying the nursery, was responsible. After the water tanks were cleaned out, no new cases ...

BACKGROUND Ruminants, in particular bovines, are the primary reservoir of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), but whole genome analyses of the current German ESBL-producing O104:H4 outbreak strain of sequence type (ST) 678 showed this strain to be highly similar to enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC). Strains of the EAEC pathotype are basically adapted to the human host. To clarify whether in co...

BACKGROUND The 2014 Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in the neighbouring West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone represents the most significant setback to the region's development in over a decade. This study provides evidence on the extent to which economic activity declined and jobs disappeared in Liberia during the outbreak. METHODS To estimate how the level of activi...