When I was younger, my grandmother gave me two books, and I don’t think she realized they ended up shaping my career. After reading Outbreak (by Robin Cook) and Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC (by Joseph McCormick and Susan Fisher-Hoch), I was hooked on working in public health. After learning more about what [...]
If you’ve been following the news lately, you’ve noticed a lot of attention on Zika virus, an emerging mosquito-borne disease that’s spreading across the Americas. As of today, no cases of Zika have been found in Arizona, but several other U.S. states are reporting cases of Zika virus in travelers returning from countries where the [...]
A few weeks ago I blogged about Zika virus, a disease spread by mosquitoes that was newly detected in several Central and South American countries. This week, the CDC confirmed the first case virus of Zika in the United States. The virus was found in a person who lives in Texas, but who had traveled [...]
Just when we were finally getting comfortable pronouncing “chikungunya,” a new viral disease spread by Aedes species mosquitoes has appeared in the Americas. Zika virus, which causes symptoms of fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes, was first detected in Brazil during May 2015. The virus has since spread to 18 Brazilian states, as well as Colombia, [...]
Disease outbreaks can come from anywhere. In Arizona we’ve had illness from contaminated pomegranate seeds from the Middle East, measles from Switzerland, salmonellosis from African dwarf frogs and cholera from Peru. More recently a Canadian traveler died of H5N1 after she returned home from a long trip to China. An exotic disease from another country is only [...]
