There have been some intriguing developments in several infectious disease stories recently covered at Legal Insurrection.
In terms of the current Ebola outbreak, there are roughly 1,000+ suspected and confirmed cases and around 230–240 deaths across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda involving the Bundibugyo strain, with transmission still not fully contained.
As a reminder, the Bundibugyo strain has more than 30% genetic divergence from other orthoebolaviruses, including Zaire. This means that the vaccines and monoclonal therapies that have been developed to battle this hemorrhagic disease do not work, which is complicating efforts to contain this outbreak.
Another challenge is the community in which the outbreak is occurring. A burial team transporting the bodies of deceased Ebola patients was attacked en route. Meanwhile, 11 Ebola patients fled isolation.
A burial team was attacked and 11 Ebola patients fled isolation facilities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, as the outbreak spread to another health zone in the country’s hardest-hit province.A team attempting to safely bury an Ebola victim was assaulted in the South Kivu town of Katana, forcing workers to abandon the coffin and allowing community members to handle the body, an incident health officials warned could spark new chains of transmission.Meanwhile, patients escaped isolation facilities in the epicenter Ituri, while security remained unstable in parts of the province where armed groups continue to limit humanitarian access. Rimba became the 17th affected health zone in Ituri — and the 25th nationally — according to a situation report published Wednesday.“The geographic expansion toward Rimba demonstrates active community transmission,” the report said.
Interestingly, Ebola has made its way to the region of the DRC controlled by Islamic State militants.
A rare strain of Ebola has reached a corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo controlled by Islamic State militants, a place too dangerous for health workers fighting to stop the deadly virus.The Bundibugyo strain has killed one person in the militant-controlled territory of Mambasa, which is some 100 miles from the outbreak’s epicenter in a gold-mining town of Mongbwalu. Mambasa is the stronghold of the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamic State affiliate conducting an insurgency against Congolese and Ugandan troops.
Meanwhile, the furor over hantavirus has appeared to have tapered off dramatically. Those exposed to the virus on the Dutch cruise ship are quietly leaving federal quarantine centers to isolate at home.
Several Americans who were exposed to a rare strain of hantavirus on board a cruise ship this spring have returned home to finish the second half of their mandatory six-week quarantine.Five passengers have been released from the National Quarantine Unit, which is overseen by the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Thirteen others remain in the unit, although some will leave in the coming weeks to complete their monitoring at home, according to a statement from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“These people remain symptom-free and have met the criteria established by public health officials to safely continue monitoring at home,” the CDC said Monday.
Finally, Connecticut health officials recently reported the state’s its first positive case of the more virulent and transmissible clade I monkeypox.
A resident who recently traveled to Western Europe tested positive for the variant, the Connecticut Department of Public Health said.According to the DPH, the case was tested and confirmed at the State Public Health Laboratory in Rocky Hill. Officials have not said where the person who tested positive lives.The DPH noted that there are two types of the Mpox virus: clade I and clade II.Clade II has been spreading in the U.S. since a large outbreak in 2022. Clade I has mainly caused outbreaks in central and eastern Africa and has recently been found in Western Europe.“The difference between the two of them is clad I sometimes can cause more severe disease,” said Dr. Paul Anthony, assistant director of infectious diseases, Hartford Hospital.
There was a time when it felt like a shot of penicillin and a splash of iodine could handle just about anything — an era when modern medicine seemed firmly in charge.
Now, we’re watching a vaccine-resistant Ebola strain spread through conflict zones where containment breaks down at gunpoint, while monkeypox evolves and hantavirus quietly fades from the headlines after intense media focus.
It’s a stark reminder that the age of easy medical fixes seems to be long gone, despite credentialed “experts” and billions spent on research and public health bureaucracy.
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