Emerging Infectious Diseases

This podcast looks at bloodstream infections with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and other pathogens among outpatients infected with HIV in Southeast Asia. CDC health scientist Kimberly McCarthy discusses the study and why bloodstream infections occur in HIV-infected populations.

In this podcast, CDC's Dr. David Swerdlow discusses the relationship between Helicobacter pylori and peptic ulcer disease and trends in hospitalization rates for peptic ulcer disease in the United States between 1998 and 2005.

This podcast describes public health surveillance and communication in hard to reach populations in Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego County, California. Dr. Marian McDonald, Associate Director of CDC's Health Disparities in the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, discusses the importance of being flexible in determining the most effective media for health communications.

This podcast describes paralytic poliomyelitis infections acquired by immune-deficient Iranian children following their exposure to live-virus polio vaccine. Olen Kew, Associate Director for Global Laboratory Science at CDC, discusses implications of the use of live-virus vaccines in global polio eradication efforts.

This podcast describes the outbreak of Rickettsia felis in Kenya between August 2006 and June 2008, and in rural Senegal from November 2008 through July 2009. CDC infectious disease pathologist Dr. Chris Paddock discusses what researchers learned about this flea-borne disease and how to prevent infection.

This podcast describes monitoring of the use of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis for Salmonella surveillance in Houston, Texas. CDC microbiologist Peter Gerner-Smidt discusses the importance of the PulseNet national database in surveillance of food-borne infections.

This podcast describes the re-emergence of Rift Valley Fever in Madagascar during two rainy seasons in 2008 and 2009. CDC epidemiologist Dr. Pierre Rollin discusses what researchers learned about the outbreak and about infections in the larger population in Madagascar.

This podcast describes a 10-year study of the use of postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) for rabies in New York State. CDC's Dr. Brett Petersen discusses the prevalence of rabies in the United States and how the study lends support to recent changes in the recommended PEP protocol.

This podcast describes the emergence of the first human cases of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever in Sudan in 2008. CDC epidemiologist Dr. Stuart Nichol discusses how the disease was found in Sudan and how it spread in a hospital there.

This podcast describes monitoring of Haemophilus influenzae disease in Europe from 1996 through 2006. CDC epidemiologist Stacey Martin discusses what researchers learned about the effect of vaccination on disease prevalence.

This podcast describes an investigation into how H1N1 was spreading within households during the initial days of the pandemic in Texas. CDC's Dr. Oliver Morgan discusses what investigators learned about the role that children played in introducing the virus into households and spreading flu.

This podcast describes the emergence of increasingly drug resistant tuberculosis at a mine in South Africa. CDC’s Dr. Dixie Snider discusses the outbreak and some of the reasons it may have occurred, despite the existence of a well-functioning TB control program at the mine.

Influenza cases are difficult to track because many people don't go to the doctor or get tested for flu when they're sick. The first months of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic were no different. In this podcast, CDC's Dr. Carrie Reed discusses a study in the December issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases that looked at the actual number of cases reported and estimated the true number of cases when correcting for underreporting.

In this podcast, Dr. Scott Dowell discusses the first cases of the new H1N1 influenza virus in China in May 2009, which occurred in three students who had been studying in North America during the early days of the pandemic and returned home to visit their friends and family. Chinese health officials acted swiftly to investigate and determine whether the students had spread their illness to others. The article, which appears in the September 2009 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, details what they found.

In this podcast, Dr. Greg Dasch discusses an outbreak of four cases of sylvatic typhus that occurred at a wilderness camp in Pennsylvania. Sylvatic typhus is very rare in the United States, with only 41 cases since it was discovered in the United States in 1975. Lab work at CDC and the discovery that all four camp counselors who became ill had slept in the same bunk at the camp between 2004 and 2006 ultimately led to confirmation that flying squirrels living in the wall of the cabin were to blame for the illnesses.