Disease Surveillance

COVID-19 is more contagious but less deadly than SARS. The mortality rate of COVID-19 is between 1-2% versus 9.6% for SARS. Meanwhile, COVID-19 has spread much faster and infected over 75,000 people in 2 months compared to SARS, which took 8 months to affect over 8,000. Nonetheless, the two…

Whitney J. Palmer — Diagnostic Imaging Radiology researchers from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor have determined what was in common in chest CT scans from patients who tested positive for coronavirus-associated pneumonia. The researchers…

On the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship that is quarantined off the coast of Japan has a total of 69 passengers diagnosed with the coronavirus. Now, cruise lines are to issue quarantines and perform tests and screenings. Ports are denying entry to cruise ships because of the fear of the virus…

The intensity of media coverage in English during the first month of the current Coronavirus outbreak (Jan. 2020) was so much more than during the first month of the current Ebola outbreak (Aug. 2018). There are many theories for why this is the case including: the novelty of Coronavirus, the…

Lily Lee and Joshua Berlinger — CNN World The US Embassy in Beijing confirmed that a 60-year-old US national has died from the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China on Thursday. Authorities believe this to be the first foreigner to die from the coronavirus. This was followed by China’s deadliest day…

As of February 2nd, 2020, the U.S has implemented travel restrictions to contain the coronavirus. The virus has killed more than 300 people and infected 16,600 people worldwide. The restriction includes denying entry to foreign nationals who visited China 14 days prior to their return to the US.…

In Beni, North-Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, there have been 72 civilians who have been killed recently due to rebel fighter attacks. This is the same city that is at the center of the Ebola outbreak that has been going on since May 2018 and this unrest has significantly hindered…

A Canadian health monitoring platform called Bluedot uses an AI driven algorithm to monitor and predict the spread of diseases. The algorithm uses global airline ticketing data, reports of animal disease outbreaks, and foreign news reports in 65 languages to generate data. Epidemiologists further…

The WHO reports that hundreds of millions of people acquire healthcare-associated infections every year, which is comprised of 7% of hospitalized patients in developed countries and 10% of hospitalized patients in developing countries. One major way to combat this is ensuring that health care…

The Wuhan coronavirus is believed to have started in a food market. There have been over 50 fatalities, and over 1,900 confirmed cases of the disease in 11 different countries. Canada has now reported its first case of the virus, and all that were in contact with the man in Toronto are being…

China is facing a challenge as a new coronavirus is spreading as hundreds of millions of people are planning to travel for the Lunar New Year, which consists of a large human migration and is the most important Chinese holiday. It was first identified in Wuhan, China. The virus has infected 300…

Nearly a quarter of young adults, and a fifth of adolescents are pre-diabetic in the US. The numbers are increasing and putting young people at risk for developing Type II diabetes. 9 in 10 adults don't even know they have diabetes. Diet and exercise are the main ways to prevent from getting…

The current Ebola outbreak happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been specifically exacerbated by the civil unrest surrounding the outbreak areas interfering with the outbreak efforts. For example, there is a current vaccine for Ebola that is being used to slow the spread of…

-- AP News Reports from Nigeria, Congo, Central African Republic, and Angola state that they have linked more cases of polio in children from the oral vaccine than from the wild virus. There are two countries where polio is still endemic: Afghanistan and Pakistan. The WHO report found that the…