Global Microbial Threats in the 1990s - CDC

A look back to the 1990's from the CDC website:

Do you remember these stories and issues?

COMMENTS - mine:

Hanavirus - 1993 - Rodents in the Four Corner's area of the Southwest...

Dengue - 1993 - Breakbone fever -- Central and South America

Leptospirosis - 1995 - Gone?  Not really, still endemic in Central & South American as well as the Middle East

Yellow fever - 1995 - Yellow Fever killed thousands in 18th Century Philadelphia and there were a few cases in Florida in the last decade (or I've mixed it up); Yellow fever defeated the French when they first tried to build a canal across the isthmus of Panama before America succeeded at the start of the 20th century.

Cholera - 1991 -- Not really, 2010 & 2011 Haiti - with thousands dead and tens of thousands affected.

Anthrax 1993 - Not really, remember the post office anthrax acts less just 10 years ago. Anthrax is present in the soil and endemic in domesticated animals in countries like Haiti (even before the earthquake). I'm referring to cutaneous anthrax, not pulmonary or systemic anthrax.

Lassa Fever - 1992 -- not too much activity recently

HIV-1, subtype O - 1994 - haven't tracked subtypes

Bolivian hemorrhagic fever- 1994 - not too much activity recently

Variant CJ Disease - 1996 - MAD COWS, thousands, no tens or hundreds of thousands of cattle 'culled' to stop or address this prion disease problem.

Diphtheria - 1993 - resurgence of a disease controlled by vaccination but recurred when ex-Warsaw Pact nations and the Soviet Union vaccination and public health efforts crumbled.

Rift Valley Fever - 1993 - still out there

Ebola - 1995 - talk of the year, bleeding from everywhere, not much in the last 10-15 years, but it is still out there. 


Plague - 1994 - yes the same that is credited for the 'Black Death' in Europe - fleas with plaque jump off dead rodents onto people and without antibiotics the outcome isn't very good.

E.Coli 0157:H7 - 1996 - it's still out there, surfacing annually somewhere...

Morbillivirus - 1994 - still out there

NOTE: The take away message is that even though it is not headline news, breaking news, developing news or stories, doesn't mean it is not out there. It doesn't take a very significant loss of infrastructure services to raise the threat of biological disease.

CDC/NCID - 1997
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