APHL’s Top 10 Blog Posts of 2014

Wow, this has been quite a year for public health. Vaccine preventable disease outbreaks, MERS-CoV, chikungunya, EV-D68, and Ebola on top of the usual critical food safety, environmental health, preparedness and global health work being done by our members tested every system across the board. While I feel it is safe to say that no one wanted to face these issues for a multitude of reasons, we were beyond pleased to see public health laboratories face and respond to the many challenges of the year. As we hear from our members often, “It’s all in a day’s work.”

These are the blog posts that brought in the highest number of readers this year. Thank you to the APHL staff and members who wrote and contributed to these stories; and thank you to the many readers who keep coming back.

APHL's Top 10 Blog Posts of 2014 | www.aphlblog.org10. Safe Drinking Water Act has Been Protecting You for 40 Years – This year was the 40th anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the first national standard for public drinking water protections. Raise a glass of clean water with us! Cheers!

9. Where are They Now? APHL/CDC Emerging Infectious Disease Fellow Looks Back – Kayleigh Jennings, a former APHL/CDC Emerging Infectious Disease Fellow, shares some of the highlights of her fellowship experience. “I never would have had any of these life-changing experiences if not for this fellowship.”

8. MERS-CoV: Why We Are Not Panicking – Following the confirmation of two MERS-CoV cases in the US, the public began to worry that the outbreak could spread here. Some of APHL’s Infectious Disease program staff and Public Health Preparedness and Response program staff explained why they weren’t panicking. As they say in this blog post, “…We in the public health system are poised to handle MERS-CoV and other health threats whenever, wherever and however they enter our country.”

7. Could funding cuts to food safety programs make you sick? – We followed the journey of a hypothetical batch of peanuts from farm to table, so to speak. Along the way our peanuts became contaminated with Salmonella. But as funding cuts have deeply impacted food safety programs, would the contamination be detected early enough to prevent an outbreak? Or at least to stop an outbreak from spreading further?

6. USAMRIID: Biodefense from the Cold War to Present Day – Our Public Health Preparedness and Response program staff visited the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and shared some of what they learned about its history and the fascinating work done in their laboratories. At the time, we didn’t know that USAMRIID would be thrown into the public eye as the Ebola story unfolded.

5. Dylan Coleman Has a Story to Warm Your Heart – Thanks to newborn screening, Dylan Coleman had a simple non-invasive test that detected critical congenital heart disease (CCHD). Without this test, Dylan may not have survived. He was the first baby born in Maryland to be diagnosed with a heart defect as a result of this newly added test.

4. In US, Massive Effort to Detect and Respond to Ebola Already Underway – Just a few weeks before the first Ebola case was identified in the US, this blog post outlined how public health laboratories were preparing just in case. By the end of the month we all learned that this preparedness effort would be tested and ultimately shown to be successful.

3. Food Safety Funding Cuts in Action – Two days after our blog post on food safety funding cuts (see #7 above) went live, it became obvious that our hypothetical situation was playing out in real life with a stone-fruit recall. Testing performed in Australia found Listeria on stone fruit distributed from a company in California. A similar program in the US was cut from the budget on December 31, 2012; had this program still been in place, the contaminated fruit may have been identified and intercepted long before arriving in Australia.

2. Enterovirus D68 Testing, Surveillance and Prevention: What We’re Telling Our Friends – As there were more and more reports of Enterovirus D68 infections in kids, parents started to worry. APHL’s Infectious Disease program staff tried to address concerns and assure people that the clinical and public health communities could handle this outbreak.

The most read blog post for 2014…

1. Testing for MERS-CoV: The Indiana Lab’s Story – The staff at the Indiana State Department of Health Laboratories were kind enough to write about their encounter with MERS-CoV. They were the first laboratory in the US to have a positive MERS case. Thanks to effective preparedness efforts and highly qualified staff, they were able to quickly and safely obtain accurate results. This is public health!

 

For Global Handwashing Day, the ABCs of Washing Your Hands

Did you know that today, October 15, is Global Handwashing Day? It’s true! Even without a designated day, proper hand washing should always be a priority.

Why is hand washing so important?

  • It is estimated that washing hands with soap and water could reduce diarrheal disease-associated deaths by up to 50%. (CDC)
  • Researchers in London estimate that if everyone routinely washed their hands, a million deaths a year could be prevented. (CDC)
  • Handwashing can reduce the risk of respiratory infections by 16%. (CDC)
  • Handwashing with soap at critical times could help reduce school absenteeism by around 42 percent. (PPPHW)
  • When hand hygiene compliance in health facilities increases from less than 60% to 90%, there can be a 24% reduction in MRSA acquisition. (WHO)

What exactly is proper hand washing? It’s important to wet your hands with clean water and use soap. Rub your hands together and be sure to get every bit of your hand. Keep scrubbing for 20 seconds! We asked a few of APHL’s most special partners to demonstrate proper hand washing including a fun way to know you’ve been scrubbing for 20 seconds. Check out the video below and be sure to pass the message along!

 

ABCs of Good Handwashing from APHL on Vimeo.

 

Enterovirus D68 Testing, Surveillance and Prevention: What We’re Telling Our Friends

By Laura Iwig, MPH, Senior Specialist, Infectious Disease Program, Stephanie Chester, MS, Influenza Program and Kelly Wroblewski, MPH, MT (ASCP), Infectious Disease Program, APHL

Fall brings the start of many things every year – school, of course, but also respiratory virus season. And this year as both kick-off we’re faced with an outbreak of a virus that is new to many, enterovirus D68 (EV-D68). Terrifying headlines have loaded up our Facebook newsfeeds, so we’re here to straighten things out a bit. When our friends and family ask us about EV-D68, this is what we tell them.

Enterovirus D68 Testing, Surveillance and Prevention: What We’re Telling Our Friends | www.aphlblog.org

First of all, there are many enteroviruses and D68 is just one type. What makes EV-D68 unique is that it is causing severe illness in some people, particularly children which is always cause for concern. Keep in mind that while there are severe cases being reported, there very likely are also less severe cases of EV-D68 with typical cold-like symptoms going unreported. The number of severe cases is not necessarily the full picture. Despite there being no vaccine or specific treatment for EV-D68, it typically resolves itself without any complications.

We know this all sounds kind of scary especially when news reports are focusing on the most severe cases. But it is important to understand that the clinical and public health communities are well-equipped to deal with enterovirus outbreaks and actually respond to similar outbreaks on a routine basis. We and our partners are prepared.

Clinical, commercial and public health laboratories are conducting testing to determine if severe cases and/or outbreaks are being caused by an enterovirus or closely related rhinovirus. (Not specifically D68 – we’ll get to that below.) Many of these labs utilize rapid molecular methods to detect a wide array of respiratory pathogens, including enteroviruses.

If testing confirms that you do have an enterovirus and if you have severe symptoms, CDC is conducting additional testing to determine which type of enterovirus you may have. For the public, the value in differentiating EV-D68 from other related viruses is to provide real-time information to your doctor to help recognize symptoms associated with severe cases, identify them and get them early supportive treatment. For example, if your child has an underlying condition such as asthma and comes down with a cold that starts to become severe, his doctor might want to be more proactive in supportive care if they have learned from public health officials that EV-D68 was detected in your community. Knowing that it is EV-D68 is in the community or even a specific school can impact public health infection control measures and raise awareness for patients and parents to be more proactive about intervention if their child does get sick.

There is also significant value to the scientific and public health communities in determining if enterovirus cases and outbreaks are caused by EV-D68. Historically, this particular type of enterovirus has been rarely reported so we are still learning how easily it transmits, who is at risk for severe illness and how widespread the virus may be. In fact, some scientists are wondering if EV-D68 is truly as rare as many think or if our testing capabilities have improved allowing us to detect more cases. Science is a never ending process of information gathering. While most actions won’t be any different from other respiratory outbreaks if even if epidemiological and laboratory surveillance activities detect EV-D68, these investigations may change how we deal with outbreaks like these in the future making us more prepared.

What can you do to protect yourself and your family?

  • Wash your hands frequently with soap and water! Alcohol based hand sanitizers do not work against enteroviruses.
  • Avoid close contact with those who are sick.
  • Clean and disinfect surfaces, especially those touched by those who are ill. The virus can be easily killed on surfaces.

For now, we are reassuring our friends and family that the clinical and public health communities are prepared and are responding to this outbreak. That gives us peace of mind and hopefully it will do the same for you.