Four reported outbreaks of unusual infections around the world have illustrated the surprising potential of new microbes to emerge and old ones to return with a vengeance, MSNBC reported Wednesday.
"On a good day, we hold them at bay. On a bad day, they're winning," said Dr. Michael Osterholm of Ican Inc., an Internet information company focusing on infectious diseases.
MSNBC said Osterholm, who was Minnesota's state epidemiologist for 24 years, wrote an editorial on emerging infections in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, which carried reports on the four outbreaks.
The cases include a Nebraska farm boy who caught drug-resistant salmonella from infected cows; Malaysian pig farmers killed by microbes caught from their animals; and hundreds of Italian schoolchildren sickened by bacteria-contaminated cold corn salad. Finally, a diabetic Atlanta boy needed bowel surgery twice for a severe bacterial infection after eating a holiday chitterlings feast, said MSNBC.
"The microbes are challenging us in ways we wouldn't have imagined 10 years ago and for which we're not prepared," said Dr. James Hughes, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta – Albawaba.com
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