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As the WHO emergency focal point for West Africa, whenever there is an emergency in the region, Dr. Ngoy Nsenga is one of the first to be deployed. Following confirmation of Ebola cases in Guinea, Nsenga went to Sierra Leone to help assess emergency response capacity. During his trip, the first signs of Ebola crossing the border were detected. Originally from DRC, Nsenga quickly realized that the few cases in Kailahun could quickly become a serious health emergency.

By engineering antibacterial enzymes, Dartmouth investigators led by Karl Griswold, PhD are using novel strategies to target the prevalent drug-resistant bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. Recent papers in FEMS Microbiology Letters and Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology describe their findings from a genome mining effort seeking novel antibacterial agents. A third paper published in ACS Chemical Biology examines redesigned versions of human lysozyme, a broad-spectrum antibacterial enzyme.

International travelers are bringing a multidrug-resistant intestinal illness to the United States and spreading it to others who have not traveled, according to a report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Shigella sonnei bacteria resistant to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin sickened 243 people in 32 states and Puerto Rico between May 2014 and February 2015. Research by the CDC found that the drug-resistant illness was being repeatedly introduced as ill travelers returned and was then infecting other people in a series of outbreaks around the country.

The microbes could surrender to the harmless virus, but instead freeze in place, dormant, waiting for their potential predator to go away, according to a recent study in mBio. University of Illinois researchers found that Sulfolobus islandicus can go dormant, ceasing to grow and reproduce, in order to protect themselves from infection by Sulfolobus spindle-shaped virus 9 (SSV9). The dormant microbes are able to recover if the virus goes away within 24 to 48 hours--otherwise they die.

Products that claim to control bed bugs have been on the market for years. Some work, and some don't. Dr. Susan Jones, a professor of entomology at Ohio State University, knows this as well as anyone, after having tested many such products for years. While there have been some flops in the past, she and her colleagues have found one that looks promising as a new tool for bed bug control programs. The results of their research are published in an article in the Journal of Medical Entomology.

Purdue researchers have identified a new class of chemical insecticides that could provide a safer, more selective means of controlling mosquitoes that transmit key infectious diseases such as dengue, yellow fever and elephantiasis.

The Bacillus cereus bacteria is one of the potential causes of food poisoning. A recent study in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry shows that this versatile pathogen produces 19 different variants of a poison that causes nausea and vomiting in human beings. This variety could explain why some cases are relatively benign and others can result in death.

Dr. Christina Lee, an Anglo-Saxon expert from the School of English has enlisted the help of microbiologists from University of Nottinham’s Centre for Biomolecular Sciences to recreate a 10th century potion for eye infections from Bald’s Leechbook an Old English leatherbound volume in the British Library, to see if it really works as an antibacterial remedy. The Leechbook is widely thought of as one of the earliest known medical textbooks and contains Anglo-Saxon medical advice and recipes for medicines, salves and treatments.

Cristiana Salvi, a risk communications specialist from WHO’s European regional office was deployed to Guinea at the end of April and into early May 2014 to provide social mobilization support to the Ebola response. Social mobilization involves working with communities to gain their acceptance of the need for early identification of people with illness, early treatment and identification and follow up of all people who have been in contact with people confirmed to have Ebola virus disease. Salvi was among the first from WHO offices other than headquarters and the African office to provide support to the field response, many others followed from the “wider WHO.” She traveled to Gueckedou where communities had begun to hide people who were sick, fearing treatment centers, believing rumours Ebola response teams were there for sinister purposes. This is what she found.

On a hot afternoon in November 2014, Benin’s minister of health, Dr. Dorothée Kinde Gazard and WHO country representative Dr. Youssouf Gamatié visited the Hôpital de Saint Jean de Dieu in Tanguiéta, in the country’s northwest. They were in a somber frame of mind. Four employees of the hospital had died from a severe febrile illness, some with signs of a viral hemorrhagic fever, over a period of two weeks – an event that for public health experts sounds the alarm for an outbreak of a dangerous infectious disease. Given the current Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa, one thing immediately came to mind – Benin could become the fourth.