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Swine flu goes global

03 May 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles assures us that Jesus brings healing, and healing is what the world needs at the moment as it is confronted with the threat of a swine flu epidemic. The World Health Organization raised the flu pandemic alert level to a 5 at a Wednesday meeting, signaling that the outbreaks pose a risk of reaching pandemic proportions. The maximum level is six. The number of deaths in Mexico as of Tuesday morning was at least 150, with another 2,400 people sickened. WHO has confirmed 66 cases in the United States and 105 in seven other countries. In an interview with CNN, Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, confirmed the flu death of a 23-month-old child in Texas--the first death outside Mexico. Mexico has suspended all schools until May 6, and in Mexico City other public venues have closed and public events have been cancelled. The U.S., the European Union, and several Asian health commissioners have discouraged nonessential travel to Mexico. In an age of widespread air travel, it is difficult, if not impossible, to contain a newly emerged infectious agent, and that is proving to be the case with swine flu. "At this time," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general of WHO, "containment is not a feasible option." The name of the flu has caused some controversy. Dr. Nikki Shindo, a WHO flu expert, said WHO affiliates around the world will consider a request from the Food and Agriculture Organization to stop calling the disease swine flu, because the virus is not food-borne and has nothing to do with eating pork. The World Organization for Animal Health, which handles veterinary issues around the world, issued a statement late Monday suggesting that the new disease should be labeled "North American influenza," in keeping with a long medical tradition of naming influenza pandemics for the regions where they were first identified. Source: Articles by the Associated Press and Keith Bradsher for the New York Times and Thomas H. Maugh II for the Los Angeles Times

world health organization nikki shindo keiji fukuda mexico centers for disease control and prevention richard besser pandemic epidemic swine flu influenza
Energized to fight Ebola

21 Sep 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“The Lord is near to all who call upon him,” affirms the psalmist this Sunday. Responding to calls for aid from desperate West African nations, the Obama administration on Tuesday outlined a dramatic expansion of the American response to the Ebola epidemic. The U.S. will send 3,000 military engineers, medical personnel, and other troops to West Africa to build 17 treatment centers with 100 beds each and train thousands of healthcare workers.The United States hopes its expanded effort to contain the spread of the virus will help rally other countries in ramping up the global response to the epidemic, U.S. aid official Nancy Lindborg told a U.S. House of Representatives committee.The first planeload of hospital equipment will arrive in Liberia on Friday, a senior administration official said on Wednesday. The plane is the first of 13 air shipments headed for Monrovia, carrying equipment for a 25-bed hospital to be built in Liberia's capital.The facility will be staffed by 65 Americans who will treat healthcare workers infected while fighting the worst outbreak of the virus on record, according to Lindborg. The epidemic has killed nearly 2,500 people, about half those infected."The hope, and the goal, is that, inspired by the response of the U.S. . . . . there will be a ramped-up response from a large number of international actors," Lindborg, assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.Britain is expected to announce its own plans for tackling the epidemic soon, and the need for global action was to be discussed at a United Nations meeting on Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has held discussions with other countries about their Ebola response as part of his recent meetings with international leaders in Paris, she said. The African Union and the European Union are also mobilizing resources.Homily hint: Ebola will become a worldwide epidemic very quickly if nations do not unite to address the current epidemic gripping West Africa. It appears the world is beginning to pay attention; let us hope it is not too late. Pray for all those who have died and all who suffer from this deadly affliction without the medical care they need. Source: An article by David Morgan for Reuters

ebola epidemics world health
Is science or panic driving U.S. Ebola policies?

02 Nov 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“I will not reject anyone who comes to me,” Jesus promises in this Sunday’s gospel reading. Health-care workers returning from volunteer stints in Ebola-stricken African nations are receiving a different kind of reception upon landing at airports in New York or New Jersey—mandatory 21-day quarantine. But such extreme measures are provoking dissent from both health experts and some returning health-care professionals. A nurse who returned home to Maine after treating Ebola patients in West Africa said Wednesday she wouldn’t comply with a state quarantine, keeping a spotlight on a person hailed by some as a defender of individual rights and criticized by others as risking public health. Kaci Hickox, 33 years old, said she had no symptoms of the disease and wouldn’t remain in isolation past Thursday, setting up a possible legal test of state polices meant to prevent the spread of the virus. Health officials want her to stay home until Nov. 10, when the 21-day Ebola incubation period would end. “I am not going to sit around and be bullied by politicians and forced to stay in my home when I am not a risk to the American public,” Hickox said. Maine health officials said Wednesday they were seeking a court order to enforce a quarantine but were also trying to negotiate a solution with Hickox and her lawyers. “We have been pleading for common sense,” Maine Commissioner of Health and Human Services Mary Mayhew said. State law says Maine can impose a quarantine “in the event of an actual or threatened epidemic or public health threat.” Hickox landed in New Jersey on Friday after a five-week stint with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone. She was quarantined in a tent in Newark until she was allowed to return home Monday amid her complaints about the necessity of the confinement and conditions of her confinement. The American Nurses Association, a large professional organization, said in a statement late Wednesday that it backed Hickox’s challenge of the quarantine. Politicians including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Maine Gov. Paul LePage have defended the quarantine approach. “While we certainly respect the rights of one individual, we must be vigilant in protecting 1.3 million Mainers, as well as anyone who visits,” said LePage. Homily hint: History is full of tales of contagious illnesses made worse by panic and misinformation. While the word “epidemic” strikes fear, concern must be balanced by a calm review of the evidence. Let our response to Ebola be cautious, measured, and respectful. Source: Articles by Jennifer Levitz and Scott Calvert for the Wall Street Journal

Illness epidemic ebola panic
New form of typhoid resists treatment

17 May 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In the gospel commemorating the Ascension this Sunday, Jesus promises his followers that “they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Medical staff are struggling to help those suffering from typhoid to recover as an antibiotic-resistant strain of the bacteria causing typhoid spreads worldwide, reaching epidemic proportions in parts of Africa. "This multidrug-resistant strain, H58, is resistant to a number of first-line antibiotics used to treat the disease and is continuing to evolve and acquire new mutations to newer drugs," said Vanessa Wong, a microbiologist at the University of Cambridge in England. Homily hint: The ability of disease agents to evolve and resist treatments points to the urgency of healthcare funding worldwide. Support efforts at home and abroad to shift resources from weapons of war to weapons against disease.The gospel of life calls us to such action. For more on the crisis with typhoid, see: Antibiotic-resistant typhoid reaches epidemic level

epidemic healthcare typhoid budget priorities gospel of life
Zika virus spreads, threatens pregnancies

31 Jan 2016 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In the first reading this Sunday the Lord says to the prophet Jeremiah by way of reminder, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” Concern for the impact a mosquito-borne virus is having on the development of children in the womb, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday the Zika virus is "spreading explosively' in the Americas and called an emergency meeting next week to determine how to confront the crisis. The virus has been associated with a sharp jump in the birth of babies with abnormally small heads. In some cases, it can also attack the nervous system, causing paralysis. Homily hint: Each new season seems to bring a new global health crisis or epidemic or a rare new disease. We live in a global village now, where we can step onto a plane in one country and deplane a few hours later halfway around the world. Though we can shrink in terror from this increased contact, we can also take it as an opportunity to strengthen the bonds between and among peoples and cultures and work together to solve our shared problems—and, it seems, our shared epidemics. For more on the Zika virus, see: WHO: Zika virus 'spreading explosively' in Americas; WHO: Zika virus ‘spreading explosively,’ ‘level of alarm extremely high’

pregnant women epidemics zika virus
The painful effect of opioid overuse

02 Apr 2017 - Preaching the News for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

“This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God,” Jesus says of Lazarus’ illness in this Sunday’s gospel. Sadly, the scourge of opioid addiction is ending an increasing number of lives in misery and death rather than glory. Heroin use in the United States jumped fivefold over a decade, and young, white males are the epidemic's most likely victims, a new study finds. One addiction specialist blamed the lax use of prescription opioid painkillers—narcotics such as Oxycontin, Percocet, and Vicodin—for the surge in heroin use. “A nation awash with prescription opioids has led to a large increase in addiction, overdose deaths, and transition to heroin-fentanyl [a powerful synthetic opioid],” said Bertha Madras, a professor of psychobiology at Harvard Medical School. She wrote an editorial that accompanied the study. "Heroin use appears to have become more socially acceptable among suburban and rural white individuals, perhaps because its effects seem so similar to those of widely available prescription opioids," Dr. Silvia Martins, associate professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia, and colleagues wrote in the study, published online in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Opioid overdose kills about 78 people a day in the United States. In 2015, more than 33,000 died of opioid overdoses, a record high, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The latest research only adds more troubling statistics to the trend. In the study, Columbia University researchers surveyed more than 79,000 people and found the proportion of Americans using heroin doubled between the years 2001-2002 and 2012-2013. The prevalence of heroin addiction increased threefold, the researchers reported. And the increases have been seen most among the disadvantaged, according to lead researcher Martins. "While heroin use is now more widespread among individuals of all social classes and among those with stronger bonds to social institutions, relative increases in heroin use and use disorder across time were greater among less educated and poorer individuals," Martins said. These are concerning trends because increases are occurring among vulnerable people who have few resources to overcome the problems associated with heroin use, she added. The findings followed a statement from the American College of Physicians calling for drug addiction and substance abuse disorders to be treated as a chronic medical condition like diabetes or hypertension. Deaths from opioid drug overdoses have hit an all-time record in the United States, rising 14 percent in just one year, and heroin deaths quadrupled between 2002 and 2013. States hit hardest by the last recession have the most cases of abuse. Lessons drawn from the readings “I will put my spirit in you that you may live,” promises the Lord in this Sunday’s first reading. Some have linked drug addiction to the loss of spiritual roots that afflicts so many Americans. The search for meaning and transcendence leads people down many paths and sadly, some of them end in the misery of addiction. As part of treating addiction as a health issue, the spiritual dimension should not be overlooked. It often holds the key to recovery. Final thought in light of the news “Even from the depths of despair, the cry of those who trust in God is heard,” says the psalmist this Sunday. Those in addiction cry out for help in their powerlessness. Let us as a nation respond with a combination of smart, well-designed programs, wide access to resources, and deep levels of compassion.

opiods heroin prescription drug abuse substance abuse drug addiction drug overdoses opiod epidemic
Fact of the week

02 Apr 2017 - Preaching the News for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

It's estimated that about 80 percent of heroin users transitioned to heroin from prescription opioids. Heroin Epidemic Expands Its Grip on America

heroin opiods prescription drug abuse substance abuse opiod epidemic
Fact of the week

07 May 2017 - Preaching the News for the Fourth Sunday of Easter; Good Shepherd Sunday, Cycle A

Death rates have been rising for middle-aged white Americans, in large part due to the toll of the opioid epidemic. CBS News

opiod epidemic