Pestilence in Divers Places Here and There!
July 29, 2012
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I issued the 2 following Archive Excerpt Paragraphs some 12 years ago regarding drug-resistant strains developing against infectious diseases.
Begin Quote
The World Health Organization (WHO) fears that tuberculosis may kill 30 million worldwide during the next decade. The emergence of drug-resistant strains is hampering efforts by health agencies to slow the renewed spread of the consumptive illness. Another sort of “loimos” is malaria, which is on the rise around the world, and once curative treatments are losing their effect. It is a pestilence of global dimensions, and new strains are evolving that scientists fear will be untreatable.
But what about all the microbes generating all this pestilence, this “loimos,” these deadly infectious disorders, what are they doing, how are they behaving? Are they doing something that will make the pestilences continue to act like a woman’s birth pangs through the tribulation period? Yes! A leading national magazine cover, back in the last century, carried the bold print title: “REVENGE OF THE KILLER MICROBES – ARE WE LOSING THE WAR AGAINST INFECTIOUS DISEASES?” Tuft’s Levy answered the question in Newsweek Magazine by stating: “The rise of drug-resistant germs is unparalleled in recorded biologic history.”
End Quote
Luke 21:11,28 – And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and PESTIILENCES; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. [28] And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
The basic root meaning of the word “loimos,” translated “pestilence,” is simply “any deadly infectious disorder.”
Diseases continue to catch the world off guard
Diseases thought to be retreating are making a deadly comeback while new killer diseases have emerged
Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome
Dengue
Plague
Epidemic typhus
HIV/AIDS
Legionnaires’ disease
Marburg virus
New variant CJD
Ebola
E. coli infections
Diphtheria
Meningitis
Cholera
Begin Excerpt from Wikipedia on some Antibiotic Resistant Pathogens
Resistant pathogens
Staphylococcus aureus
Main article: MRSA
Staphylococcus aureus (colloquially known as “Staph aureus” or a “Staph infection”) is one of the major resistant pathogens. Found on the mucous membranes and the human skin of around a third of the population, it is extremely adaptable to antibiotic pressure. Half of all S. aureus infections in the US are resistant to penicillin, methicillin, tetracycline and erythromycin.
This left vancomycin as the only effective agent available at the time. However, strains with intermediate (4-8 μg/ml) levels of resistance, termed glycopeptide-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (GISA) or vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (VISA), began appearing in the late 1990s. The first identified case was in Japan in 1996, and strains have since been found in hospitals in England, France and the US. The first documented strain with complete (>16 μg/ml) resistance to vancomycin, termed vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA) appeared in the United States in 2002.[57] However, in 2011 a variant of vancomycin has been tested that binds to the lactate variation and also binds well to the original target, thus reinstates potent antimicrobial activity.
Community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA)has now emerged as an epidemic that is responsible for rapidly progressive, fatal diseases, including necrotizing pneumonia, severe sepsis and necrotizing fasciitis.[59] MRSA is the most frequently identified antimicrobial drug-resistant pathogen in US hospitals. The epidemiology of infections caused by MRSA is rapidly changing. In the past 10 years, infections caused by this organism have emerged in the community. The two MRSA clones in the United States most closely associated with community outbreaks, USA400 (MW2 strain, ST1 lineage) and USA300, often contain Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) genes and, more frequently, have been associated with skin and soft tissue infections. Outbreaks of CA-MRSA infections have been reported in correctional facilities, among athletic teams, among military recruits, in newborn nurseries, and among men who have sex with men. CA-MRSA infections now appear endemic in many urban regions and cause most CA-S. aureus infections.
Streptococcus and Enterococcus
Resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae to penicillin and other beta-lactams is increasing worldwide. The major mechanism of resistance involves the introduction of mutations in genes encoding penicillin-binding proteins. Selective pressure is thought to play an important role, and use of beta-lactam antibiotics has been implicated as a risk factor for infection and colonization. S. pneumoniae is responsible for pneumonia, bacteremia, otitis media, meningitis, sinusitis, peritonitis and arthritis.
Multidrug-resistant Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium are associated with nosocomial infections.[63] Among these strains, penicillin-resistant Enterococcus was seen in 1983, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus in 1987, and linezolid-resistant Enterococcus in the late 1990s.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a highly prevalent opportunistic pathogen. One of the most worrisome characteristics of P. aeruginosa is its low antibiotic susceptibility, which is attributable to a concerted action of multidrug efflux pumps with chromosomally encoded antibiotic resistance genes Besides intrinsic resistance, P. aeruginosa easily evolves specific resistance either by mutation in chromosomally-encoded genes, or by the horizontal gene transfer of antibiotic resistance determinants. Evolution of multidrug resistance by P. aeruginosa isolates requires several genetic events that include acquisition of different mutations and/or horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes. Hypermutation favours the selection of mutation-driven antibiotic resistance in P. aeruginosa strains, producing chronic infections, whereas the clustering of several different antibiotic resistance genes in integrons favours the concerted acquisition of antibiotic resistance determinants.
Clostridium difficile
Clostridium difficile is a nosocomial pathogen that causes diarrheal disease in hospitals world wide. Clindamycin-resistant C. difficile was reported as the causative agent of large outbreaks of diarrheal disease in hospitals in New York, Arizona, Florida and Massachusetts between 1989 and 1992. Geographically dispersed outbreaks of C. difficile strains resistant to fluoroquinolone antibiotics, such as ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin, were also reported in North America in 2005.
Salmonella and E. coli
Escherichia coli and Salmonella come directly from contaminated food. When both bacteria are spread, serious health conditions arise. Many people are hospitalized each year after becoming infected, with some dying as a result. By 1993, E. coli resistant to multiple fluoroquinolone variants was documented.
Acinetobacter baumannii
On November 5, 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported an increasing number of Acinetobacter baumannii bloodstream infections in patients at military medical facilities in which service members injured in the Iraq/Kuwait region during Operation Iraqi Freedom and in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom were treated. Most of these showed multidrug resistance (MRAB), with a few isolates resistant to all drugs tested.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to isoniazid, rifampin, and other common treatments has become an increasingly relevant clinical challenge.
End Excerpt from Wikipedia
Begin Excerpt from World News via The Associated Press
Updated: 10:58 a.m. Saturday, July 28, 2012
Posted: 10:56 a.m. Saturday, July 28, 2012
Officials: Ebola breaks out in Uganda
By RODNEY MUHUMUZA
The Associated Press
KAMPALA, Uganda —
The deadly Ebola virus has killed 14 people in western Uganda this month, Ugandan health officials said on Saturday, ending weeks of speculation about the cause of a strange disease that had many people fleeing their homes.
The officials and a World Health Organization representative told a news conference in Kampala Saturday that there is “an outbreak of Ebola” in Uganda.
“Laboratory investigations done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute…have confirmed that the strange disease reported in Kibaale is indeed Ebola hemorrhagic fever,” the Ugandan government and WHO said in joint statement.
Kibaale is a district in midwestern Uganda, where people in recent weeks have been troubled by a mysterious illness that seemed to have come from nowhere. Ugandan health officials had been stumped as well, and spent weeks conducting laboratory tests that were at first inconclusive.
On Friday, Joaquim Saweka, the WHO representative in Uganda, told The Associated Press that investigators were “not so sure” it was Ebola, and a Ugandan health official dismissed the possibility of Ebola as merely a rumor. It appears firm evidence of Ebola was clinched overnight.
Health officials told reporters in Kampala that the 14 dead were among 20 reported with the disease. Two of the infected have been isolated for examination by researchers and health officials. A clinical officer and, days later, her 4-month-old baby died from the disease caused by the Ebola virus, officials said.
Officials urged Ugandans to be calm, saying a national emergency taskforce had been set up to stop the disease from spreading far and wide.
There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola, and in Uganda, where in 2000 the disease killed 224 people and left hundreds more traumatized, it resurrects terrible memories.
Ebola, which manifests itself as a hemorrhagic fever, is highly infectious and kills quickly. It was first reported in 1976 in Congo and is named for the river where it was recognized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Scientists don’t know the natural reservoir of the virus, but they suspect the first victim in an Ebola outbreak gets infected through contact with an infected animal, such as a monkey.
The virus can be transmitted in several ways, including through direct contact with the blood of an infected person. During communal funerals, for example, when the bereaved come into contact with an Ebola victim, the virus can be contracted, officials said, warning against unnecessary contact with suspected cases of Ebola.
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