Word: spreading
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...landslides after Ketsana and typhoon Parma tore into Luzon, the country's largest island, in late September and early October. Four weeks later, sections of the city and some surrounding provinces are still underwater, and state-run hospitals have been overwhelmed by an outbreak of leptospirosis, a bacterial disease spread from the urine of infected rats and other animals. (In Sri Lanka, where there was a large outbreak in 2008, leptospirosis is known as "rat fever.") The bacterium is transmitted by the standing floodwater through cuts in the skin and by people swallowing contaminated water. This month's leptospirosis outbreak...
...hospitals and governments on the local level to more rapidly prepare triage sites and procedures to handle any future surge in sick patients. A hospital in danger of being overrun by H1N1 patients would be allowed to segregate them in a separate site for treatment, which might slow the spread of the disease. It's not unlike declaring an emergency before a hurricane hits landfall - the action removes legal barriers that might slow a rapid response. (See what you need to know about the H1N1 vaccine...
...from New England to the Pacific Northwest. The new technology does have support - for now. Fuels for Schools is a six-state program funded by federal and state money that helps to retrofit school boilers, switching them from burning oil and gas to wood. Starting in Vermont, it spread westward, giving budget-strapped local districts huge savings and a way to cut into buildups of forest deadfall that might otherwise fuel wildfires. However, it is now almost out of federal money. Even after the program helped retrofit heating systems in 10 Montana schools, the last state legislature refused to renew...
...best way to slow the growth of those numbers would be to rapidly manufacture and distribute the new H1N1 vaccine. But that's proven even more difficult than health officials anticipated when the virus first began spreading in the spring. Drug manufacturers have experienced setbacks growing the vaccine - instead of the 120 million doses the CDC had initially hoped to have by the end of October, the real number will likely be closer to 30 million. "Vaccine production is much less predictable than we wish," says Frieden. "We are nowhere near where we thought...
Bolivia's challenge now is to maintain the good numbers. The last time Bolivia witnessed a plummet in diarrheal-disease rates was during the cholera outbreak of 1992 and 1993, when better personal-hygiene habits led to a reduction in the spread of infection. But as the threat of the disease died down, so too did people's standards of cleanliness. Lenis says that the Bolivian government is committed to continuing its media campaigns and that ongoing potable-water and sewage-system expansion projects will help make Bolivians healthier. Most important, however, is keeping up the education, says Lenis. "Adults...