The Nipah virus (NiV) is zoonotic, meaning it can be transmitted from animals to humans. It can also spread through contaminated food or directly between people. Recently, a 12-year-old boy in India died from the virus. This was shocking news as the southern Indian state of Kerala beat the Nipah virus in 2018. Now, doctors and researchers have to make more effort to prevent the spread of Nipah and try to understand it more.
Rabies is a fatal viral disease from the rhabdovirus family. When thinking about rabies, most people think of wild animals, intense drooling, and aggression. In North America rabies is typically found in wild animals such as bats, raccoons and foxes. But, in other areas of the world the most common carrier of rabies is dogs.
Typhoid fever can be a life-threatening infection caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi. Typically, typhoid is spread through sewage contaminated food or water and person-to-person contact. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it’s estimated that between 11 – 20 million people contract typhoid each year with roughly 128,000 – 161,000 cases resulting in death (WHO https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/typhoid). There are currently two vaccine options as well as antibiotic treatments available to treat typhoid.
In 500 BC famous philosopher Parmenides said “Give me the power to produce fever, and I’ll cure all disease”. Physicians in these early times noticed that their patients symptoms were drastically improved following a fever. Hippocrates, the Greek Physician noted that malarial fevers calmed his epileptic patients and several other physicians followed suit. The most notable physician to use fever therapy as a treatment is Austrian psychiatrist Julius Wagner-Jauregg in the early-20th century.
