Wastewater Surveillance of US Coast Guard Installations and Seagoing Military Vessels to Mitigate the Risk of COVID-19 Outbreaks, March 2021-August 2022.

Objectives: Military training centers and seagoing vessels are often environments at high risk for the spread of COVID-19 and other contagious diseases, because military trainees and personnel arrive after traveling from many parts of the country and live in congregate settings. We examined whether levels of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material in wastewater correlated with SARS-CoV-2 infections among military personnel living in communal barracks and vessels at US Coast Guard training centers in the United States.

Methods: The Coast Guard developed and established 3 laboratories with wastewater testing capability at Coast Guard training centers from March 2021 through August 2022.

Diversity and geographical distribution of Leishmania species and the emergence of Leishmania (Leishmania) infantum and L. (Viannia) panamensis in Central-Western Venezuela.

Transmission of cutaneous leishmaniasis in Venezuela reveals diverse and changing epidemiological landscapes, as well as a spectrum of clinical phenotypes presumed to be linked to a variety of Leishmania species. Central-western Venezuela constitutes one of the highest endemic epicenters in the country, and updated molecular epidemiological information is still lacking. Therefore, in this study we aimed to characterize the landscape of circulating Leishmania species across central-western Venezuela through the last two decades, performed comparisons of haplotype and nucleotide diversity, and built a geospatial map of parasite species distribution.

Raised Frequency of Microcephaly Related to Zika Virus Infection in Two Birth Defects Surveillance Systems in Bogotá and Cali, Colombia.

Zika virus infection during pregnancy is now known to cause congenital microcephaly and severe brain defects. In 2016, rates of microcephaly appeared to start increasing around May, peaking in July, and declining through December. The occurrence of microcephaly appears to have increased nearly 4-fold in 2 large cities in Colombia, concurrently with the reported Zika virus epidemic in the country.