Last year, Israel's polio-free status was seriously challenged. On May 28, 2013, a sample obtained during routine supplementary environmental surveillance at a sewage-treatment plant in the South district tested positive for wild poliovirus type 1. Additional analyses retrospectively confirmed that the virus had already been present in February 2013 in samples from sewage-treatment plants near the capital of the South district.

n October 1976, the government of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC]) asked what was then the U.S. Center for Disease Control, where we worked, to join an international group of scientists in elucidating and controlling an outbreak of an unusually lethal hemorrhagic fever.

Higher levels of sodium intake are reported to be associated with higher blood pressure. Whether this relationship varies according to levels of sodium or potassium intake and in different populations is unknown. The researchers studied 102,216 adults from 18 countries. Estimates of 24-hour sodium and potassium excretion were made from a single fasting morning urine specimen and were used as surrogates for intake. They assessed the relationship between electrolyte excretion and blood pressure, as measured with an automated device.

An outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) has jolted West Africa, claiming more than 1000 lives since the virus emerged in Guinea in early 2014. The rapidly increasing numbers of cases in the African countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone have had public health authorities on high alert throughout the spring and summer. More recent events including the spread of EVD to Nigeria (Africa's most populous country) and the recent evacuation to the United States of two American health care workers with EVD have captivated the world's attention and concern.

Implementing patient cost sharing in the form of copayments, coinsurance, and deductibles is one of the more reliable methods for reducing health care costs. But imposing cost sharing reduces patients' demand for medical care, which sets the interests of insurers at odds with the interests of health care providers and drug and device manufacturers, who generally benefit when patients use more services. (Perspective)

We describe the isolation and sequencing of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) obtained from a dromedary camel and from a patient who died of laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV infection after close contact with camels that had rhinorrhea. Nasal swabs collected from the patient and from one of his nine camels were positive for MERS-CoV RNA. In addition, MERS-CoV was isolated from the patient and the camel. The full genome sequences of the two isolates were identical.

Since the introduction of chemotherapy for treating tuberculosis, political commitment and stable, sufficient funding have been the primary predictors of success for tuberculosis-control programs, and their absence has resulted in tuberculosis epidemics. Over the past decade, the federal funding for tuberculosis-control programs in the United States has decreased by more than 15%, even without adjusting for inflation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Trans fats naturally exist in small amounts in the fat in meat and milk, but most trans fats in the food supply have been added by food manufacturers. Since 1911, when Procter and Gamble introduced Crisco, companies have used artificial trans fats because of their commercially favorable properties, such as long shelf life, stability during deep frying, and palatability. These fats have therefore been incorporated into a great many foods, including snack and deep-fried foods, baked goods, margarines, and crackers.

The recent emergence of Zaire ebolavirus in West Africa has come as a surprise in a region more commonly known for its endemic Lassa fever, another viral hemorrhagic fever caused by an Old World arenavirus. Yet the region has seen previous ebolavirus activity. In the mid-1990s, scientists discovered Côte d'Ivoire ebolavirus (now known as Taï Forest ebolavirus) as a cause of a single reported nonfatal case in a researcher who performed a necropsy on an infected chimpanzee.

In March 2014, the World Health Organization was notified of an outbreak of a communicable disease characterized by fever, severe diarrhea, vomiting, and a high fatality rate in Guinea. Virologic investigation identified Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) as the causative agent. Full-length genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis showed that EBOV from Guinea forms a separate clade in relationship to the known EBOV strains from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon.