Most patients who received nifurtimox for the treatment of Chagas disease during a 20-year CDC-sponsored program reported adverse events, according to a study published Thursday in MMWR.
Although most of the reported adverse events were mild in nature, the authors of the new report said health care providers “should be aware of the frequency and profile of adverse events when counseling
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Sam Ballard was 19 years old when friends at a party dared him to swallow a slug. Within days, the Australian teen developed a rare form of meningitis and fell into a coma that lasted more than a year. Even after waking up, he remains paralyzed from the neck down.
The culprit, doctors said, was a parasite in the slug called a rat lungworm, which can burrow into the human brain.
Ballard isn’t alone, or even the only person infected on a dare at least three reported cases involve boys or young men who were dared to eat a slug or snail. What’s more, the parasite is now spreading to new places around the globe.
Division Director
Dr. Stephanie R. Bialek, MD, MPH, is the director of the Division of Viral Diseases in CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), since 2020. Dr. Bialek, a captain in the United States Public Health Service, leads a division with 4 branches, 27 programs, and over 300 staff, fellows, and contractors.
During her career, Dr. Bialek has worked on a wide range of domestic and international public health programs. She joined CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer in 1999 and worked in the Division of Viral Hepatitis. After completing the practicum year of her residency in Preventive Medicine at the Georgia Department of Public Health in 2003, Dr. Bialek returned to the Division of Viral Hepatitis as a medical epidemiologist working on hepatitis B vaccine effectiveness and chronic hepatitis B and C.