5 days ago a mysterious disease outbreak afflicted Tanzania, 13 people got infected, 3 died so far.
Deadly ‘nosebleed’ illness identified as ‘rat fever’
Authorities say the outbreak, which killed three people in southern Tanzania, is caused by the bacterial disease leptospirosis
A mystery “nosebleed” outbreak which killed at least three people in Tanzania has been diagnosed as leptospirosis or “rat fever”, according to the government.
Last week, authorities scrambled a team of doctors and experts to find out what was behind a wave of unexplained infections in the southeastern region of Lindi. The victim’s symptoms included fever, headaches, fatigue and worryingly, nosebleeds.
When the patients tested negative for Ebola and Marburg virus, there were fears that a new viral haemorrhagic fever could be spreading through the populous east African nation.
But on Monday, the Tanzanian government said the victims were positive for leptospirosis.
The bacterial disease can affect humans and animals, leading to liver failure, kidney damage, meningitis and death. It is known locally as rat fever or field fever, but in the UK is more commonly called Weil's Disease.
This is mostly a Tropical/Third world disease but other aspects do influence the spread and contamination of humans, in Brazil it was a rather “common” thing in the 90’s, and with treatment and better urban planning, it basically vanished besides in the low presence in very poor regions. It can be fatal per the article above but, most of the time it is very treatable.
Well, unless you messed with someone Toll-Like Receptors. Then…
“Wait, is that it ?” No. I warned as much over a year ago, here is the rationalization behind why we forecast “bacterial infections skyrocketing”.
You should definitely read the entire thing, but this is the “main” aspect of it.
Messing with Toll-Like Receptor indeed had a price. From my observation and our hope, this should have been transient, meaning, lasting for a short period, while the “vaccine” worked its antibody magic. But perhaps the changes were more profound than we anticipated, or as some researchers propose, this might be a reprogramming of these fairly important receptors.
And in case you are wondering, the most common way SARS-CoV-2 acts is as a Hit and Runner. Co-infections do the brunt of the damage in a lot of hospitalized patients.
Coinfection of leptospirosis and coronavirus disease 2019: A retrospective case series from a coastal region in South India
During the monsoon season of 2020, the coastal areas of South India were endemic to both leptospirosis and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study aimed to investigate the clinical features and outcomes of patients infected with both infections. A retrospective review of charts of all patients with COVID-19 who were also diagnosed with leptospirosis by immunoglobulin M enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was undertaken. The clinical features, laboratory report, treatment details, and outcomes of all the included patients were recorded. The collected data were summarized as the frequency with percentage for categorical data and the mean or median for continuous data. Twenty-four cases of coinfections were admitted between July and November 2020. Most of these patients were categorized as severe COVID-19 (n = 15, 62.5%). Acute kidney injury was seen in 79.2% (n = 19) patients, while raised bilirubin was present in 79.2% (n = 19) of the patients. All patients had raised C-reactive protein, while all but one had raised procalcitonin. Thrombocytopenia, leucocytosis, and leukocytopenia were seen in 91.7% (n = 22), 45.8% (n = 11), and 12.5% (n = 3) of the patients. The median duration of hospital stay was 11 (8.25–15) days. A total of 79.2% (n = 19) of the patients improved and were discharged, while 20.8% (n = 5) died during the hospital stay. In conclusion, patients with fever and atypical manifestations such as hepatic dysfunction, renal dysfunction, and thrombocytopenia should be evaluated for leptospirosis even if they are COVID positive.
And another, now well-known aspect of SARS-CoV-2, is its impact on the gut microbiome.
Gut microbiota involved in leptospiral infections
The phagocytosis response and inflammatory response in bone marrow-derived macrophages and thioglycolate-induced peritoneal macrophages were diminished in the microbiota-depleted mice after infection. However, the phagocytosis response and inflammatory response in resident peritoneal macrophage were not affected in the microbiota-depleted mice after infection. The diminished macrophage disappearance reaction (bacterial entry into the peritoneum acutely induced macrophage adherence to form local clots and out of the fluid phase) led to an increased leptospiral load in the peritoneal cavity in the microbiota-depleted mice. In addition, the impaired capacity of macrophages to clear leptospires increased leptospiral dissemination in Leptospira-infected microbiota-depleted mice. Our study identified the microbiota as an endogenous defense against L. interrogans infection. Modulating the structure and function of the gut microbiota may provide new individualized preventative strategies for the control of leptospirosis and related spirochetal infections.
Leptospiral-LPS stimulates mouse and human toll like receptor 2 (TLR2) through abundant associated lipoproteins (1). Differences of recognition of leptospiral-LPS exist between mouse and human TLR4, in that the anchor of LPS in the outer membrane of Leptospira (LipidA) activates murine, but not human TLR4 (1, 2).
TLR4 plays a crucial role in protection from acute lethal infection and control of leptospiral burden during sublethal chronic infection. Cytokine responses in macrophages correlated with leptospiral clearance.
At the end of this mess, SARS-CoV-2 may be the biggest Hit and Run infection known to science, but this will take years to actually even propose a concise hypothesis coming from formal scientists.
No, you should not worry about this if you take care of your health. You should though avoid contact with rats or any of their wastes and get rid of them if you have them around your house. A lot of “rat” diseases are slowly crawling back into modern-day life in a lot of countries.
At least we got an answer and this isn’t a worst-case scenario, just an uncommon type of infection that is often missed everywhere. Also yes, a lot and I mean A LOT of what we have been seeing and now has clinical presentations and case reports come back to that hypothesis I linked above. In a crude well, my entire Substack would be about that hypothesis. This thing has just too many pathways to set off all sorts of ailments.
A non-virus post coming today most likely.
A very big thank you to all supporters here and those who use KoFi =) !
I hate to say it, but this is probably only the "tip of the iceberg."
Gain of function all over the place, not only the “vaccine”.