Hasta La Gadget!

Brazil could be on the precipice of a serious yellow fever outbreak ― even though a vaccine for the disease has existed since the 1930s and is 99 percent effective.

Health authorities in the country reported at least 600 laboratory-confirmed yellow fever infections and more than 200 deaths, primarily in the Brazilian states of Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo and São Paulo, between December and April 6. Hundreds of additional cases are still being investigated. 

Yellow fever can be extremely serious, according to the Mayo Clinic. Acute symptoms can include fever, headache and dizziness, while more severe symptoms, including jaundice, kidney failure and brain dysfunction, can be life-threatening.

And although yellow fever was never completely eradicated from Brazil, the current outbreak far outstrips the few dozen cases the country typically reports in rural and jungle areas each year. The current outbreak is also especially worrying because it’s close to Brazil’s densely populated urban areas, which haven’t seen a yellow fever case since 1942, according to Reuters.

Roughly half a century without a major yellow fever outbreak ― and the end of 1950s-era mosquito eradication efforts like DDT ― may have lulled Brazil into a false sense of security.

But unlike some other mosquito-transmitted diseases that threaten the Western Hemisphere ― such as dengue, chikungunya and the Zika virus ― there’s a vaccine for yellow fever. Brazil is even home to one of the world’s four yellow fever vaccine production sites, but the country’s vaccination and vaccine production efforts aren’t widespread enough to protect all of its citizens.  

Because of this, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health called for public health awareness and preparedness in an April article published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Yellow Fever Moving From Jungle To City

Yellow fever virus has three natural hosts: humans, nonhuman primates and mosquitos. So public health officials took notice when more than 1,000 howler monkeys, which are known carriers of yellow fever, dropped dead in the Brazilian forest.

“Humans have contact with mosquitos and mosquitos have contact with monkeys and humans,” Dr. Gregory Poland, head of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group and editor-in-chief of the journal Vaccine, told The Huffington Post.

The disease could spread rapidly through Brazil’s densely populated urban areas if an unvaccinated person is bitten by a yellow fever-carrying jungle mosquito before being bitten by an urban-dwelling Aedes aegypti mosquito.

“This proximity raises concern that, for the first time in decades, urban transmission of yellow fever will occur in Brazil,” Fauci wrote in NEJM. 

“You have a tinderbox,” Poland said of Brazil’s densely populated, low-income favelas. 

The disease hasn’t spread to big cities like Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Vitoria, but it’s getting closer.

“Yellow fever is spreading to parts of the country where it wasn’t as prevalent,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Southern areas, which haven’t traditionally had much of a yellow fever problem because of their seasonal changes and cooler climates, are seeing cases of the disease, Durbin said. It’s unclear if climate change, urbanization, deforestation or the end of mosquito eradication efforts ― or a combination of factors ― is to blame for the disease’s spread.

Now Brazil is rushing to vaccinate citizens in the south, who hadn’t previously been considered at risk for contracting yellow fever.   

Not Enough Vaccine

There are upward of 170,000 severe yellow fever cases and 60,000 yellow fever deaths each year, primarily the result of localized outbreaks in Africa and Central and South Americas, according to the World Health Organization. 

Major outbreaks of late ― specifically one in 2015 that began in Angola and spread to the Democratic Republic of Congo ― exhausted the world’s stockpile of yellow fever vaccine several time before the outbreak ended. In March, WHO dispatched 3.5 million doses of the world’s 6 million-dose yellow fever stockpile to Brazil.

Without sufficient stockpiles of yellow fever vaccine, Brazil is examining another emergency option: fractional dosing, or administering one-fifth of the recommended dose of yellow fever vaccine. 

Fractional dosing helped end Angola’s outbreak last year. But the method has only been tested for short-term effectiveness for yellow fever in healthy adults, making it a temporary stopgap measure rather than a long-term solution to the outbreak.

Until more research is done, no one knows if the smaller dose will offer lifetime yellow fever immunity, nor whether it will be effective protection for children or people with weakened immune systems.  

“Do I think that it’s the kind of recommendation that would become routine?” Poland asked. “Absolutely not, absent more data.” 

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At 11:42pm last Friday night in Dallas, suddenly and for no apparent reason, what locals call the ‘tornado sirens’ went off. All of them. It was a clear, calm night; no foul weather presaged the blare of an emergency system so loud it’s meant to wake…

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DeAnn, a 24-year-old Eastern Michigan University student, recently posted her graduation cap on Twitter and users are, well, freaking out. The soon-to-be college graduate illustrated her own grad cap and it is possibly the best one we’ve ever seen. 

The cap features a young black woman twerking with a diploma in hand and at the top, it reads, “Educated Hoe.” On the left side of the cap, there’s a stack of books with titles like #SayHerName and #YouOKSis, two hashtags that amplify the voices and stories of women of color.

On the bottom left, DeAnn featured a quote from feminist and womanist Audre Lorde: “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”

Take a look at DeAnn’s tweet and awesome grad cap below. 

As of Friday afternoon, DeAnn’s tweet had received over 4,000 retweets and 8,000 likes. She eventually decided to make her Twitter profile private. 

DeAnn told The Huffington Post that her cap is about liberation and how women, especially black women, can be sexual and intelligent at the same time. 

“We don’t have to choose between twerking at the club at a girls night with our friends and graduating with honors, we can do both. We can do whatever brings us joy when the world tries so hard to tell us that we aren’t worth it,” DeAnn said. “Sex workers, ‘ghetto’ girls, loud women, women who didn’t attend college, single mothers, teen mothers, strippers, and everything in between deserve liberation and protection. We are not a monolith and there is not only one right way to be a Black ‘Queen.’”

DeAnn, who’s graduating with a double major in women’s & gender studies and psychology, explained that black women are worthy of respect and love.  

“Our worth does not rest in between our thighs and anybody who tries to tell us otherwise is completely wrong,” she said. “We are humans with emotions, dreams, failures, and pain, all of which is valid regardless of if we are fully clothed working in a Fortune 500 company or dancing to our favorite song at the club. We are important, we matter and we exist for our own enjoyment and not the approval of men or society.”

Scroll below to take a closer look at some of the absolutely awesome details on DeAnn’s grad cap. 

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A madman with access to nuclear weapons is threatening to start a war in Asia, and Kim Jong-un could get involved at some point, too. Speaking of which, Donald Trump golfed as North Korea threatened a nuclear strike against the South, which sounds like something out of a 2009 GOP press release targeting Barack Obama. And Stephen Miller is Donald Trump’s new point person on women’s issues, so we guess Jared Kushner finally hit his limit. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Friday, April 14th, 2017:

MEN WITH BAD HAIR RISKING NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION – *Trump stands over smoldering, radioactive remains of the I-95 corridor* “I make great deals.” Gerry Mullany and Chris Buckley: “China warned on Friday that tensions on the Korean Peninsula could spin out of control, as North Korea said it could test a nuclear weapon at any time and an American naval group neared the peninsula in a show of resolve…. [China] has been trying to steer between the Trump administration’s demands for it to do more to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and its longstanding reluctance to risk a rupture with the North, its neighbor and longtime partner. In a phone conversation with Mr. Trump on Wednesday, China’s president, Xi Jinping, also called for restraint. The North Korean military issued a statement on Friday threatening to attack major American military bases in South Korea, as well as the presidential Blue House, warning that it could annihilate those targets ‘within minutes.’” [NYT]

“Trump slaps self in face, again” and other headlines from China.

FOX NEWS THIRSTY FOR DEATH – And hungry for modern country music! Andy Campbell: “There’s no better way to get the ‘Fox & Friends’ crew going after breakfast than playing some good ol’ fashioned freedom music and watching a video of an American payload snuffing out the lives of our enemies. The show kicked off its Friday-morning segment with black and white footage of the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ killing as many as 36 alleged Islamic State militants in Afghanistan on Thursday, with a celebratory backdrop of Toby Keith’s ‘Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.’ As the footage plays and the ‘Fox & Friends’ crew cackles, host Ainsley Earhardt crows, ‘That is what freedom looks like.’” [HuffPost]

GREAT NEWS FOR TRUMP’S TANNING MACHINE REPAIRMAN – He’ll no longer be smuggled into the White House in a rolled-up carpet! Zeke Miller: “The Trump Administration will not disclose logs of those who visit the White House complex, breaking with his predecessor, the White House announced Friday. The decision, after nearly three months of speculation about the fate of the records, marks a dramatic shift from the Obama Administration’s voluntary disclosure of more than 6 million records during his presidency. The U.S. Secret Service maintains the logs, formally known as the Workers and Visitors Entry System, for the purpose of determining who can access to the 18-acre complex. White House communications director Michael Dubke said the decision to reverse the Obama-era policy was due to ‘the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.’ Instead, the Trump Administration is relying on a federal court ruling that most of the logs are ‘presidential records’ and are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.” [Time]

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RIP GREENLAND – Great news for those of you of the opinion that Springfield, Massachusetts needs more canals. Eric Wolff, Andrew Restuccia and Josh Dawsey: “President Donald Trump’s most senior advisers will huddle next week to resolve long-simmering tensions over whether the United States should stay in the Paris climate change agreement, a major point of dispute between the moderate and nationalist wings of the White House, three administration officials told POLITICO. National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, senior adviser Jared Kushner and chief strategist Steve Bannon are expected to be at the table. The meeting is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, but sources cautioned that the timing and number of attendees is still in flux.” [Politico]

Haircut: Jeffrey Young (h/t Jeffrey Young) 

LOCAL ELECTIONS GIVING DEMOCRATS HOPE – The DNC, presumably, didn’t get too close to these races, lest people start associating it with victory. Jennifer Bendery: “In a spate of local elections last week in Illinois, Democrats picked up seats in places they’ve never won before. The city of Kankakee elected its first African-American, Democratic mayor. West Deerfield Township will be led entirely by Democrats for the first time. Elgin Township voted for ‘a complete changeover,’ flipping to an all-Democratic board. Normal Township elected Democratic supervisors and trustees to run its board ― the first time in more than 100 years that a single Democrat has held a seat… They fit with a broader pattern that should have Republicans on edge ahead of the 2018 elections: Progressive grassroots activism, exploding with energy since President Donald Trump’s win in November, is fueling Democratic gains in GOP strongholds.” [HuffPost]

GROSS WEIRDO PUT IN CHARGE OF LADY POLICY – This guy shouldn’t even be allowed in the ladies wear department at Walmart. Emily Peck: “Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, is now working on women’s issues in the White House despite having once forcefully argued against paid maternity leave and equal pay legislation, according to unnamed White House officials cited in a Politico report Thursday night…. But Miller’s thinking on women’s issues is troubling, as evidenced by an op-ed he wrote in 2005 as a junior at Duke University. In ‘Sorry feminists,’ he claims that the gender pay gap is a myth. Women make less than men, Miller argues, because men work longer hours, choose higher-paying jobs and take on more dangerous work…. ‘The truth is, even in modern-day America, there is a place for gender roles,’ he adds. ‘I simply wouldn’t feel comfortable hiring a full-time male babysitter or driving down the street and seeing a group of women carrying heavy steel pillars to a construction site.’” [HuffPost]

OH DEAR – Today’s Rachel Dolezal Award For Achievements In Really Not Taking The Right Approach To Racial Injustice goes to this person. Annie Waldman: “The new acting head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights once complained that she experienced discrimination because she is white. As an undergraduate studying calculus at Stanford University in the mid-1990s, Candice Jackson ‘gravitated’ toward a section of the class that provided students with extra help on challenging problems, she wrote in a student publication. Then she learned that the section was reserved for minority students. ‘I am especially disappointed that the University encourages these and other discriminatory programs,’ she wrote in the Stanford Review. ‘We need to allow each person to define his or her own achievements instead of assuming competence or incompetence based on race.’ Although her limited background in civil rights law makes it difficult to infer her positions on specific issues, Jackson’s writings during and after college suggest she’s likely to steer one of the Education Department’s most important — and controversial — branches in a different direction than her predecessors.” [ProPublica]

WE’RE DOOMED – David Nakamura: “Privately, Japanese officials say Pikotaro, and his viral song ‘Pen Pineapple Apple Pen,’ helped break the ice between Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their first meeting at Trump Tower last November…. Pikotaro was unable to make it to Washington, citing a scheduling conflict that somehow was more important than meeting the president’s daughter in person. But he agreed to make a short video welcoming them and all the other attendees to the reception.” [WaPo]

BERNIE’S REVOLUTION COMES TO THE OLD DOMINION – Ryan Grim: “Our Revolution, a progressive group founded in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, has thrown its weight behind Tom Perriello in the Democratic primary for Virginia governor, the group’s president, Jeff Weaver, said on Friday…. Our Revolution’s backing comes in the wake of an endorsement by Sen. Sanders himself, who campaigned last Thursday in Virginia with Perriello. ‘Tom’s victory will send a message across this country that people do not want our nation to move in the Trump direction,’ Sanders told The Huffington Post in an interview the day after the rally.” [HuffPost]

 TRUMP PUTS HIS FINGERPRINTS ON OBAMACARE – This will come in handy during the investigation into who smothered it to death. Jeffrey Young: “President Donald Trump’s administration has taken its first action to change the way the health insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act operate, aiming to shore them up for next year’s sign-up period…. The overall consequence of the new rules is that health insurance will be harder to buy in 2018, especially for people whose circumstances change during the year, enabling them to buy policies outside the annual sign-up period. The length of that sign-up period is also cut in half. Other aspects of the regulation could make coverage less comprehensive, reduce the value of the tax credit subsidies that make premiums more affordable for low- and middle-income people, and allow insurers to offer plans with fewer medical providers in their networks.” [HuffPost]

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR – Here are some baby goats learning to jump.

PARK RANGERS GIVEN A LITTLE MORE TIME TO REFLECT UPON JESUS’ CRUCIFIXION – Only you — and perhaps the all-powerful hand of God — can prevent forest fires. Sarah Emerson: “Praise Jesus, for today, Department of Interior (DOI) staff will receive the greatest gift of all: 59 minutes of time off, courtesy of Secretary Ryan Zinke. ‘A small token of our appreciation for all you do to support the American public…. Employees working Friday may leave 59 minutes earlier than their normal departure time,’ an email sent to all DOI staff and leaked to Motherboard by an employee there said.” [Motherboard]

COMFORT FOOD

– A virtual reality tour of Mount Everest.

– Dog finds its favorite part of a fence.

– This year’s best Peeps dioramas.

TWITTERAMA

@BrandyLJensen: Mike Pence mandates that the Mother of all bombs can only be dropped by female pilots: I’ve created the ultimate liberal paradox

@alexheard: Writer’s expense report item of the year: “Dead calf: 100 USD.”

@elisefoley: Writing a movie called Twitter Canoe where a reporter and three troll-y dudes fall into a boat during an argument. They fall in love.

Got somethi ng to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com)

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.