The World Health Organization Emergency Committee met yesterday and raised the influenza pandemic alert from phase 3 to phase 4, partially because instances of the disease have been confirmed in places as faraway as Spain.
The origin of the fungal organism responsible, Phytophthora infestans, has been traced to a valley in the highlands of central Mexico, and the first recorded instances of the disease are in the United States, with the sudden and mysterious destruction of potato crops around Philadelphia and New York in early 1843.
Madagascar reports the most instances of the disease in the world.
Today, it appears in only 2% of individuals diagnosed with primary hyperparathyroidism, which accounts for 90% of instances of the disease.
To put that into a better perspective, since its first documented case in Japan in 1916, over one hundred other instances of the disease have been reported.
In small, inbred and genetically isolated populations, inherited diseases are likely to be genetically homogeneous, with the same identical-by-descent mutation underlying all instances of the disease in the breed.
Many genes have been associated with tumour progression either through germline or somatic mutations, but mutations in these genes by no means account for all instances of the disease.
There is no reported instance of this disease in the U.S., but already you can see the hype starting as the media cast about for a new drama at a time of slow news.
In Germany, for instance, where the first case of the disease was recorded last Friday, newspapers editorials have lambasted political leaders for falsely assuring the public that Germany was free of the disease.
