Enlarge / Mycobacterium tuberculosis. (credit: Getty | NIH/NIAID)

A judge in Washington issued an arrest warrant Thursday for a Tacoma woman who has refused to have her active, contagious case of tuberculosis treated for over a year, violating numerous court orders. The judge also upheld an earlier order to have her jailed, where she can be tested and treated in isolation.

On Thursday, the woman attended the 17th court hearing on the matter and once again refused a court order to isolate or comply with testing and treatment—an order that originally dates back to January 19, 2022. Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorensen rejected her objections to being treated and upheld a finding of contempt. Though it remains unclear what her objections are, the woman's lawyer suggested it may be a problem with understanding, according to The News Tribune. The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, however, argued that she “knowingly, willfully, and contemptuously violated this court’s orders,” noting the lengthy process and numerous proceedings and discussions in which interpreters, translated documents, and speakers of her native language were made available.

Sorenson ordered a civil warrant for her arrest, to be enforced on or after March 3, and again ordered her to jail to undergo involuntary testing and treatment until health officials deem it safe to release her. The order also authorized the Pierce County Jail to place her in a facility equipped to handle her isolation, testing, and treatment.

Enlarge / People queue for clean water on February 9, 2023, in Hatay, Turkey. (credit: Getty | Burak Kara)

Deaths from the massive earthquake and aftershocks that violently struck parts of southern Turkey and northern Syria in the early hours of Monday have now surpassed 20,000—a staggering toll of devastation.

As of Thursday, Turkey’s national emergency management agency reported more than 17,000 deaths, as well as over 70,000 injured. Syrian Ministry of Health, meanwhile, reported 1,347 deaths and 2,295 injured. Rescuers in rebel-held northwest areas of the country reported at least 2,030 deaths and at least 2,950 injured.

As heroic rescue crews continue sifting through the rubble of collapsed structures, concern is growing for those tens of thousands injured and countless others made more vulnerable by the crisis.

Enlarge / A bathroom on an Airbus A321neo. (credit: Getty | Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto)

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering blending sewage sampling from airplanes into its wastewater surveillance system, which has proven useful for monitoring the spread and prevalence of a variety of pathogens, particularly SARS-CoV-2.

Amid the pandemic, the CDC launched wastewater testing programs across the nation, trying to get ahead of SARS-CoV-2 surges. Viral particles are often shed in fecal matter and can be an early indication of an infection. The fecal focus has proven useful for sniffing out community-wide transmission trends and disease spread for not only COVID-19 but also other recent outbreaks as well, namely polio and mpox (formerly monkeypox). Adding surveillance from airplanes and airports could flush out yet more information about infectious disease spread, such as global travel patterns and the debut of novel viral variants.

A study published last week in PLOS Global Public Health found such sewage surveillance in UK airport terminals and airplanes was effective at tracking SARS-CoV-2 among international travelers. Overall, the surveillance data suggested that it is a "useful tool for monitoring the global transfer rate of human pathogens and other disease-causing agents across international borders and should form part of wider international efforts to monitor and contain the spread of future disease outbreaks," the authors, led by Kata Farkas of Bangor University, concluded.