Disease/Infection News

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India battling bird flu again

Health authorities in India have confirmed a fresh outbreak of bird flu in poultry in Tripura, in the northeast near Bangladesh.

7 Apr 2008

Bird flu appears again in South Korea

Officials in South Korea have confirmed a new bird flu outbreak at a duck farm in the southwest and are also investigating two other possible cases.

7 Apr 2008

Removing barriers to the distribution of life-saving vaccines

Barriers to the distribution of life saving vaccines in low income countries can and should be overcome, say experts in this week's issue of the BMJ.

4 Apr 2008

PAHEF discusses neglected diseases and disaster preparedness with innovative leaders

PAHEF is pleased to join Harvard University's Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation as a partner in the bi-annual conference Frontiers of Innovation: 20 Years of Innovation in Government held in Cambridge March 31st through today.

4 Apr 2008

Leptospira licerasiae, a new species of infectious disease found in Amazon

While investigating the tropical disease leptospirosis in the Peruvian Amazon, an infectious disease specialist from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has uncovered new, emerging bacteria that may be responsible for up to 40 percent of cases of the disease.

3 Apr 2008

Nipah virus in rural India and Bangladesh

Nipah virus is a new and deadly brain and lung disease that emerged from Singapore and Malaysia ten years ago.

3 Apr 2008

Solanum villosum - berries from Indian weed - may keep mosquitoes at bay

Mosquitoes responsible for spreading disease are increasingly becoming resistant to synthetic insecticides.

3 Apr 2008

Molecular evolution of influenza A viruses circulated in Fujian Province, China

Fujian Center for Disease Control & Prevention, China, reported the molecular evolution of influenza A (H3N2) viruses in Fujian Province, south of China during the period 1996 to 2004 and demonstrated some key codons responsible for antigenic drift.

2 Apr 2008

Lyme disease - a tough nut to crack!

The bacteria that cause Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne illness in the United States, can linger in mouse tissues long after a full round of antibiotic treatment is completed, report researchers from the University of California, Davis.

2 Apr 2008

Distinguishing non-TB pulmonary disease from TB

A diagnostic kit shows new promise for distinguishing between tuberculosis (TB) and its infections from disease caused by related mycobacteria family, which mimic TB and other lung disease in symptoms but require distinctly different clinical treatments.

2 Apr 2008

New breakthrough discovery on TB

Medical scientists from the University of Leicester, together with colleagues from St Georges, University of London, funded principally by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and The Wellcome Trust, have published details of a new breakthrough discovery on TB.

1 Apr 2008

Researchers discover how HIV can hide in cells

Researchers have discovered how Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, can hide itself in our cells and dodge the attention of our normal defences, scientists heard at the Society for General Microbiology's 162nd meeting being held this week at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

1 Apr 2008

Community-acquired MRSA spreads

Drug resistant hospital superbugs like MRSA have been kept under control in Denmark for more than 30 years.

1 Apr 2008

Human vaccine for Ebola in the pipeline

The deadly Ebola virus is in the news again but this time there is the promise of a vaccine for the deadly disease.

1 Apr 2008

New tool to identify the molecular signatures of serious diseases

University of Florida chemists are the first to use a new tool to identify the molecular signatures of serious diseases - without any previous knowledge of what these microscopic signatures or "biomarkers" should look like.

1 Apr 2008

Superbugs resistant to everything - Doctors running out of treatments

Doctors are running out of treatments for today's trauma victims and critically ill patients because of infections due to drug resistant microbes even after resorting to using medicines thrown out 20 years ago because of severe side effects, scientists heard at the Society for General Microbiology's 162nd meeting being held this week at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

1 Apr 2008

AIDS, an evolutionary accident?

AIDS, a fatal disease in humans, may partly be the consequence of an evolutionary accident, scientists heard at the Society for General Microbiology's 162nd meeting being held this week at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

1 Apr 2008

Ebola virus vaccines for humans

One of the world's deadliest diseases, caused by the Ebola virus, may finally be preventable thanks to US and Canadian researchers, who have successfully tested several Ebola vaccines in primates and are now looking to adapt them for human use.

31 Mar 2008

MRSA in hospital intensive care -- what's growing where?

Researchers are finding out which bugs grow in intensive care units to develop a novel sampling regime that would indicate the threat of MRSA and other superbugs in the environment, scientists heard (Monday 31 March 2008) at the Society for General Microbiology's 162nd meeting being held this week at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

31 Mar 2008

Most people believe smallpox not an extinct disease

The vast majority of Scottish people interviewed in the streets of Edinburgh are unaware of one of the greatest achievements of medical science - the eradication of smallpox from the world over 40 years ago.

31 Mar 2008