Disease/Infection News

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Study identifies new CoV responsible for the Wuhan outbreak

The 2019 novel coronavirus causes fatal pneumonia that has claimed over 1300 lives, with more than 52000 confirmed cases of infection by February 13, 2020, all in the span of just over a month.

18 Feb 2020

Researchers uncover why Zika virus caused most harmful brain damage to Brazilian newborns

Due to Zika virus, more than 1,600 babies were born in Brazil with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, from September 2015 through April 2016.

18 Feb 2020

Plasma from recovered patients used to treat coronavirus a valid approach, WHO says

The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) outbreak has taken nearly 1,900 people and infected more than 73,000 people, mainly in China. It has spread to 28 countries, prompting scientists to develop potential therapies to treat deadly viral infections. Now, Chinese doctors are using plasma therapy to treat coronavirus patients.

18 Feb 2020

Study finds higher and earlier incidence of COPD in people living with HIV

eople in Ontario living with HIV had a 34 per cent higher incidence rate of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and were diagnosed with the disease about 12 years younger than HIV-negative individuals, according to a study led by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital of Unity Health Toronto and ICES.

18 Feb 2020

Measles re-emerging globally

Measles is a common childhood illness but can cause more than a passing fever with rash. It could turn out to be a complicated and severe illness, warn doctors in a new paper published in February 2020 in the journal BMJ Case Reports.

17 Feb 2020

England reports highest rates of mumps

Mumps is a contagious condition affecting the parotid glands. In some cases, mumps can lead to complications, especially in men, including sterility. Other serious complications of mumps include meningitis, encephalitis, and pancreatitis. There is a readily available vaccine against mumps, but despite this, there has been a sharp rise in mumps cases in England.

17 Feb 2020

Research shows how Ebola virus interacts with human lipids

Robert Stahelin studies some of the world's deadliest viruses. Filoviruses, including Ebola virus and Marburg virus, cause viral hemorrhagic fever with high fatality rates.

16 Feb 2020

Coronavirus outbreak deaths near 1,700

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, which started in Wuhan, in Hubei province in China, now has nearly 1,700 deaths and more than 69,000 infections. The majority of the infections and deaths are in mainland China but has started to spread across 25 countries. Are these numbers alarming?

16 Feb 2020

China could be just the "tip of the iceberg" - Coronavirus

The coronavirus disease outbreak has rapidly spread in China and across the globe, with more than 1,400 deaths and 69,288 confirmed infections in seven weeks. Now, medical experts project that if the virus can not be contained, it can infect 60 percent of the population and kill 45 million people.

16 Feb 2020

Vitamin E can safely treat fatty liver disease in patients with HIV

A type of fatty liver disease that commonly affects patients with HIV can be safely treated with vitamin E, a McGill-led study has found.

16 Feb 2020

Novel technology could reduce coronavirus diagnostic time to 15 minutes

Diagnosing coronavirus takes approximately one hour using current methods. A new technology, based on a combination of optics and magnetic particles, can rapidly test 100 samples of patients potentially infected with the virus and reduce the diagnostic time to approximately 15 minutes.

16 Feb 2020

WHO underestimates coronavirus' transmissibility

The coronavirus probably has a stronger ability to spread than the World Health Organization has estimated so far. This according to a review of previous studies of the coronavirus' transmissibility performed not least by researchers at Umeå University in Sweden.

14 Feb 2020

Legionella Conference 2020 focuses on prevention of health care-associated waterborne diseases

Discussions at Legionella Conference 2020: Prevention of Disease and Injury From Waterborne Pathogens in Health Care will focus on hazards related to medical devices, cleaning and disinfection in sterile settings and water quality requirements in hospitals and health care facilities.

14 Feb 2020

Effectiveness of travel bans to control infectious disease outbreaks is mostly unknown

Because of the quick and deadly outbreak in late December of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, now known as COVID-19 – infecting tens of thousands and killing hundreds within weeks, while spreading to at least 24 other countries – many governments, including the United States, have banned or significantly restricted travel to and from China.

14 Feb 2020

Antibiotic resistance poses a growing risk during pandemics

Researchers investigating the drug prescription response to a "superbug" enzyme that renders bacteria resistant to antibiotics are available to discuss why such resistance is posing a growing risk during pandemics such as the current coronavirus.

14 Feb 2020

Tourists place endangered mountain gorillas at risk of disease transmission

Researchers at Ohio University have published a new study in collaboration with Ugandan scientists, cautioning that humans place endangered mountain gorillas at risk of disease transmission during tourism encounters.

14 Feb 2020

Shale drilling activity linked to high rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia in Texas

Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health have found that rates of two sexually transmitted infections, gonorrhea and chlamydia, are 15% and 10% higher, respectively, in Texas counties with high shale drilling activity ("fracking"), compared to counties without any fracking.

14 Feb 2020

Study finds no advantage in using two antibiotics to treat MRSA infections

A world-first clinical trial has called into question the effectiveness of using more than one antibiotic to treat the deadly 'super-bug', Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia, commonly known as Golden Staph.

14 Feb 2020

Facts vs. fears: Five things to help weigh your coronavirus risk

The news about the novel coronavirus in China grows more urgent daily. The number of related deaths is now greater than 1,300, while tens of thousands of people have been infected — most of them in China. People returning to the U.S. from China are quarantined for 14 days.

14 Feb 2020

Experimental antiviral prevents MERS-CoV in rhesus macaques

The experimental antiviral remdesivir successfully prevented disease in rhesus macaques infected with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), according to a new study from National Institutes of Health scientists.

13 Feb 2020