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Haiti launches $2.2B, 10-year plan to eradicate cholera

"The Haitian government's $2.2 billion, 10-year plan to eradicate cholera was launched on Wednesday against the backdrop of the U.N.'s rejection of a legal claim from more than 5,000 victims" that sought compensation for the cholera epidemic, which "has killed more than 8,000 people and infected nearly 648,000" and is thought to have been started by a U.N. peacekeeping mission, the Guardian reports.

1 Mar 2013

GlaxoSmithKline's HIV/AIDS business joins Medicines Patent Pool

"GlaxoSmithKline's HIV/AIDS drugs business is to share intellectual property rights on children's medicine in a patent pool designed to make treatments more widely available in poor countries," Reuters reports.

1 Mar 2013

Macrophages allow entry of HIV in the urethra

Having suggested in 2011 that the urethra is a novel entry site for HIV, a team from the Institut Cochin, has now confirmed this hypothesis and identified the cells and mechanisms brought into play: the immune system cells macrophages, present in the epithelium of the urethra, allow the entry of HIV. This work, published online on the website of the journal Mucosal Immunology, could make it possible to test novel HIV/AIDS prevention strategies.

1 Mar 2013

New York City Mayor Bloomberg pledges $100M to global polio eradication initiative

"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has pledged $100 million to help the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others to fight polio around the world," the Associated Press reports.

1 Mar 2013

U.N.'s assertion of immunity in cholera outbreak is morally, legally 'right' decision

"When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invoked diplomatic immunity last week for peacekeepers who unwittingly caused the cholera outbreak that killed nearly 8,000 Haitians, his decision looked cold-hearted," but "sympathy for Haitians should not mask the necessity of the secretary-general's decision," Boston Globe correspondent Juliette Kayyem writes in an opinion piece in the newspaper.

1 Mar 2013

Poor sanitation in Africa causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, WaterAid report says

"Poor sanitation is causing hundreds of thousands of deaths a year in Africa, where 600 million people -- about 70 percent of the population -- do not have a safe toilet," and that number is up from 210 million in 1990 and continues to increase as the population grows and people move into poor urban areas, according to a report from WaterAid, titled "Keeping promises: why African leaders need now to deliver on their past water and sanitation commitments," the Guardian reports.

1 Mar 2013

Researchers develop new method to study complex molecular workings of Anopheles albimanus

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute have developed a new method for studying the complex molecular workings of Anopheles albimanus, an important but less studied spreader of human malaria.

1 Mar 2013

Cubist receives FDA QIDP designation for ceftolozane/tazobactam to treat HABP/ VABP, cUTI

Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated the company's late-stage antibiotic candidate, ceftolozane/tazobactam, as a Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) for the indications of Hospital-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia (HABP)/Ventilator-Associated Bacterial Pneumonia (VABP) and Complicated Urinary Tract Infections (cUTI).

1 Mar 2013

Griffith University's Institute for Glycomics launches human trials for Streptococcus A vaccine

Griffith University's Institute for Glycomics has launched human trials for a vaccine against Streptococcus A, the germ that causes rheumatic fever.

1 Mar 2013

UPV/EHU team uses lipid nanoparticles to develop new formulations for drug delivery

At the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Basque Public University (UPV/EHU) the Pharmacokinetics, Nanotechnology and Gene Therapy research team is using nanotechnology to develop new formulations that can be applied to drugs and gene therapy.

1 Mar 2013

Steroids may reduce length of hospital stay in patients with pneumonia

Patients with pneumonia may spend fewer days in the hospital if they are given steroids along with antibiotics and supportive care. That's the finding of a Mayo Clinic analysis of eight randomized-controlled clinical trials involving more than 1,100 patients.

1 Mar 2013

Positive results from Anacor’s second of two Phase 3 trials of tavaborole for onychomycosis

Anacor Pharmaceuticals today announced positive preliminary results from the second of two Phase 3 trials of tavaborole (known as Study 302).

28 Feb 2013

Post-2015 development agenda should focus on accelerating progress made against HIV, TB, malaria

"In a little more than two years, the world will hit an important target: the date by which the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] are meant to be achieved," Lucy Chesire, executive director and secretary to the board of the TB ACTION Group, writes in the Huffington Post's "The Big Push" blog.

28 Feb 2013

CSIS report examines Global Health Policy in Second Obama Term

"I am pleased to share with you a new report and video series from the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, 'Global Health Policy in the Second Obama Term,'" J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) and director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, writes in a letter posted on the center's "Smart Global Health" blog.

28 Feb 2013

State roundup: Health care industry calls drug testing bill in N.H. 'vague'

Representatives from the health care industry said Tuesday they have a vested interest in stopping employees from stealing controlled substances but a bill being considered by New Hampshire lawmakers to drug test their workers is too vague. The proposal is part of the legislative response to a recent scandal at Exeter Hospital, where an employee allegedly stole drugs and replaced them with Hepatitis C infected syringes later used on patients.

28 Feb 2013

UNAIDS, UNDP release issue brief on TRIPS transition period extensions for LDCs

"The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today launched a new issue brief", titled "TRIPS transition period extensions for least-developed countries [LDCs]," a UNAIDS press release reports.

28 Feb 2013

Intralytix’s SalmoFresh food safety product receives GRAS recognition from FDA

Intralytix, Inc. announced today that its latest food safety product, SalmoFresh, has received GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) recognition from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

28 Feb 2013

Reintroducing normal microbial diversity can eliminate VRE from intestinal tracts

Too much antibiotic can decimate the normal intestinal microbiota, which may never recover its former diversity. That, in turn, renders the GI tract vulnerable to being colonized by pathogens. Now researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, and Centro Superior de Investigaci-n en Salud P-blica, Valencia, Spain, show that reintroducing normal microbial diversity largely eliminated vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) from the intestinal tracts of mice..

28 Feb 2013

Researchers identify 25 human proteins that may be crucial for HIV-1 infection and survival

Studying HIV-1, the most common and infectious HIV subtype, Johns Hopkins scientists have identified 25 human proteins "stolen" by the virus that may be critical to its ability to infect new cells. HIV-1 viruses capture many human proteins from the cells they infect but the researchers believe these 25 proteins may be particularly important because they are found in HIV-1 viruses coming from two very different types of infected cells.

28 Feb 2013

Study findings call for major change in approach to syphilis testing

Syphilis is on the rise worldwide and there is an urgent need for reliable and rapid screening, particularly for people who live in areas where access to healthcare is limited. An international research team, led by scientists at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal, has demonstrated that rapid and point-of-care tests (POC) for syphilis are as accurate as conventional laboratory tests.

28 Feb 2013

Disease/Infection News

Haiti launches $2.2B, 10-year plan to eradicate cholera

GlaxoSmithKline's HIV/AIDS business joins Medicines Patent Pool

Macrophages allow entry of HIV in the urethra

New York City Mayor Bloomberg pledges $100M to global polio eradication initiative

U.N.'s assertion of immunity in cholera outbreak is morally, legally 'right' decision

Poor sanitation in Africa causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, WaterAid report says

Researchers develop new method to study complex molecular workings of Anopheles albimanus

Cubist receives FDA QIDP designation for ceftolozane/tazobactam to treat HABP/ VABP, cUTI

Griffith University's Institute for Glycomics launches human trials for Streptococcus A vaccine

UPV/EHU team uses lipid nanoparticles to develop new formulations for drug delivery

Steroids may reduce length of hospital stay in patients with pneumonia

Positive results from Anacor’s second of two Phase 3 trials of tavaborole for onychomycosis

Post-2015 development agenda should focus on accelerating progress made against HIV, TB, malaria

CSIS report examines Global Health Policy in Second Obama Term

State roundup: Health care industry calls drug testing bill in N.H. 'vague'

UNAIDS, UNDP release issue brief on TRIPS transition period extensions for LDCs

Intralytix’s SalmoFresh food safety product receives GRAS recognition from FDA

Reintroducing normal microbial diversity can eliminate VRE from intestinal tracts

Researchers identify 25 human proteins that may be crucial for HIV-1 infection and survival

Study findings call for major change in approach to syphilis testing

How can microdialysis benefit drug development

Global and Local Efforts to Take Action Against Hepatitis

Addressing Important Cardiac Biology Questions with Shotgun Top-Down Proteomics

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