Disease/Infection News

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FDA clears IQuum's Liat influenza A/B assay, analyzer

IQuum, Inc. announced today that it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance to market the Liat Influenza A/B Assay and the Liat Analyzer.

23 Aug 2011

AHF criticizes HHS for delays and mistakes in distributing HIV/AIDS funds

Today, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) criticized the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) agency for delays and mistakes in distributing funds through the Ryan White CARE Act, the largest federal program dedicated to providing care and treatment for people living with HIV. Despite an HHS statement to the contrary, the Foundation says that delays in funding are hurting programs that serve people living with HIV/AIDS across the nation.

23 Aug 2011

NPR interviews author of study on emerging HIV epidemic among MSM in MENA

NPR's health blog "Shots" interviewed Laith Abu-Raddad of the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, co-author of a recent study published in PLoS Medicine that showed "more than five percent of men who have sex with men are infected by HIV in" the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), about "the challenges of researching such a taboo topic."

23 Aug 2011

Climate shifts may threaten to increase spread of malaria, health experts say

"Shifts in the world's climate and responses to those shifts – including construction of more irrigation systems – threaten to increase the spread of malaria, health experts say," AlertNet reports.

23 Aug 2011

Research into TB medication may shorten treatment regimen

Research of the common tuberculosis (TB) drug pyrazinamide, which is used in combination with other medications to treat the disease in a six-month regimen, "has now revealed that the drug does kill the latent form of the microbe, which does not cause observable symptoms," VOA News reports.

23 Aug 2011

Gains against malaria recognized on World Mosquito Day

Sarah Kline, executive director of Malaria No More UK, writes in the Guardian's "Poverty Matters Blog" about World Mosquito Day, which is recognized annually on August 20 to commemorate the discovery 114 years ago that female mosquitoes transmit malaria among humans.

23 Aug 2011

Saint Mark's Cathedral on Capitol Hill to host Seattle AIDS Memorial event

Saint Mark's Cathedral on Capitol Hill will host the Seattle AIDS Memorial on Saturday, September 24, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. Subtitled "30 Years of Sorrow, Comfort and Hope," the memorial commemorates the 30th anniversary of the first HIV/AIDS diagnosis as well as the 25th anniversary of the first AIDS Walk in Seattle.

23 Aug 2011

Health Canada grants medical device licence to Gen-Probe's PANTHER system

Gen-Probe Incorporated announced today that Health Canada has granted the Company a medical device license for the PANTHER system, a fully automated and integrated molecular testing system designed with the flexibility to handle a wide range of testing needs.

23 Aug 2011

Isconova expands Matrix M collaboration with Genocea to treat infectious diseases

Isconova AB, a leading international vaccine adjuvant company and Genocea Biosciences, Inc., a vaccine discovery and development company pioneering a new class of T cell‐based vaccines, today announced the expansion of their collaboration granting Genocea the right to use Isconova's Matrix M in vaccines targeting two additional diseases.

23 Aug 2011

Vertex receives Health Canada approval for INCIVEK to treat hepatitis C

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated today announced that Health Canada has approved INCIVEK tablets for a broad group of people with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C with compensated liver disease, including cirrhosis.

23 Aug 2011

New open access journal on malaria

A post in the "Malaria Matters" blog announces "a new open access journal on malaria: Malaria Chemotherapy, Control and Elimination," which "has been recently launched by Ashdin Publishing."

22 Aug 2011

New report on adverse effects of vaccines

Vaccines have dramatically reduced illnesses and deaths due to infectious diseases over the past century. However, no pharmaceutical product is completely without risk and some people have experienced health problems associated with immunization.

22 Aug 2011

Should we be screening blood for hepatisi G?

Hepatitis G virus was identified in 1995. Some little research was carried out on the virus and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared it a non-harmful virus in 1997. Researchers in Saudi Arabia, writing in the International Journal of Immunological Studies present evidence to suggest that this may have been the wrong decision.

22 Aug 2011

No effective treatment yet for acute lung injury

Patients can essentially drown in their own fluids when trauma and infection prompt blood vessels to leak, flooding millions of air sacs in their lungs.

22 Aug 2011

Micro-organisms hide themselves from immune defences

That micro-organisms have a great capacity to vary their surface structure is well known. It is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to develop vaccines against HIV and malaria, and why new influenza vaccines have to be produced every year. But it seems that these micro-organisms are also able to completely avoid activating a strong immune response in the person attacked.

22 Aug 2011

Tiny molecule could bind to B cell EB12 receptor and prevent cancer

Infection with Epstein Barr means that the B cells, which are the primary memory cells of the immune system, are hi-jacked. When the virus has penetrated, researchers observe an excess of a special bio-antenna, a receptor known as EB12, suddenly sprouting from the surface of the B cells. But why they do so remains a mystery.

22 Aug 2011

Research uncovers natural defense mechanism that inactivates C. diff toxins

Groundbreaking research encompassing Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Case Medical Center, has uncovered a natural defense mechanism that is capable of inactivating the toxin that spreads Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, an increasingly common bacterial infection in hospitals and long-term care settings.

22 Aug 2011

Researchers develop new methods to identify potential sources of food contamination

Unwanted bacteria, yeasts and moulds can cause major problems for the food industry as well as consumers. Norwegian researchers have developed new methods to identify potential sources of contamination.

22 Aug 2011

Scientists discover key defense mechanism against C. difficile infection

Researchers have discovered a key mechanism used by intestinal cells to defend themselves against one of the world's most common hospital-acquired bacterial infections - a mechanism they think they can exploit to produce a therapy to protect against the effects of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

22 Aug 2011

Radiolabeled protein reveals presence of S. aureus endocarditis in mouse model

A novel imaging probe developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators may make it possible to diagnose accurately a dangerous infection of the heart valves.

22 Aug 2011