Disease/Infection News

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Minocycline, EDTA may combat catheter-related bacterial infections in dialysis patients

Antibiotics can help ward off serious bacterial infections in kidney disease patients who use tubes called catheters for their dialysis treatments. But if antibiotics are used too often, "super bugs" may crop up that are resistant to the drugs.

19 Aug 2011

Temple University, URMC partner to translate novel medical research into new drugs

The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and Temple University School of Pharmacy have announced a partnership that will help translate novel medical research into new drugs for treating diseases.

19 Aug 2011

Flu immunization targets fall short for health workers and pregnant women

According to a new survey despite recent improvements in influenza vaccination rates among U.S. health care personnel, their rates for the 2010-2011 flu season still fell short of national health objectives.

18 Aug 2011

Mosquitoes fast to develop resistance against insecticide-treated bed nets

According to a study from Senegal mosquitoes are quick to develop resistance to insecticide-treated nets. This has raised concerns that a leading method of preventing the disease may be less effective than previously thought.

18 Aug 2011

PrEP raises questions regarding 'risk disinhibition' and drug resistance

Nature News reports on "the possibility of unintended public-health consequences" of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV and pharmaceutical company Gilead's plan to ask the FDA to evaluate its combination antiretroviral (ARV) drug Truvada for use in healthy people.

18 Aug 2011

MSF warns global shortage of drug-resistant TB treatment likely

As countries increase the use of the GeneXpert test, a two-hour molecular TB test released in 2010, "enabl[ing] them to diagnose more patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), a worldwide shortage of the drugs to treat these patients is likely, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warns," according to PlusNews.

18 Aug 2011

Insight into how HIV reservoirs may form

Much like cities organize contingency plans and supplies for emergencies, chronic infectious diseases like HIV form reservoirs that ensure their survival in adverse conditions. But these reservoirs-small populations of viruses or bacteria of a specific type that persist despite attack by the immune system or drug treatment-are not always well understood.

18 Aug 2011

Multi-country study of severe pneumonia in hospitalized children

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health announced on Tuesday the launch of "a groundbreaking new study called the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study … a large multi-country case-control study of severe pneumonia in hospitalized children under five years of age … being conducted in Bangladesh, The Gambia, Kenya, Mali, South Africa, Thailand, and Zambia," according to a JHSPH press release.

18 Aug 2011

World must invest equally in bird flu prevention and response

The "reports during the past two weeks of two recent infections and another death" from H5N1 (avian) influenza "raised little concern except among public health officials," Robert Gatter, co-director of the Center for Health Law Studies and professor of law at Saint Louis University, writes in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion piece, adding that "the fact that bird flu in developing nations receives little public attention reveals that the world has become complacent about this threat."

18 Aug 2011

New collaboration for development of new malaria vaccine

"The Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) today announced a new Memorandum of Understanding with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), focused on support of a collaboration with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) for the development of a new vaccine against malaria," an IDRI press release states.

18 Aug 2011

DNDi addresses 'alarming lack' of R&D for neglected diseases

In a Center for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment blog post, the third part of the center's Product Development Partnership (PDP) mini-series, "Bernard Pecoul from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) discusses their experience with partnerships to develop treatments for neglected diseases."

18 Aug 2011

Researchers isolate 17 novel antibodies against HIV

A team of researchers at and associated with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), The Scripps Research Institute, the biotechnology company Theraclone Sciences and Monogram Biosciences Inc., a LabCorp company, report in the current issue of Nature the isolation of 17 novel antibodies capable of neutralizing a broad spectrum of variants of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

18 Aug 2011

GeoVax receives NIH-NIAID grant for HIV/AIDS vaccine program

GeoVax Labs, Inc., an Atlanta-based, biopharmaceutical firm developing vaccines to prevent and fight Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections, today announced receipt of a $3.6 million annual notice of award for the Integrated Preclinical/Clinical AIDS Vaccine Development (IPCAVD) Grant supporting GeoVax's HIV/AIDS vaccine program.

17 Aug 2011

Washington Post examines history, future of mosquito control efforts

The Washington Post looks at the history and future of disease-carrying mosquitoes, "the most deadly non-human animal on the planet." The newspaper describes several mosquito-control methods, and poses the question, "If scientists could find a way to wipe out all mosquitoes - recent studies have shown that it may be possible to chemically sterilize males and dupe the females into mating with them - would that be a good idea?".

17 Aug 2011

PERCH study to look at current and likely future causes of childhood pneumonia

Pneumonia kills more children around the world than any other disease, but the last major effort to study the causes of childhood pneumonia across many countries was conducted in the 1980's. This week, a groundbreaking new study called the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study gets off the ground.

17 Aug 2011

Emotions hinder disease eradication

In a New York Times essay, journalist Donald McNeil writes, "To a doctor, all epidemics are objectively different … But to the mortals they mow down, all epidemics are emotionally alike — an onslaught of fear, awe, repulsion, stigma, denial, rage and blame — and doctors would be foolish to forget that."

17 Aug 2011

Bayer Healthcare to provide over 600,000 moxifloxacin tablets to fight MDR-TB in China

Bayer Healthcare announced on Monday it "has agreed to support the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Stop TB Partnership in the fight against multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) by making 620,000 tablets of the antibiotic moxifloxacin available to WHO," according to a Bayer press release.

17 Aug 2011

Methodist, Philips partner to develop new imaging technology for infectious diseases

The Methodist Hospital Research Institute and Philips Healthcare are collaborating to develop new imaging technology that could be used to help identify the start -- and cause -- of an infectious disease epidemic.

From Philips Healthcare 17 Aug 2011

Global AIDS funding in 2010 down nearly 10% from previous year, Kaiser/UNAIDS report says

"Spending on the global fight against AIDS fell significantly in 2010 for the first time since the U.S. and other governments began making major donations," according to an annual funding analysis released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS, the Wall Street Journal reports. "All told, governments donated about $6.9 billion in 2010, down 9.7 percent from about $7.6 billion in the prior year, the report said," the newspaper writes.

17 Aug 2011

Experts fear shrinking DOD budget, shifting AFRICOM focus could threaten HIV prevention programs

A shrinking Department of Defense (DOD) budget and a shift in the focus of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) to "more traditional military threats" to national security, such as "preventing terrorist safe havens on the continent," could affect the department's HIV prevention programs, Stars and Stripes reports.

17 Aug 2011