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Daily intake of vitamin E may help improve fatty liver disease: Study

In an NIH-funded study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, research found that daily vitamin E improved the livers of patients who have a type of liver disease known as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.

30 Apr 2010

Dietary changes may help alleviate celiac disease, says study

New research published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology suggests that striking a balance of intestinal microbiota could play a role in early stages of celiac disease-related immune responses

30 Apr 2010

Gonorrhea may soon become untreatable according to WHO

According to the World Health organization (WHO), gonorrhea may soon become untreatable and urgent measures need to be taken to prevent and treat the sexually transmitted infection. This is the result of improper use of first line antibiotics which has led to widespread anti microbial resistance to drugs. The cheaper antibiotics no longer have as much effect as they should and the higher antibiotics will soon lose efficacy as well.

30 Apr 2010

Jiangsu Yanshen receives SFDA disciplinary notice for substandard quality human use rabies vaccine

Simcere Pharmaceutical Group, a leading pharmaceutical company specializing in the development, manufacturing, and marketing of branded generic and proprietary pharmaceuticals in China, today announced that Jiangsu Yanshen Biological Technology Stock Co., Ltd. has received disciplinary notice from China's State Food and Drug Administration regarding its production of substandard quality human use rabies vaccine.

29 Apr 2010

NGOs outraged at developments of current meeting of Global Fund Board to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

NGOs are outraged at developments of the current Board meeting of the Global Fund Board to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, currently taking place in Geneva, Switzerland. Many donor governments are promoting the establishment of a ceiling on the next round of disease fight grants to developing countries.

29 Apr 2010

Eliminating inherent drug resistance in tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a global health problem, in part due to the exceptional drug resistance displayed by the TB-causing agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Beyond even acquired drug resistance, these bacteria are also inherently resistant to many other common antibiotics, which limits the available options in finding alternative treatments to resistant TB strains.

29 Apr 2010

Nanotechnology for study of individual molecule interaction in live cells

A University of Alberta-led research team has taken a major step forward in understanding how T cells are activated in the course of an immune response by combining nanotechnology and cell biology. T cells are the all important trigger that starts the human body's response to infection.

29 Apr 2010

OMT beneficial as adjunctive treatment in elderly people with pneumonia

A clinical trial of 406 subjects 50 years of age and older who were hospitalized with pneumonia showed a one-day reduction in the length of hospital stay in those patients who received osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) in addition to conventional medical care when compared to patients who received only conventional medical care. A per protocol analysis also showed a significant reduction in the duration of intravenous antibiotics and in respiratory failure or death in the group that received OMT when compare to the conventional care only group.

29 Apr 2010

Gilead announces bioequivalence of Truvada in combination with Tibotec Pharmaceuticals' TMC278 NNRTI

Gilead Sciences, Inc. announced today it has obtained data supporting bioequivalence of a formulation of the fixed-dose combination of Truvada® (emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) and Tibotec Pharmaceuticals' investigational non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) TMC278 (rilpivirine hydrochloride, 25 mg).

29 Apr 2010

miacom diagnostics announces new tests for faster diagnosis of sepsis

"Conventional PCR tests (PCR is short for polymerase chain reaction, a highly sensitive method of detecting nucleic acids) require several hours to produce a result. lucesco Bacteremia IVD panels are not only much faster with a result after only 30 minutes, they are also much more cost-efficient.

29 Apr 2010

Preventing HPV infection could slow HIV epidemic, say researchers

Men infected with human papillomavirus are at greater risk of becoming infected with human immunodeficiency virus than men who are not HPV positive, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

29 Apr 2010

Injection drug use contributes to transmission of syphilis

A binational team of researchers led by University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that active syphilis infections are significantly greater in female sex workers who inject drugs and share needles than those who don't. The findings suggest that injection drug use may play as big a role as risky sexual behavior in the transmission of syphilis. It may also exacerbate the spread of both HIV and syphilis, as syphilis is frequently a co-factor for HIV infection.

29 Apr 2010

New theory on muscle and bone diseases

Traditionally, doctors and clinicians thought diseases that affect muscles or bones affected those areas specifically. For example, bone diseases only affect bones, or muscle diseases only concerned muscles. But recent evidence supports the notion that bones and muscles are more interconnected than previously thought.

29 Apr 2010

CD8+T cells may aid in developing AIDS vaccine: New Journal of Physics

Limited success in modelling the behaviour of the complex, unusual and unpredictable HIV virus has slowed efforts to develop an effective vaccine to prevent AIDS.

29 Apr 2010

Cambodia closes 64.9 percent of illegal pharmacies

In a major crackdown, Cambodia has forced nearly 65 percent of illegal pharmacies operating in the country to close within the past five months. Led by an Inter-Ministerial Committee to Fight against Counterfeit & Substandard Medicines (IMC), the shops were targeted because of evidence that they were among the primary sources of substandard and counterfeit medicines in the country.

29 Apr 2010

Tulane University researchers urge action to eliminate malaria from Hispaniola

In an editorial in the May 2010 issue of the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Tulane University malaria researchers urge action to eliminate malaria from Hispaniola, the last island in the Caribbean where the disease occurs regularly.

29 Apr 2010

Study examines lifestyle-related causes of death in AIDS patients

The study, by researchers from the University of Bristol and a large group of international collaborators, examined data from the Antiretroviral Therapy Cohort Collaboration (ART-CC) which involved nearly 40,000 patients who started ART between 1996 and 2006 in Europe and North America.

29 Apr 2010

Presence and type of cirrhosis complications are strong predictors of mortality: Study

A recent study by Danish researchers discovered patients with alcoholic cirrhosis had a high prevalence of complications at the time of the disease diagnosis.

29 Apr 2010

Multicenter NIH trial finds combination antibiotics effective against Chlamydia-induced reactive arthritis

Combination antibiotics effectively treat Chlamydia-induced reactive arthritis - a major step toward management, and possibly cure, of this disease, a federal multicenter clinical trial led by the University of South Florida College of Medicine found.

29 Apr 2010

China lifts decades-old HIV/AIDS travel ban

Late Tuesday, China's State Council lifted a decades-old restriction that banned foreigners with HIV/AIDS from entering the country, Reuters reports (Buckley, 4/27). The amended rules, which appear on the government website, also lift a travel ban on foreigners with other sexually transmitted diseases and leprosy, and "narrow the travel restriction on people with tuberculosis, to those with an infectious form of the lung disease," according to Bloomberg Businessweek (Randall, 4/28).

29 Apr 2010