Disease/Infection News

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Scientists block Ebola infection in cell-culture experiments - could lead to first therapy

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have discovered two biochemical pathways that the Ebola virus relies on to infect cells.

23 Jun 2009

New tuberculosis drug targets

A fundamental question about how sugar units are strung together into long carbohydrate chains has also pinpointed a promising way to target new medicines against tuberculosis.

23 Jun 2009

Cryo-electron tomography shows immature HIV in 3D

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University Clinic Heidelberg, Germany, have produced a three-dimensional reconstruction of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which shows the structure of the immature form of the virus at unprecedented detail. Immature HIV is a precursor of the infectious virus, which can cause AIDS.

23 Jun 2009

Senate confirms Goosby as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator

The Senate on Friday confirmed President Obama's U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator nominee Eric Goosby, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Goosby - who "served previously in the Clinton administration as director of HIV/AIDS policy in the Department of Health and Human Services and as chief adviser to the president on HIV-related issues" - will now "head the U.S. strategy for addressing HIV around the world, and oversee the implementation of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief" (PEPFAR), the newspaper writes.

22 Jun 2009

Ghana launches public-private partnership to control malaria

Ghana's Ministry of Health recently launched the Nationwide Mosquito Control Programme (NAMCOP) in conjunction with the waste management company Zoomlion Ghana Limited, the Ghanaian Chronicle/allAfrica.com reports (Akweetey, Ghanaian Chronicle/allAfrica.com, 6/19).

22 Jun 2009

Ban Ki-Moon calls on governments to eradicate polio

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday at the Rotary International (RI) Annual Convention in Birmingham, U.K., said that governments worldwide should continue to work towards eradicating polio, BBC reports.

22 Jun 2009

To stop spread of HIV, prevention campaigns in China targeting sex workers, MSM

CNN examines China's efforts to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS by educating sex workers about the disease and prevention strategies. "It is estimated that some 700,000 people are living with HIV in China and there are about 50,000 new infections every year, according to the Chinese government and UNAIDS. The U.N. agency believes a significant number of those new infections include sex workers," CNN writes.

22 Jun 2009

Do viruses make bacteria more deadly?

In England and Wales, the national health statistics in 2007 showed that there were 8,324 death certificates which named Clostridium difficile. This is a bacterium which causes severe diarrhoea in humans and animals as the underlying cause of death, a 28% increase from 2006.

22 Jun 2009

Discovery on HIV replication may lead to new therapies

Researchers from the newly-established VGTI Florida and the University of Montreal have uncovered a possible method for eradicating HIV infection in the human body.

22 Jun 2009

Questions raised over Australia's first swine flu related death

According to the latest update (51) on the swine flu pandemic (influenza A H1N1), from the World Health Organisation (WHO), as of the 19th of June 2009 there have now been 44,287 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu worldwide and 180 deaths.

21 Jun 2009

Experts warn swine fever could devastate Australian pig population

Australian experts are warning that an outbreak of the pig disease 'swine fever' could easily and rapidly spread across Australia.

21 Jun 2009

HIV antibody tests unreliable for early infections in teens

A previously healthy teenager shows up at the doctor's office with a sore throat, fever, aches and general malaise. Routine blood tests are normal, an HIV test comes back negative, and the pediatrician sends the patient home with a diagnosis of acute viral infection.

21 Jun 2009

HIV-positive Cambodians evicted from Phnom Penh homes

To make way for a Ministry of Tourism garden, 20 families with HIV-positive members have been evicted from their homes and moved outside of the city, reports the Phnom Penh Post.

21 Jun 2009

Economist examines schistosomiasis in China

The Economist examines schistosomiasis in China. The disease, which is also called snail-fever, is the "world’s second-most prevalent tropical disease after malaria, affecting 207 million people of whom 726,000 are Chinese, according to the most recent official figures, from 2004," the Economist reports.

21 Jun 2009

Some call for more action at conclusion of Pacific Health Summit

Some Pacific Health Summit attendees said more action should have come from the tuberculosis-focused conference, which ended on Thursday in Seattle, Seattle Times' "Business of Giving" blog reports.

21 Jun 2009

BBC examines river blindness program in sub-Saharan Africa

BBC examines a campaign in sub-Saharan Africa that is helping to distribute drugs to prevent onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness - a disease "caused by a parasite that is spread from human to human by the black fly, which once flourished along river beds where there is fast-flowing water."

21 Jun 2009

U.S. flu funds; South Africa confirms first case; EU encouraged to coordinate pandemic vaccine policy

The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a $105.9 billion war-funding bill that "includes $7.7 billion to prepare for pandemic flu," the Washington Post reports (Bacon, Washington Post, 6/19).

21 Jun 2009

PEPFAR and IDUs; economic crisis and health; human-rights and pharmaceutical companies

Although PEPFAR has helped to provide "antiretroviral therapy to 2.1 million people with HIV, almost all of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa, and has spent more than US$18 billion on the continent" it has failed to reach "thousands of injecting drug users in PEPFAR countries in Africa, many of whom have HIV," according to the authors of a recent comment in the journal Lancet.

21 Jun 2009

Lancet studies examine aspects of global health funding

"Global health funding boosted by private donors has quadrupled since 1990, but the extra money has not always gone to the right countries and diseases, according to a pair of studies released Friday," in the journal Lancet, AFP/Google.com reports (Hood, AFP/Google.com, 6/18).

21 Jun 2009

Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline will donate influenza vaccines to WHO

The drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis will donate millions of doses of a vaccine that offers protection against the H1N1 (swine flu) virus to the WHO once the vaccine is ready, the company's chief executive officer announced Tuesday, Reuters reports (Elsner, Reuters, 6/17).

18 Jun 2009