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Vanderbilt enters Chemical Biology Consortium as a Chemical Diversity Center to develop cancer treatment drugs

Vanderbilt University has been selected as one of 10 centers in the nation to participate in the Chemical Biology Consortium (CBC), a major new initiative to facilitate the discovery and development of new agents to treat cancer.

20 Aug 2009

Nurses and clinical officers in Africa know when a person should receive antiretroviral therapy

Nurses and clinical officers (non-physician clinicians, NPCs) are capable of determining when a person should receive antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV/AIDS. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Human Resources for Health suggest that this should ease the strain on overstretched doctors in sub-Saharan Africa and thereby help increase access to antiretroviral therapy, particularly in rural areas.

19 Aug 2009

New guidance for businesses to plan for and respond to upcoming flu season

Department of Commerce (DOC) Secretary Gary Locke, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced new guidance for businesses to plan for and respond to the upcoming flu season.

19 Aug 2009

The Gambia introduces pneumococcal immunisation programme

The Gambia, Minister of Health Dr. Mariatou Jallow administered the first dose of the pneumococcal vaccine to Gambian children at a rural clinic outside Banjul today. Joined by the Gambia’s Vice President, Mrs. Isatou Njie-Saidy, Dr. Jallow and hundreds of Gambian citizens celebrated this historic event, which marks the first step in the rollout of the Gambia’s national pneumococcal immunisation programme.

19 Aug 2009

H1N1 vaccine orders top 1 billion, WHO Says

"Northern hemisphere countries have so far ordered more than one billion doses of swine flu vaccine, the World Health Organisation said Tuesday, sparking warnings over shortages," Agence France-Presse reports. While some countries, including Greece, The Netherlands, Canada and Israel, have ordered enough vaccine to inoculate their citizens, "[o]thers, such as Germany, the United States, Britain and France, have put in orders that would cover between 30 and 78 percent of people," the news service writes.

19 Aug 2009

Researchers find connection between eye disease and arginase

Elevated levels of the enzyme arginase contribute to vascular eye damage and Medical College of Georgia researchers say therapies to normalize its levels could halt progression of potentially blinding diseases such as diabetic retinopathy.

19 Aug 2009

Norovirus controlled on cruise ship Marco Polo with vaporisation process by Activ8

The cruise ship Marco Polo, whose round-Britain cruise had to be cancelled because hundreds of passengers became ill with the vomiting bug Norovirus, has been totally disinfected by SitexOrbis' revolutionary infection control fogging service in just 5 hours at the Tilbury docks.

19 Aug 2009

Common-sense precautions for H1N1

Doctors and hospitals nationwide expect a surge in H1N1 influenza cases during the upcoming flu season. In a new video and the tips below, Yvonne Maldonado, MD, chief of infectious disease at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, explains what every parent should know about H1N1 flu as children head back to school.

19 Aug 2009

The Parkinson's Disease Foundation and the Davis Phinney Foundation jointly fund new study

The Davis Phinney Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of people with Parkinson's disease (PD) today, announced that it has awarded four Parkinson's disease research centers with support to conduct a landmark study on the long-term changes in quality of life and mobility that occur in people with PD. The results of this research will help to advance the understanding of how interventions, such as exercise, impact changes in quality of life and mobility over the course of the disease.

19 Aug 2009

Novavax reports positive preclinical results for H1N1 influenza VLP vaccine

Novavax, Inc. (Nasdaq: NVAX) announced positive preclinical results with Novavax's 2009 novel H1N1 influenza virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine. The study, conducted by scientists from Novavax and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) based in Atlanta, GA, under a collaborative agreement, represents the first efficacy report of a 2009 novel H1N1 vaccine in ferrets. The ferret model is widely accepted to be the most appropriate animal model for evaluating influenza disease and vaccines. Novavax scientists designed the vaccine using recombinant virus like particles (VLP) technology against an H1N1 virus strain (A/California/04/2009) isolated in the beginning of the 2009 H1N1 outbreak.

19 Aug 2009

Hard to Treat Diseases' swine flu clinical trials in progress

Hard to Treat Diseases (HTDS.PK) Mellow Hope, an operating subsidiary of HTDS, is pleased to report that its clinical trial is currently being processed.

19 Aug 2009

Bloomberg reports on HIV-treatment failure in China; New York Times examines ARV shortage in Romania

An analysis of 48,785 HIV-positive patients enrolled in China's National Free Antiretroviral Treatment Program over a five-year period revealed that "[h]alf of China's AIDS patients stopped responding to treatment over five years and didn't have access to the back-up drugs available in developed nations," according to an Annals of Internal Medicine study, Bloomberg reports.

19 Aug 2009

ACE inhibitors and AT1R blockers suppress inflammation in mice

Conventional blood pressure medication can treat inflammation in an animal model mimicking multiple sclerosis (MS). This discovery was made by Dr. Michael Platten, head consultant at the department of Neurooncology at Heidelberg University Hospital and head of the Helmholtz Experimental Neuroimmunology Junior Research Group on at the German Cancer Research Center and his team in cooperation with scientists from Stanford University in California.

19 Aug 2009

Global Fund awards Tanzania $111 million grant for ITNs

Tanzania will receive an $111 million grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to be used in the country's fight against malaria, Ray Chambers, U.N. special envoy for malaria, said at a meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Monday, Reuters reports.

19 Aug 2009

Elsevier/Lancet launch H1N1 resource centre

An H1N1 influenza channel has been added to the Elsevier Global Medical News (EGMN) wire service division of the International Medical News Group. The H1N1 channel was created to meet physicians' continuing needs to keep up-to-date with the news about the spread of the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, as well as the new diagnostics, vaccines, clinical trials, and treatments for H1N1 infections.

18 Aug 2009

H1N1 pandemic: no time for complacency

Prevention of H1N1 influenza virus through vaccination must be our top priority if disease patterns in the northern hemisphere follow those in the southern hemisphere this fall, writes Paul Hébert, Editor-in-Chief of CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) in an editorial.

18 Aug 2009

New findings on how hepatitis C survives for so long in the body

Researchers at the University of Leeds have discovered a previously unknown mechanism that allows the hepatitis C virus (HCV) to remain in the body for decades.

18 Aug 2009

Opinion: Chronic disease in Africa; education can help combat disease; climate change and health; TB vaccine

"An epidemic of chronic, non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, mental illness, cancer, diabetes, and obesity is growing in Africa, a continent still struggling with infectious and nutritional diseases," according to a Boston Globe opinion piece by Michelle Holmes and Shona Dalal.

18 Aug 2009

New guidance on novel H1N1 influenza for K-12 schools

The Secretary of Health today released guidance on Novel H1N1, also known as swine flu, for elementary and secondary schools in an effort to keep kids and staff healthy and flu-free this school year.

17 Aug 2009

Associated Press examines use of oral polio vaccine in Nigeria

The Associated Press examines how the oral polio vaccine, "made from a live polio virus — albeit weakened," is contributing to the spread of the disease in Nigeria.

17 Aug 2009