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GSK starts testing H1N1 vaccine; Opinion piece addresses U.S. role in helping developing countries procure vaccine

"GlaxoSmithKline has started testing its pandemic H1N1 swine flu vaccine in humans, and expects to start giving the results to government agencies next month, the drugmaker said on Friday," Reuters reports. The company "plans to conduct 16 different trials of the vaccine and to test 9,000 people in total across Europe, Canada and the United States," according to the news service (Deighton, 8/14).

17 Aug 2009

Biologist demystifies Acinetobacter baumannii

Tao Weitao, a researcher in the College of Sciences' Department of Biology at the University of Texas at San Antonio is making great strides in a project that was funded one year ago by the San Antonio Area Foundation. The professor in the South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases is researching Acinetobacter baumannii, a soil-dwelling bacterium that threatens the health of military personnel in the Middle East and can also infect their family members once the soldiers have returned home following battle.

17 Aug 2009

New consortium to tackle African sleeping sickness and Leishmaniasis

A new consortium has been formed to boost drug development for the treatment of two deadly diseases, African sleeping sickness and Leishmaniasis, which affect millions of people worldwide.

17 Aug 2009

PEPFAR partners with BD to improve blood collection safety in Africa

PEPFAR and the global medical technology company BD announced an iniative Tuesday that will work to improve blood collection safety in clinics and hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa – an issue that PANA/Afrique en ligne reports has "become more critical than ever in sub-Saharan nations and other developing countries severely impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic" (8/12).

16 Aug 2009

New microneedle-based injection device from Nanopass

Following the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of a swine flu pandemic, NanoPass Technologies Ltd. (NanoPass) announced today that it has successfully developed a microneedle-based injection device that could dramatically enhance both the effectiveness and supply of pandemic flu vaccines.

14 Aug 2009

Updated, evidence-based guidelines highlight primary care needs of HIV patients

With HIV patients living longer thanks to advances in treatment, the primary care needs of those living with HIV have never been more important. Updated, evidence-based guidelines from the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) are designed to help providers manage the care of those living with this complex chronic infection.

14 Aug 2009

HIV/AIDS funding, treatment standards, empowering women addressed at ICAAP

Funding to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific has fallen short of the demand, and the majority of available money has missed reaching those at highest risk -- Swarup Sarkar, director of Asia unit for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- said during a session at the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) in Bali, Indonesia, the Jakarta Post reports.

13 Aug 2009

Mumbai closes schools, some businesses in effort to fight H1N1 spread

Beginning on Thursday, "Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, will shut schools and movie theaters as swine flu-related deaths jumped, ignoring federal government advice to keep educational institutions open," Bloomberg reports. Schools will close for seven days and malls and cinemas for three in an effort to contain the virus, Prajakta Lavangare, a director general of the Maharashtra state government, explained Wednesday (Jatakia/Chatterjee, 8/12).

13 Aug 2009

Health officials gather in South Africa to discuss H1N1 in Africa

On Tuesday, South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi cautioned that Africa might be hit harder by H1N1 (swine) flu than other parts of the world, the Associated Press reports (8/11).

12 Aug 2009

Farmer receives U.N. appointment; Fight against Malaria in Africa

"Former U.S. president Bill Clinton, who is now the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, announced the appointment Tuesday of Harvard professor Paul Farmer, a pioneer in community health treatment for the world's poor, as his deputy," the Associated Press/mlive.com reports (8/11).

12 Aug 2009

Global Fund Director says G20 can become donor nations

Reuters examines Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Executive Director Michel Kazatchkine's recent comments on the sidelines of the 9th International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP), that some emerging nations should consider becoming donor nations.

12 Aug 2009

Past flu pandemics help predict the future course of 2009 H1N1 virus

A commonly held belief that severe influenza pandemics are preceded by a milder wave of illness arose because some accounts of the devastating flu pandemic of 1918-19 suggested that it may have followed such a pattern.

12 Aug 2009

Pennsylvania's first case of West Nile in 2009 confirmed

State Health Secretary Everette James today reported this year's first confirmed human case of West Nile virus in Pennsylvania. The individual is a 21-year-old woman from Luzerne County.

12 Aug 2009

Scientists discover how new drug kills roundworms

A PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases study found how a new drug developed by scientists in China effectively kills roundworms – "a parasite that lurks in the intestines and which affects nearly two billion people in tropical countries," Reuters reports. "Roundworms are particularly harmful to children and pregnant women," Reuters writes.

12 Aug 2009

Shwarzenegger’s cuts to HIV/AIDS programs to be protested

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the nation’s largest non-profit HIV/AIDS healthcare provider, is joining a broad-based coalition of AIDS advocates and patients to protest draconian budget cuts that were blue lined out of the budget by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and that will jeopardize the public health by eliminating the vast majority of funding for AIDS prevention, care and treatment.

11 Aug 2009

Drug-resistant tuberculosis can apread as easily as drug-sensitive tuberculosis, study says

New research has found that drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis are just as likely to be transmitted between people as drug-sensitive TB, which could make drug-resistant forms of the disease "highly prevalent in the next few decades," the Australian Associated Press/Sydney Morning Herald reports (Rose, 8/11).

11 Aug 2009

Britain's first swine flu vaccine trials start

Britain's first swine flu vaccine trials, led by the University of Leicester and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, are taking place at the Leicester Royal Infirmary.

11 Aug 2009

U.S., Mexico, Canada vow to work together against H1N1

President Obama together with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper "vowed on Monday to fight the spread of the H1N1 swine flu," during their summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, Reuters reports.

11 Aug 2009

AIDS Research Center earns $7.5 million grant renewal

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) has won a $7.5 million grant to continue its work in the research, prevention and treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

11 Aug 2009

UNAIDS report says 50 million women in Asia at risk of HIV infection from intimate partners

A UNAIDS report released Tuesday at the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) in Bali, Indonesia, estimates that more than 90 percent of the 1.7 million HIV-positive women living in Asia were infected by husbands or long-term partners who engaged in "high-risk sexual behaviours," Agence France-Presse reports. The UNAIDS report also found "women accounted for 35 percent of all adult HIV infections in Asia in 2008, up from 17 percent in 1990, the AFP writes.

11 Aug 2009