Disease/Infection News

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Hopkins project asks public help to send vital family planning information overseas

Health providers in developing countries need accurate and up-to-date reproductive health information that could help them save hundreds of thousands of lives each year, help women and men plan their families, and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

30 Oct 2007

AIDS first came to the U.S. from Haiti almost 40 years ago

According to the latest research, the AIDS virus invaded the United States from Haiti, sometime around 1969, it then flourished and spread worldwide

30 Oct 2007

Lessons learned from Marburg and Ebola outbreaks

Outbreaks of filovirus haemorrhagic fevers (FHFs) such as those caused by the Ebola and Marburg viruses can only be controlled if agencies have the support and trust of local communities, according to two papers just published in the online edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases as part of a special supplement on filovirusues.

29 Oct 2007

Southern Africa Litigation Centre launches HIV/AIDS program

The Southern Africa Litigation Centre on Monday announced the launch of a new program that will focus on human rights in an effort to address HIV/AIDS issues in the region, the SAPA/SABCNews.com reports.

29 Oct 2007

HIV vaccine trial volunteers asked to undergo testing to determine whether they are at increased risk of HIV

Researchers have asked more than 3,000 people who participated in a trial of Merck's experimental HIV vaccine that was halted last month to undergo additional testing to determine if they are at an increased risk of HIV, Reuters reports (Fox, Reuters, 10/25).

29 Oct 2007

Zimbabwe in line to reach antiretroviral treatment target, health official says

Zimbabwe could meet its target of providing 140,000 HIV-positive people with access to no-cost antiretroviral drugs by the end of the year, Owen Mugurungi, head of the Zimbabwean government's HIV/AIDS unit, said on Tuesday at a two-day workshop on drug access issues in the country, the Herald/AllAfrica.com reports (Herald/AllAfrica.com, 10/26).

29 Oct 2007

One-third of people with TB in U.S. unaware of HIV status

Nearly one-third of people living with tuberculosis in the U.S. are unaware of their HIV status, according to a study published Friday in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Reuters reports (Dunham, Reuters, 10/25).

29 Oct 2007

New Zealand's influenza pandemic preparedness report released

The New Zealand Ministry of Health has released the key findings of Exercise Cruickshank, one of the biggest exercises ever staged by government.

29 Oct 2007

Homelessness increases risk of infection for injecting drug users

A new report from the Health Protection Agency shows that around three-quarters of injecting drug users (IDUs) have been homeless at some point. In addition, those who have been homeless have higher levels of injecting risk and associated infections, primarily through the sharing of needles and low standards of hygiene.

29 Oct 2007

Pregnant women with bird flu pass it on to their unborn

Chinese experts say they have found that pregnant women infected with the H5N1 bird-flu virus can pass the disease on to their unborn babies.

29 Oct 2007

Canadian beef the culprit in E.coli outbreaks in U.S. and Canada

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has issued a warning to the public regarding various beef products.

29 Oct 2007

Whole parasite malaria vaccine to be manufactured for clinical trials

Sanaria Inc. and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative has officially opened a one-of-a-kind clinical manufacturing facility to produce a vaccine that uses a weakened form of the malaria parasite to fight a disease that annually kills more than one million people, most of them African children.

29 Oct 2007

New model of HIV dynamics

The emergence of drug resistant forms of HIV often underlies the failure of current antiretroviral therapies for HIV infection.

28 Oct 2007

Research sheds new light on how diseases jump across species

Researchers at the University of Leeds have made a breakthrough in understanding a virus which poses one of the greatest global disease threats to wild carnivores including lions, African wild dogs and several types of seal.

25 Oct 2007

5% of MRSA patients in U.S. died

One of every 20 (or 5 percent) of the roughly 368,600 patients treated in U.S. hospitals in 2005 for Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, died, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

25 Oct 2007

Specialists in infectious disease and global health convene at Philadelphia meeting

Nearly 2,500 physicians and scientists from institutions around the world such as the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health will meet at the 56th American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's Annual Meeting on Nov. 4-8, in Philadelphia to discuss the latest research on infectious diseases and bioterrorist and global health threats.

24 Oct 2007

Johns Hopkins details scientific breakthroughs in malaria prevention and treatment

"Breaking the Cycle" chronicles five years of scientific discovery conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute (JHMRI).

24 Oct 2007

Large avian flu outbreaks more likely to involve duck meat industry

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that 73% of avian flu outbreaks in the UK would not spread beyond the initial infected farm, but larger outbreaks are more likely to involve the duck meat industry.

24 Oct 2007

HIV combination antiretroviral drug therapy key to saving the lives of African children

Letting nurses and other trained health care workers deliver that therapy and monitor patients, especially when doctors are in short supply, is just as important to saving lives, according to a new study by the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

24 Oct 2007