Disease/Infection News

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Infectious Diseases Society of America strongly supports the STAAR Act

With extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, life-threatening drug-resistant respiratory and skin infections, and other "bad bugs" routinely making headlines, infectious diseases physicians are applauding Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) and Rep. Michael Ferguson (R-NJ) for introducing H.R. 3697, the Strategies To Address Antimicrobial Resistance (STAAR) Act.

29 Sep 2007

How H5N1 virus works

H5N1 influenza, also known as avian influenza, is considered a major global threat to human health, with high fatality rates.

27 Sep 2007

CDC awards $35 million to increase HIV testing opportunities

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded $35 million in funding to state and local health departments to increase HIV testing opportunities among populations disproportionately affected by HIV, primarily African Americans.

27 Sep 2007

Smallpox evolved earlier than believed

Smallpox is older than thought, according to results of a new technique reported in the Sept. 24 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

27 Sep 2007

Clostridium difficile infection is four times more likely to kill patients with inflammatory bowel disease

C difficile is an important cause of diarrhoea among inpatients, and the numbers of new cases of the infection have been steadily increasing in recent years.

27 Sep 2007

British farmers dealt a blue tongue blow

The farming industry in Britain has been dealt another blow with the confirmation of another case of blue tongue disease.

26 Sep 2007

U.S. hospitals report infections increasing in frequency and cost

A new review of inpatient data from US hospitals shows that the number of infections caused by a common bacterium increased by over 7 percent each year from 1998 to 2003.

26 Sep 2007

Ebola outbreak in Congo.. 8 more cases of the deadly disease

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) another 8 cases of Ebola have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

25 Sep 2007

War on infection takes on a new challenger - the Infection Prevention Society

Severe infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile may be reduced radically in the future as a new forum for infection prevention and control professionals is launched next week on 26 September 2007 at the 37th annual Infection Control Nurses Association (ICNA) conference in Brighton.

25 Sep 2007

Eight new herpes viruses discovered in bats

Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin and colleagues detected eight new herpes viruses in bats, seven gammaherpesviruses (GHV) and one novel beta herpes virus.

25 Sep 2007

China in denial over pig disease

Agriculture officials in China have denied the country is the source of blue ear disease outbreaks among pigs in Vietnam and Myanmar.

24 Sep 2007

Infections caused by ESBL-producing E. coli

In light of increased media and public interest in ESBL-producing E. coli, the UK's Health Protection Agency felt it would be helpful to provide some background about these infections and the work that is being carried out in this area.

24 Sep 2007

International teams fighting deadly Ebola virus in DR Congo

Another four more cases of the Ebola virus have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing the total in the country to nine to date.

24 Sep 2007

No end in sight to foot-and-mouth outbreak in Britain

Following four cases of foot-and-mouth at farms in Surrey in the last two weeks another suspected case has now been detected in Hampshire.

24 Sep 2007

Clostridium difficile could outstrip MRSA in Irish hospitals

Research findings on a bug which is a major threat to hospital patients and particularly elderly patients, which could outstrip MRSA, will be presented to the Irish Society for Immunology (ISI) Annual Conference at Dublin City University.

24 Sep 2007

Soap and warm water best for battling Clostridium difficile

Hospitals world-wide battle nosocomial infections on a daily basis.

21 Sep 2007

Brugia malayi's secrets revealed

An international team of researchers has revealed the genetic secrets of one of the world's most debilitating human parasites, Brugia malayi (B. malayi), which the World Health Organization estimates has seriously incapacitated and disfigured more than 40 million people around the globe.

21 Sep 2007

Flu virus migrates globally all year round

The influenza A virus does not lie dormant during summer but migrates globally and mixes with other viral strains before returning to the Northern Hemisphere as a genetically different virus, according to biologists who say the finding settles a key debate on what the virus does during the summer off season when it is not infecting people.

21 Sep 2007

PrEP strategy could dramatically slow the spread of HIV

Giving a daily antiretroviral pill to people to prevent HIV could profoundly slow the spread of the infection in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is a full-blown epidemic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers report.

20 Sep 2007