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Fruit bats the culprit in spreading Marburg virus

Scientists have found that fruit bats that roost in caves could be the culprits in the spread of the deadly Marburg virus.

22 Aug 2007

HIV denial in the Internet era

The Internet is serving as a fertile medium for "HIV denialists" to spread false ideas about HIV/AIDS, which could have terrible public health consequences, say scientists in a policy paper in PLoS Medicine.

22 Aug 2007

Premier forum on AIDS focuses on vaccine against HIV

An international conference on AIDS has gathered together over 900 global researchers, clinicians and specialists for the 2007 AIDS Vaccine Conference in Seattle.

21 Aug 2007

AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition receives $14 million from Gates Foundation

The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) announced today at the AIDS Vaccine 2007 Conference that it has received a five-year, $14 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a new international HIV Prevention Research Advocacy Network.

21 Aug 2007

E.coli scare in UK now affects nine people

The E.coli outbreak in Paisley, Scotland has now affected nine people; one woman has died and three more remain in a serious condition while the other five are said to be recovering.

20 Aug 2007

New formula to gauge risk of disease clusters

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a mathematical formula to assess whether concentrated disease outbreaks can be ascribed to random-chance events or, instead, suggest a contagious or environmental effect that requires epidemiological investigation.

17 Aug 2007

Free distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets can save lives

Malaria is still responsible for over a million deaths every year, even though it has been known for some years that sleeping under an insecticide-treated net (ITN) greatly reduces the chance of being bitten by the mosquitoes which carry the disease.

17 Aug 2007

Preventing the spread of zoonotic diseases

Instead of attacking wild birds for our new disease problems, a far more cost effective approach should focus on keeping wild animals separate in the places where they often commingle: in wildlife markets and international trade, according to wildlife health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in a recent issue of the prestigious Journal of Wildlife Diseases.

17 Aug 2007

E.coli in the UK kills one and makes eight others sick

In the latest food scare in the UK investigators continue to try to pinpoint the source of an E.coli outbreak.

15 Aug 2007

Authorities accused of a cover-up in British foot and mouth scare

The British government has been accused of a cover-up over the foot and mouth outbreak in a research site which houses the government-backed Institute for Animal Health.

14 Aug 2007

New initiative to tackle animal diseases

Endemic animal diseases cost UK farmers, and indirectly consumers, hundreds of millions of pounds a year and cause significant animal welfare problems.

13 Aug 2007

Bird flu death in Bali - Australians on alert

Health officials in Indonesia have confirmed the first human death from bird flu in Bali in a village in the north-west district of Jembrana, an area where poultry is known to be affected.

13 Aug 2007

Foot and mouth spreads even further in the UK

It now appears that the foot-and-mouth outbreak in England has spread outside the protection zone, dashing any hopes that the disease had been contained.

12 Aug 2007

Legionnaires' disease in Surrey with links to Institute of Animal Health at Pirbright

The Health Protection Agency can confirm that its Surrey Health Protection Unit is involved in an investigation with the Health and Safety Executive and local environmental health officers of a reported case of Legionnaires' disease with alleged links to the Institute of Animal Health at Pirbright, in Surrey .

12 Aug 2007

All children adopted from outside North America should be screened for TB

University of Alberta researchers stress that all children adopted from outside North America should be screened for tuberculosis.

11 Aug 2007

Scientists prepare for future pandemic strains of H5N1

Preparing vaccines and therapeutics that target a future mutant strain of H5N1 influenza virus sounds like science fiction, but it may be possible, according to a team of scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and a collaborator at Emory University School of Medicine.

11 Aug 2007