Disease/Infection News

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Risk of HIV transmission highest in early stage of infection

The risk of HIV transmission via heterosexual intercourse is highest early in the course of HIV infection, before most infected people know their HIV status, according to a new study published in the May 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online

6 Apr 2005

Cardiovascular Disease: Diet, Nutrition And Emerging Risk Factors

Despite improvements in death rates from cardiovascular disease (CVD) around the world, CVD remains a leading cause of death and ill health in the UK, where death rates are amongst the highest in the world. Reducing death rates from this disease remains high on the Government’s agenda, yet attention to the classical risk factors may not provide all the answers.

6 Apr 2005

Pneumonia jab now available for over 65s in UK

People over 65 in the UK are to be offered a routine jab to help protect against diseases, including pneumonia, meningitis and septicaemia. Two in 1,000 over-65s are admitted to hospital with pneumococcal pneumonia each year and the infection can cause serious diseases.

5 Apr 2005

E.Sakazakii Meningitis to become a notifiable disease

A potentially fatal form of meningitis in premature babies linked to contaminated milk powder should be made a notifiable disease according to a report released today.

5 Apr 2005

E. coli cases in Florida has now risen to 24

The number of E. coli cases in Florida has now risen to 24 with the confirmation this week that two more people have E. coli bacteria poisoning.

5 Apr 2005

Meningitis epidemics driven by the wind

A meningitis epidemic hits West Africa every year, affecting 25 000 to 200 000 people. It has long been known that the timing of this epidemic and its spatial distribution within the “Meningitis Belt”, situated between 10° and 15° North, are closely linked to climatic conditions. Involved in the AMMA programme, IRD and University of Paris-VII researcher produced the first quantified description of this relationship using statistical methods.

5 Apr 2005

When treating malaria is a waste of money

Africa may fail to benefit from new and better drugs for malaria because of massive misdiagnosis of the disease by health workers and patients.

5 Apr 2005

HIV/AIDS impacts on population dynamics and economic growth

Top officials at the United Nations Commission on Population and Development, at its yearly meeting are focussing on the negative effects of HIV/AIDS on population dynamics, including population losses and decreased life expectancy, as well as the pandemic's links to increased extreme poverty, stalled economic growth and poor reproductive health in many parts of the world.

5 Apr 2005

Much more money needed to tackle flu virus

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is recommending that governments throughout the world need to set aside 5 per cent of what they spend on influenza vaccines to help get ready for the next big flu epidemic.

4 Apr 2005

Effect of individualized diets on chronic disease risk

Today at the 2005 Experimental Biology Conference, the Dairy Council of California sponsored a thought-provoking symposium titled "Individualized nutrition as a tool to prevent and treat chronic disease."

4 Apr 2005

Discrimination against AIDS patients to be stopped in India

India's Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has told an AIDS conference that his government plans to introduce a law to stop discrimination against people infected with the deadly virus.

4 Apr 2005

Scientists find how pneumonia bacteria get sugar boost to survive

Meningitis and pneumonia bacteria smash into our lungs and cells to steal sugar, which helps them survive, according to research presented from King's College and Guy's Hospital London, (Monday, 04 April 2005) at the Society for General Microbiology's 156th Meeting at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.

4 Apr 2005

How E.Coli became deadly to humans

Twenty-three years ago a harmless gut bacterium called E. coli developed the ability to kill people through food poisoning, bloody diarrhoea and kidney failure. Normally E. coli bacteria live in the intestine and don’t pose any danger, but some varieties can cause fatal food poisoning.

4 Apr 2005

Unravelling the Ebola virus’s biological cycle

Ebola virus infection in humans provokes a violent haemorrhagic fever. It usually flares up as intense epidemics. These kill 80 % of the people infected. Seven such outbreaks have hit Gabon and the Republic of Congo since 1994, leading to 445 cases resulting in 361 deaths.

4 Apr 2005

Breakthrough in the understanding of the spread of cholera

Cholera is an acute intestinal infection caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholera and is spread by contaminated water and food. Scientists from the University of Haifa and Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, have reported in Environmental Microbiology, an important breakthrough in our understanding of the continental and intercontinental distribution of cholera.

3 Apr 2005

Community MRSA is re-emergence of 1950's pandemic

This "re-equipping and re-emergence" of a clone that caused a pandemic 40-50 years ago could mean that community acquired MRSA will spread faster and be more widespread than previously expected, warns an international team of researchers who have been studying the bacteria.

3 Apr 2005

First UK cases of previously rare disease reported in gay men

A previously rare disease has been reported for the first time in the UK, Lymphograunuloma venereum (LGV) is a genital/anogenital bacterial infection caused by a particularly invasive strain of Chlamydia trachomatis.

3 Apr 2005

AIDS threatens Russian social and economic security

At a meeting this week on the fight with AIDS, Russian Vice-Premier Alexander Zhukov said the AIDS epidemic threatens Russian social and economic security and the spread of the disease is no longer just a medical problem.

30 Mar 2005

Polio is near total eradication

Almost 50 years after the discovery of the polio vaccine, experts think total eradication of the disease is near.

30 Mar 2005

CDC experts sent to Angola to help with Marburg epidemic

In an effort to control the Marburg virus outbreak in Angola, Health officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta will assist the World Health Organization by going to Angola to help with outbreak investigation, infection control and laboratory diagnosis of the disease.

30 Mar 2005