Infectious Diseases News

Latest Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses News From Medical News Today.

Total news: 25
Last news: August 31, 2007 08:00:00

The premier website for science news since 1996. A service of AAAS.

Total news: 25
Last news: August 30, 2007 04:00:00

Physicians.....get the latest breaking news on Infectious Disease. Free CME, accredited by the University of Pennsylvannia, is available for physicians and other medical professionals.

Total news: 15
Last news: August 30, 2007 19:51:00

A paper being released in the August issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene illustrates how technology can improve knowledge needed to help prevent malaria, one of the worlds leading fatal infectious diseases.A team of researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed a new method for survey sampling and data collection that utilizes personal digital assistants (PDA) with Global Positioning Systems (GPS). [click link for full article] - [Read more]

University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have identified new sites on the bacterial cells protein making machinery where antibiotics can be delivered to treat infections. "The primary challenge of antibiotic therapy has been fighting infections caused by the pathogens which became resistant to antibiotics," says Alexander Mankin, professor and associate director of UICs Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and lead investigator of the study. [click link for full article] - [Read more]

Researchers believe that they have discovered why a bacterial lung infection is so lethal in the early stages, and its not what medical authorities had thought, according to research published in the journal Immunity. The study reveals for the first time that a toxin released by bacteria causes severe bleeding in the lungs by patients with pneumococcal pneumonia. It is the bleeding, the authors argue, not inflammation as once thought, which makes the infections deadly. [click link for full article] - [Read more]

HSP 90 inhibitors, which are finding favor in fighting cancer, may also help battle overwhelming infection in intensive care patients, researchers say.Studies in an animal model of sepsis, a major cause of ICU patient death, indicate HSP 90 inhibitors help degrade proteins perpetuating inflammation, says Dr. John D. Catravas, director of the Medical College of Georgia Vascular Biology Center. [click link for full article] - [Read more]

ATLANTA -- Americas children are getting their shots, but adolescents are lagging, according to the CDC. - [Read more]

SEATTLE -- ZIP codes and property values will provide a better handle on the scope of the nations obesity problem than income, race, or education, investigators here reported. - [Read more]

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Depression and living in a dank, moldy home are linked, but a lack of control and mold-related health problems also play a role, researchers said. - [Read more]

If you could see a piece of celery thats been magnified 10,000 times, youd know what the scientists fighting foodborne pathogens are up against, said University of Illinois microbiologist Hans Blaschek."Its like looking at a moonscape, full of craters and crevices. And many of the pathogens that cause foodborne illness, such as Shigella, E. coli, and Listeria, make sticky, sugary biofilms that get down in these crevices, stick like glue, and hang on like crazy. [click link for full article] - [Read more]

Illinois Department of Public Health reported three new human cases of West Nile Virus this week, bringing the total number of cases in the American state this year to 14. In addition, 8 new counties are now reporting bird or mosquito samples of the virus.The three new human cases include two men from Cook County who became ill in mid August, one in his 50s and one in his 70s. [click link for full article] - [Read more]

A review of measures taken to address a 2004 outbreak of the highly infectious Norwalk virus at The Johns Hopkins Hospital has provided the first solid documentation of expenses and efforts in the United States to stop the infection from spreading among patients, staff and visitors. [click link for full article] - [Read more]

Two University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have been awarded grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to develop treatments and tests for some rapidly emerging trouble spots in the area of gastrointestinal diseases. - [Read more]

By mapping a specialized sensory organ that the malaria mosquito uses to zero in on its human prey, an international team of researchers has taken an important step toward developing new and improved repellants and attractants that can be used to reduce the threat of malaria, generally considered the most prevalent life-threatening disease in the world. - [Read more]

BALTIMORE -- The message that its not smart to use cocaine has apparently gotten across to better educated people, found researchers here. - [Read more]

Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and their collaborators have for the first time successfully identified Marburg virus infection in a common species of African fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus). Marburg virus causes severe, often fatal, hemorrhagic fever in people and non-human primates. Bats have been suspected of carrying the virus, but until now, evidence of Marburg virus infection in bats had not been detected. [click link for full article] - [Read more]

Roche Diagnostics announced that the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) today approved its biologics license application for the companys test for direct detection of West Nile Virus in donated human blood and plasma. West Nile virus, which can cause serious health issues, is transmitted to humans most often through mosquito bites, but can also less commonly be transmitted by transfusion of infected blood or blood products. [click link for full article] - [Read more]

A review of measures taken to address a 2004 outbreak of the highly infectious Norwalk virus at the Johns Hopkins Hospital has provided the first solid documentation of expenses and efforts in the United States to stop the infection from spreading among patients, staff and visitors. Total hospital costs for the three-month outbreak -- including extra cleaning supplies, staff sick leave, diagnostic tests, replacement staff, and salaries and lost revenue from closed beds -- were estimated at more than $650,000. - [Read more]

Mosquitoes swarming around nearly 40 percent of the worldÂ’s population will continue to spread a deadly parasitic disease -- malaria. Now an interdisciplinary team led by researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has found a key link that causes malarial infection in both humans and mosquitoes. If this link in the chain of infection can be broken at its source -- the mosquito -- then the spread of malaria could be stopped without any man, woman or child needing to a take a drug. - [Read more]

With antibiotic resistance on the rise, LA BioMed researchers report in the September issue of Nature Reviews Microbiology on new clues they have uncovered in immune system molecules that defend against infection and hold hope of helping develop new anti-infectives. - [Read more]

Cooperation is widespread in the natural world but so too are cheats -- mutants that do not contribute to the collective good but simply reap the benefits of others cooperative efforts. In evolutionary terms, cheats should indeed prosper, so how cooperation persists despite the threat of cheat takeover is a fundamental question. Recently, biologists at the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford have found that in bacteria, cheats actually orchestrate their own downfall. [click link for full article] - [Read more]

In an effort to halt the spread of deadly infectious diseases now threatening to reach epidemic proportions around the world, an unprecedented research effort was launched by IBM, The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), and the University of Chicago to discover drugs to treat and cure dengue fever, West Nile encephalitis, hepatitis C, and a host of related diseases including yellow fever. [click link for full article] - [Read more]