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UK's fight against zoonotic diseases receives a £200 million boost

The UK's fight against zoonotic diseases, including avian flu and bovine tuberculosis received a major boost today (16 February) with the allocation of £200 million for a programme of investment into world leading research facilities.

15 Feb 2022

New prevention zone to protect poultry and captive birds from avian influenza

From 8pm on 21 November 2021, a new avian influenza prevention zone will be declared in parts of North Yorkshire in England, namely the districts of Harrogate, Hambleton and Richmondshire, which means that it is a legal requirement for all bird keepers in that area to keep their birds indoors and to follow strict biosecurity measures in order to limit the spread of and eradicate the disease.

21 Nov 2021

Zoonotic disease surveillance must be integrated into health security intelligence systems, experts say

The surveillance of zoonotic diseases must be integrated into health security intelligence systems, if future pandemics are to be handled effectively, according to global health practitioners writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

5 Aug 2021

First human case of H10N3 influenza reported in Jiangsu, China

As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continues to spread and wreak havoc globally, another health threat emerged in China. The country has reported its first confirmed case of the rare H10N3 bird flu in a patient admitted to the hospital in April 2021 in Zhenjiang, China.

4 Jun 2021

Black swan DNA could offer insight into how humans respond to bird flu

In a world-first, scientists from The University of Western Australia have assembled the entire DNA of the black swan, which could offer insight into how the bird, and even humans, respond to bird flu and other pandemics in the same family of viruses.

6 May 2021

Preventing future pandemics by ending the wildlife trade

In this News-Medical interview, we spoke to Professor Diana Bell about the illegal wildlife trade and how we could prevent future pandemics by stopping it.

22 Mar 2021

Many US health experts underestimated the coronavirus … until it was too late

A year ago, while many Americans were finishing their holiday shopping and finalizing travel plans, doctors in Wuhan, China, were battling a mysterious outbreak of pneumonia with no known cause.

21 Dec 2020

NRP-1 receptor potentiates SARS-CoV-2 infectivity

The COVID-19 pandemic is still actively spreading in many parts of the world, causing redoubled efforts to develop antivirals and vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). A recent study explores the role of a second type of cell surface receptor, called neuropilin, in the virus's entry into the host cell and its subsequent replication.

26 Oct 2020

Genes associated with SARS-CoV-2 human lung cell infection

Now, a new study published on the preprint server bioRxiv in June 2020 attempts to make sense of this data to identify viral genes that are explicitly expressed in the cells infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This could help reveal new therapeutic targets.

26 Jun 2020

COVID-19 pandemic may have negative consequences for mental health

The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected the physical lives of most people. But now there are also indications that the pandemic has negative consequences for the mental health of the people being infected, the healthcare professionals and the population as a whole.

18 Jun 2020

Could the next pandemic be 100 times worse than COVID-19?

As the world tries to cope with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Dr. Michael Herschel Greger has claimed that worse could be yet to come. The American nutrition expert has claimed in his latest book that the next pandemic could be due to virus emanating from poultry farms.

2 Jun 2020

Study looks into COVID‐19 preparedness in Michigan nursing homes

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit some nursing homes especially hard - including in the hotspot state of Michigan. Hundreds of deaths of residents in homes from Seattle to Boston have raised concerns about how well facilities are protecting the 1.3 million older Americans who live in them.

24 Apr 2020

Emergex partners with George Mason University for highly pathogenic RNA virus studies

Emergex Vaccines Holding Limited, a biotechnology company developing CD8+ priming set-point vaccines to prevent serious infectious diseases, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with the George Mason University, based in Virginia, in the United States.

22 Apr 2020

Pets have a low risk of transmitting multi-drug resistant bugs to owners, study finds

Zoonoses are diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans. About 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonoses, just like the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that’s caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Domesticated animals such as pets can carry parasites and other pathogens to people. However, a new study suggests that pets are not a significant source of transmission to humans.

21 Apr 2020

Role of ACE/ARB inhibitors in the treatment of COVID-19

A new opinion piece published in the journal Circulation Research in April 2020 defends the use of antihypertensive drugs called ACE inhibitors and ARBs in patients with pandemic viral pneumonia called COVID-19.

20 Apr 2020

Deaths of Chinese children, adolescents from infectious diseases prior to COVID-19 found to be rare

Deaths of children and adolescents in China due to infectious diseases were becoming rare prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study.

3 Apr 2020

COVID-19: Ban on eating wild meat deprives some forest communities

As efforts to curb the COVID-19 pandemic accelerate around the world, wildlife conservationists have welcomed a move by the Chinese government to outlaw the hunting and consumption of all terrestrial wild animals.

31 Mar 2020

Dutch citizens prepared to give EU a more central role in fighting epidemic

Dutch citizens are prepared to give the European Union a more central role when it comes to fighting an epidemic.

26 Mar 2020

COVID-19 epidemic is the product of natural evolution, study finds

The novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that emerged in the city of Wuhan, China, last year and has since caused a large scale COVID-19 epidemic and spread to more than 70 other countries is the product of natural evolution, according to findings published today in the journal Nature Medicine.

17 Mar 2020

Transmission of avian influenza viruses from poultry food consumption is unlikely

In the Federal State of Brandenburg, a case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (often referred to as bird flu) was found in a wild goose, caused by a virus of the H5N8 subtype.

26 Feb 2020