Infectious Diseases News and Research

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Precision mapping identifies household hotspots of schistosomiasis

High-precision mapping tools can pinpoint where schistosomiasis persists down to the household level, potentially transforming efforts to eliminate the disease affecting 250 million people, a 13-year study has found.

16 Mar 2026

Targeting two influenza proteins may reduce viral transmission

A long-running debate in vaccine design revolves around whether a vaccine should be optimized to prevent the virus from replicating inside an infected host or prevent the virus from transmitting to others.

13 Mar 2026

Doctors warn of a deadly complication from measles outbreaks

The first sign came when Deepanwita Dasgupta was 5 and started stumbling more while playing at her home in Bangalore in southern India.

13 Mar 2026

Maternal antibodies protect newborns from severe E. coli infections, study finds

A multi-center study led by researchers at Cincinnati Children's sheds surprising new light on why some newborns become severely ill from Escherichia coli infection, but others do not.

11 Mar 2026

Marburg virus enters human cells far more efficiently than Ebola

In a new study published in Nature, University of Minnesota researchers found that the Marburg virus, one of the world's deadliest pathogens with an average 73% fatality rate, is unusually efficient at getting inside human cells.

11 Mar 2026

Severe COVID and flu infections increase risk of lung cancer

Severe COVID-19 and influenza infections prime the lungs for cancer and can accelerate the disease's development, but vaccination heads off those harmful effects, new research from UVA Health's Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology Research and UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center indicates.

11 Mar 2026

DNA origami vaccine platform shows promise against multiple infectious viruses

The COVID-19 pandemic brought messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines to the forefront of global health care. After their clinical trial stages, the first COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was administered on 8 December 2020 and mathematical models suggest that mRNA vaccines prevented at least 14.4 million deaths from COVID-19 in the first year alone.

11 Mar 2026

Low-cost interventions reduce neonatal sepsis from Klebsiella pneumoniae

A new study found that a multifaceted infection prevention and control intervention could at least temporarily thwart outbreaks of infections from the Klebsiella pneumoniae bacterium, a leading cause of neonatal sepsis and mortality in Africa and South Asia.

10 Mar 2026

Global study reveals how inequality limits access to exercise and why it matters for health

A global analysis of physical activity data from 68 countries shows large socioeconomic and gender inequalities in access to choice-based exercise, particularly active leisure. The study also synthesizes evidence linking physical activity to lower risks of severe infectious disease, depression, and cancer mortality, and proposes a new “physical activity for health and wellbeing” public health framework.

10 Mar 2026

Researchers validate Mpox antibody test during outbreak in Rwanda

An antibody test for the infectious disease Mpox was successfully developed during the new clade 1b outbreak in Rwanda, the first time that an assay of its kind has been validated within this setting.

9 Mar 2026

Most pandemic viruses show little adaptation before infecting humans

A new University of California San Diego study published in Cell challenges a long-standing assumption about how animal viruses become capable of sparking human epidemics and pandemics.

9 Mar 2026

Scientists discover how herpes simplex virus softens cells to multiply faster

Herpes simplex virus partially liquifies the tightly packed, gel-like interior of human cell nuclei to copy itself faster, a new study shows.

6 Mar 2026

Six federal scientists run out by Trump talk about the work left undone

Marc Ernstoff, a physician who has pioneered immunotherapy research and treatments for cancer patients, said his work as a federal scientist proved untenable under the Trump administration.

6 Mar 2026

Spatial intelligence platform supports health policy decisions aimed at ending HIV

INCLIVA Healthcare Research Institute-University Clinical Hospital of Valencia, the Universitat Politècnica de València - through its VRAIN Institute, the Valencia Anti-AIDS Committee and the Centre for Epidemiological Studies on Sexually Transmitted Infections and AIDS in Catalonia (CEEISCAT) have joined forces to develop a spatial intelligence platform to support health policy decisions aimed at optimizing the prevention of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and accelerating its early diagnosis.

5 Mar 2026

Tufts researchers identify new vulnerabilities to combat persistent C. diff infections

Affecting roughly half a million Americans each year, bacterial infections caused by Clostridioides difficile—commonly known as C. diff—are a serious and persistent problem for patients and hospitals alike.

5 Mar 2026

Environmental swabs reveal hidden avian viral diversity

Scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School have found that viruses circulating in live poultry markets can be detected more effectively by sampling the surrounding environment than by testing individual birds. The study, published in Nature Communications, shows that environmental sampling can uncover a broader range of poultry viruses-including highly pathogenic avian influenza strains that traditional surveillance may miss.

5 Mar 2026

NIH grant supports Oklahoma researcher investigating protein linked to lupus

For the millions of people living with lupus – a chronic autoimmune disease that can damage the kidneys, brain and other vital organs – treatment options remain limited and often come with serious side effects.

4 Mar 2026

New research initiative aims to predict and prevent diseases before they start

What if doctors could tell you a disease was coming years before you felt a single symptom-and stop it in its tracks? That is the goal of a sweeping new research initiative launched by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in collaboration with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (HJF).

2 Mar 2026

Acoziborole receives positive opinion for single-dose sleeping sickness treatment

The European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has granted a positive opinion to Acoziborole Winthrop (acoziborole) as a single-dose oral treatment for both early- and advanced-stage gambiense sleeping sickness in adults as well as in adolescents 12 years and older weighing at least 40 kilograms.

27 Feb 2026