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This story contains a warning that might cause alarm — or apathy

For more than a decade, Raymond Ho has answered calls for California's poison emergency hotline.

22 Nov 2019

Study reveals effective way to block the transmission of mosquito-borne dengue virus

An international team of scientists have reported an effective and environmentally sustainable way to block the transmission of mosquito-borne dengue virus, in trials carried out in Malaysia.

21 Nov 2019

Eastern equine encephalitis virus poses emergent threat in the U.S.

Although eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), a mosquito-borne illness, has existed for centuries, 2019 has been a particularly deadly year for the disease in the United States.

21 Nov 2019

Public health officials announce that eastern equine encephalitis virus is an “emergent threat”

Public health officials have declared that the mosquito-borne eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus is an "emergent threat".

21 Nov 2019

Efforts to move the needle on flu shot rates get stuck

It's free and available everywhere. Yet most Americans skip the annual flu shot - with the number of dispensed vaccines barely changed in the past decade, despite government removal of cost and access obstacles.

21 Nov 2019

Certain traditional soup broths possess antimalarial properties

Researchers have found that some soups have antimalarial properties and can interrupt the life cycle of a malarial parasite.

19 Nov 2019

Measles heralds state of emergency in Samoa

All students in Samoa should stay at home, because all schools are closed – this message may bring joy to juvenile hearts but not to those of parents and other adults, who know this is because of the destruction caused by the deadly measles epidemic that is spreading across the Pacific islands.

18 Nov 2019

Sterilizing mosquitoes may be the answer to curb Zika, Dengue, Chikungunya, WHO reports

A new technique that sterilizes male mosquito through radiation shows promise in fighting mosquito-borne illnesses, including Zika, dengue and chikungunya. Soon, health experts plan to test the technique as part of global health efforts to control these diseases.

18 Nov 2019

The Black Death still lurks all over the world

Beijing, the capital of the economic giant, China, is in the news currently for a far different reason – two patients have developed pneumonic plague. The patients, who hail from Inner Mongolia’s northwestern corner, are being treated at a high-level hospital there, amidst 21 million other people. The health authorities say they have put in place adequate protection and control measures to keep the plague from spreading.

17 Nov 2019

Access to mobile phone location data can help understand spread of vector-borne diseases

Researchers from EPFL and MIT have shown that human mobility is a major factor in the spread of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue even over short intra-city distances. In a paper published in Scientific Reports, the team compares different mobility models and concludes that having access to mobile phone location data can prove crucial in understanding disease transmission dynamics - and, ultimately, in stopping an outbreak from evolving into an epidemic.

15 Nov 2019

Altering malarial parasite genes to prevent malaria

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by the parasitic organism called Plasmodium, of which there are several types that cause the different kinds of malarial fever. This age-old infection still kills over 400,000 people every year, all over the world. A new study published in the journal Cell on November 14, 2019, shows how a simple tweaking of the genes of this organism could quite conceivably lead to the elimination of this disease altogether.

14 Nov 2019

Study finds sex differences in treatment and outcome after stroke

Women are more likely to survive a stroke, but have worse disability and poorer quality of life afterwards compared to men, according to research published in the latest issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

14 Nov 2019

Climate change poses unprecedented threat to children's health

A report warns that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to children and will have lifelong impacts on human health.

14 Nov 2019

Deterministic mechanoporation of cells en masse to cure cancer

What if you could cure cancer by re-engineering patients' cells to better target and destroy their own tumors? With the advent of powerful new cellular engineering technologies, this is no longer the stuff of science fiction.

13 Nov 2019

Lung inflammation in a case of a 16-year-old linked to vaping

The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned earlier last month about the possible risk of lung inflammation from the exposure to the fluid in e-cigarettes. Now a case of a 16-year-old boy was reported with life threatening lung inflammation leading to respiratory failure.

12 Nov 2019

New textbook on mysterious and deadly cytokine storm syndrome

There's no telling where the call will come from, or when. But Randy Cron, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pediatrics and medicine at UAB, knows to expect them.

11 Nov 2019

Lupus flare-ups could be linked to environmental factors

Researchers have found that alteration in the environment and atomospheric factors could be associated with organ specific flare-ups of lupus among patients diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erethematosus (SLE). The study results were presented at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting. The abstract was titled, “Environmental and Atmospheric Factors in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Regression Analysis.”

11 Nov 2019

Researchers generate reliable maps for transmission risk of Zika virus

The spread of infectious diseases such as Zika depends on many different factors. Environmental factors play a role, as do socioeconomic factors. Recently, several attempts have be made to predict the transmission risk of the Zika virus at a global and local level, but the spatial and temporal patterns of transmission are still not well understood.

11 Nov 2019

American Association of Endodontists commends new ADA guidelines

The American Association of Endodontists (AAE), a global membership organization of specialized dentists who provide root canal treatment, applauds the American Dental Association for updating its guidelines on using antibiotics to treat tooth pain.

11 Nov 2019

Dengue vaccine from Takeda shows promise

Officials have confirmed the initial success with trials of Dengue vaccine. Dengue, a viral disease borne by mosquitoes is considered to be one of the top ten health threats says the world Health Organization (WHO). Since the beginning of the outbreaks and the hundreds of deaths due to this infection, researchers have been on the lookout for vaccines to prevent this infection.

10 Nov 2019