Infectious Diseases News and Research

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Immune cells use neurotransmitters to regulate health and disease

The article, titled "Emerging roles of immune cell-derived neurotransmitters in immunity and disease," published on March 17, 2026, in Immunity & Inflammation, provides a timely and authoritative review of how innate and adaptive immune cells-including macrophages, dendritic cells, natural killer cells, T cells, and B cells-produce and respond to classic neurotransmitters.

25 Mar 2026

Severe infections linked to higher dementia risk independent of coexisting illnesses

Severe infections increase the risk of dementia independently of other coexisting illnesses, according to a new study published March 24th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Pyry Sipilä of the University of Helsinki, Finland, and colleagues.

24 Mar 2026

Nepal and Afghanistan show how abrupt aid cuts can unravel essential care

Abrupt cuts to external health aid can destabilize multiple essential services simultaneously in fragile, donor-dependent settings, as illustrated by Nepal and Afghanistan. The paper argues that donor withdrawal is not just a resilience test, but also an ethical and governance issue that should be managed through “transition discipline.”

24 Mar 2026

WHO urges faster TB detection with new point-of-care tests

On World TB Day, the World Health Organization (WHO) is urging countries to accelerate action to end tuberculosis (TB) and expand access to lifesaving services by using new innovations such as diagnostic tests that can be used near the point-of-care and tongue swabs that can help detect the disease faster reaching more people.

24 Mar 2026

Study revises the understanding of neutrophil dynamics during respiratory viral infection

Neutrophil infiltration is a hallmark of pulmonary inflammation during respiratory viral infections, yet the origin of these cells has been a subject of debate.

23 Mar 2026

New protein atlas identifies distinct subtypes of neurodegenerative diseases

Neurodegenerative diseases form a tangled biological web with overlapping molecular signatures and symptoms. To decode this complexity, a multi-institute collaboration led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists developed the pan-neurodegeneration atlas (PanNDA).

23 Mar 2026

New report provides the most detailed picture of preventable child deaths worldwide

An estimated 4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2024, including 2.3 million newborns, according to new estimates released today.

18 Mar 2026

New breath test could quickly diagnose bacterial infections

Infectious diseases are a major cause of death worldwide, and diagnosing bacterial infections remains a challenge in medicine.

18 Mar 2026

Protein targeted by cancer drugs may help the body fight influenza

A protein already targeted by FDA-approved cancer drugs may also help the body fight influenza, according to new research from The Jackson Laboratory (JAX).

18 Mar 2026

Climate change drives dengue outbreaks through extreme weather events

Diseases historically absent from the United States have been showing up in Florida, Texas, California and other U.S. states in recent years.

17 Mar 2026

One-dose oral treatment may be the simplest weapon against sleeping sickness

Sleeping sickness has been killing people across Africa for generations. A disease with no vaccine, spread by the bite of a tsetse fly, it was once treated with injections of an arsenic derivative, a cure that could be as dangerous as the illness itself.

17 Mar 2026

Blocking fructose metabolism may improve brain tumor immunotherapy response

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered that specialized immune cells within the glioblastoma tumor metabolize fructose to suppress immune responses and promote tumor growth, reports a study published on March 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

17 Mar 2026

Study uncovers how tuberculosis bacteria fuel themselves during infection

Researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) have uncovered how the bacteria that causes tuberculosis fuels itself during infection, providing new insights into one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases.

17 Mar 2026

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