Infectious Diseases News and Research

RSS

Health organizations urge people to get vaccinated against the flu

Health organizations are urging people to get their flu shot soon to protect themselves during the upcoming influenza season.

28 Nov 2019

HIV positive sperm bank launched in New Zealand

In pursuit of greater acceptance for HIV positive people, an organization in New Zealand aspires to begin an HIV positive sperm bank called Sperm Positive. It will start by accepting sperms from 3 males who have HIV but are being treated such that their sperm is not capable of transmitting the infection at present. The treatment has reduced viremia (the viral load in the blood) to such a level that it is undetectable by standard methods.

27 Nov 2019

Household factors promote rapid staph superbug spread within families

A new study published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases on November 21, 2019, shows how the superbug called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can get into a house and spread rapidly between family members and pets, with the potential to cause devastating infections.

27 Nov 2019

Life expectancy in the United States steadily decreasing

Life expectancy in the United States is decreasing, and it may be due to the increasing rates of drug abuse and suicide, a new study finds.

27 Nov 2019

LACV-infected cerebral organoids reveal how to protect neurons from virus-induced death

Scientists have determined that La Crosse virus, which can cause inflammation of the brain, or encephalitis, in children, affects brain cells differently depending on their developmental stage.

26 Nov 2019

New way to thwart HIV infection at early stages

1.7 million. That's how many people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) each year worldwide. 1.7 million people who are condemned to lifelong antiretroviral therapy (ART) or risk developing fatal AIDS . Out of the 37.9 million people living with HIV (PLWH), 22.3 million have access to ART, allowing them to have an almost normal lifespan.

26 Nov 2019

New antiviral drug drives treatment resistance in influenza viruses

On January 31, 2019, an 11-year old boy in Japan went to a medical clinic with a fever. The providers there diagnosed him with influenza, a strain called H3N2, and sent him home with a new medication called baloxavir.

25 Nov 2019

Potent antimicrobial could combat antibiotic-resistant MRSA infections

Scientists have discovered a strong antimicrobial that is effective against some of the strongest infectious diseases.

25 Nov 2019

Researchers discover new active substance effective against gram negative bacteria

More and more bacterial pathogens of infectious diseases become resistant to customary antibiotics. Typical hospital germs such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae have become resistant to the most - and in some cases even all - currently available antibiotics. Their additional external membrane makes these bacteria difficult to attack.

21 Nov 2019

Researchers investigate a hospital outbreak in real time using high-resolution technique

On the European Antibiotic Awareness Day, researchers announce the results of a pilot study completed in record time. The initiative opens new perspectives for the control of bacterial infections in Portuguese hospitals.

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

Researchers develop breakthrough in marine sponge cell culture

Vertebrate, insect, and plant cell lines are important tools for research in many disciplines, including human health, evolutionary and developmental biology, agriculture and toxicology. Cell lines have been established for many organisms, including freshwater and terrestrial invertebrates.

21 Nov 2019

Experimental vaccine elicits antibodies that can neutralize multiple HIV strains

An experimental HIV vaccine developed by scientists at Scripps Research and the nonprofit vaccine research organization IAVI has reached an important milestone by eliciting antibodies that can neutralize a wide variety of HIV strains.

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

'African eye worm' hampers efforts to eliminate river blindness, study shows

Efforts to eliminate river blindness, a debilitating disease affecting millions in Africa, will be hampered by another parasitic infection known as Loiasis, or 'African eye worm,' according to a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

20 Nov 2019

ETVAX vaccine candidate shows promise against enterotoxigenic E. coli diarrhea

University of Gothenburg reports first successful results of the oral, inactivated vaccine candidate ETVAX against enterotoxigenic E. coli diarrhea in a placebo-controlled phase I/II study in infants and children from 6 months to 5 years of age in Bangladesh.

20 Nov 2019

Depression puts teen girls in South Africa at higher risk of HIV infection

Teen girls in South Africa face an extraordinary threat of HIV: By the time they reach adulthood, one in four South African girls will have contracted the virus, and most are first infected during adolescence.

19 Nov 2019

New database helps identify therapeutic targets to fight infectious diseases

Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic microorganisms capable of entering, colonizing and growing within a host organism, thus producing an infection. Bacterial infections have been on the rise worldwide in recent years, but many mechanisms underlying bacterial pathogenesis are still poorly understood.

19 Nov 2019

Tailored T-cells safe, may be effective in preventing and treating multiple viral infections

Tailored T-cells specially designed to combat a half dozen viruses are safe and may be effective in preventing and treating multiple viral infections, according to research led by Children's National Hospital faculty.

18 Nov 2019