Emerging Disease News and Research

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Dream Team plans to stop pancreatic cancer before symptoms occur

Deeply entrenched and mature by the time it's found, pancreatic cancer is one of the hardest to defeat. A Dream Team assembled by Stand Up to Cancer and led by an investigator at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center will test new ways to find the disease in its emerging, more vulnerable phase in people who are at high risk for developing it.

26 Oct 2017

One nurse per 4,000 pupils = not the healthiest arrangement

During a 15-minute recess, the elementary school students trooped from the playground toward nurse Catherin Crofton's office — one with a bloody nose, a second with a scraped knee and a third with a headache.

23 Oct 2017

Near real-time genomic sequencing reveals how Zika virus entered into the U.S.

A new study by a multi-national research team, including scientists from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, explains how Zika virus entered the United States last year and how it might re-enter the country this year.

25 May 2017

Study identifies conservation management activities that could affect Lyme disease risk

Lyme disease – an infection contracted from the bite of an infected tick– is an important emerging disease in the UK, and is increasing in incidence in people in the UK and large parts of Europe and North America.

10 May 2017

Biodiversity not a risk factor for zoonotic disease emergence, say ecologists

Is biodiversity bad for your health? Ecologists writing in ESA's open access journal Ecosphere say the opposite is more likely true.

30 Mar 2017

New Zika cases may help better predict transmission of virus in the U.S, says expert

Following the news that health officials in Florida have confirmed 14 people north of Miami infected with the Zika virus likely contracted it from local mosquitoes, Virginia Tech's Bryan Lewis said the new infections were not altogether surprising.

3 Aug 2016

Diverse ecological processes at different spatial scales may drive three emerging disease outbreaks

Researchers from the University of South Florida and a colleague at the Institute of Zoology in Beijing, China have found that outbreaks of three emerging diseases and parasites - West Nile virus, Lyme disease and amphibian chytridiomycosis - are driven by different ecological processes at different spatial scales.

31 May 2016

Researchers sequence genetic blueprint of Lyme-disease-spreading tick

Researchers have sequenced the genetic blueprint of one of the most prolific pathogen-transmitting agents on the planet - the Lyme-disease-spreading tick (Ixodes scapularis) that bites humans. The findings could lead to advances in not only disrupting the tick's capacity to spread diseases but also in eradicating the pest.

10 Feb 2016

El Niño plays significant role in outbreak of haemorrhagic fevers

The dengue virus affects 390 million people globally every year, and fears are that early 2016 will see an epidemic, particularly in South-East Asia, due to the predicted extreme intensity of El Niño. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has revealed the significant role that this monster climatic phenomenon plays in the outbreak of haemorrhagic fevers.

9 Feb 2016

Areas stricken by extreme poverty more likely to be associated with high rates of Ebola transmission

Since October 2014 the Ebola epidemic in West Africa has been diminishing and efforts have shifted from emergency response to prevention and mitigation of future outbreaks. Researchers from the Liberian Ministry of Health and the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modelling and Analysis evaluated 3532 Ebola cases reported in 2014 in order to quantify the impact of poverty on the transmission and spread of Ebola.

4 Jan 2016

Camels in Kenya infected by MERS virus, new study finds

A new study has found that nearly half of camels in parts of Kenya have been infected by the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and calls for further research into the role they might play in the transmission of this emerging disease to humans.

19 Oct 2015

First-ever genomic study shows dengue may survive year-round in southern China

The first-ever comprehensive genomic analysis of the virus that causes dengue fever suggests that it may survive year-round in southern China.

14 Oct 2015

UTHealth's Paula Stigler-Granados awarded grant to conduct outreach, education on Chagas disease in South Texas

A researcher at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health was awarded a five-year, $544,329 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct outreach and education on Chagas disease in South Texas.

14 Sep 2015

WHO committed to helping Nepal deliver health care to its citizens, says WHO South-East Asia Regional Director

The World Health Organization is committed to supporting Nepal’s health system to deliver life-saving and essential services to its people and build back resilient health facilities that will be safe in emergencies...

7 May 2015

Scientists find gorilla origins in two human AIDS virus lineages

Two of the four known groups of human AIDS viruses (HIV-1 groups O and P) have originated in western lowland gorillas, according to an international team of scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Montpellier, the University of Edinburgh, and others.

3 Mar 2015

Climate change causes emergence of more infectious diseases

The appearance of infectious diseases in new places and new hosts, such as West Nile virus and Ebola, is a predictable result of climate change, says a noted zoologist affiliated with the Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

16 Feb 2015

New model proposed for predicting outcomes more accurately in HPV-related throat cancer patients

Researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre are proposing a new model to enable doctors to predict outcomes more accurately for patients with throat cancers specifically caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV).

10 Feb 2015

Infinity and AbbVie enter into global collaboration to develop and commercialize duvelisib

Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and AbbVie Inc. today announced that they have entered into a global collaboration to develop and commercialize duvelisib (IPI-145), Infinity's oral inhibitor of phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)-delta and PI3K-gamma, for the treatment of patients with cancer.

3 Sep 2014

EcoHealth Alliance discovers new SARS-like coronavirus in Chinese horseshoe bats

EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that focuses on local conservation and global health issues, announced the discovery of a new SARS-like coronavirus (CoV) in Chinese horseshoe bats.

31 Oct 2013

Scientists determine new strategy to estimate total viral diversity in mammals

EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that focuses on local conservation and global health issues, and the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health announced a new strategy to identify the total number of wildlife viruses that could potentially cause emerging disease outbreaks that threaten both public and wildlife health.

3 Sep 2013