Disease/Infection News

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Coronavirus outbreak deaths near 1,700

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, which started in Wuhan, in Hubei province in China, now has nearly 1,700 deaths and more than 69,000 infections. The majority of the infections and deaths are in mainland China but has started to spread across 25 countries. Are these numbers alarming?

16 Feb 2020

China could be just the "tip of the iceberg" - Coronavirus

The coronavirus disease outbreak has rapidly spread in China and across the globe, with more than 1,400 deaths and 69,288 confirmed infections in seven weeks. Now, medical experts project that if the virus can not be contained, it can infect 60 percent of the population and kill 45 million people.

16 Feb 2020

Vitamin E can safely treat fatty liver disease in patients with HIV

A type of fatty liver disease that commonly affects patients with HIV can be safely treated with vitamin E, a McGill-led study has found.

16 Feb 2020

Novel technology could reduce coronavirus diagnostic time to 15 minutes

Diagnosing coronavirus takes approximately one hour using current methods. A new technology, based on a combination of optics and magnetic particles, can rapidly test 100 samples of patients potentially infected with the virus and reduce the diagnostic time to approximately 15 minutes.

16 Feb 2020

WHO underestimates coronavirus' transmissibility

The coronavirus probably has a stronger ability to spread than the World Health Organization has estimated so far. This according to a review of previous studies of the coronavirus' transmissibility performed not least by researchers at Umeå University in Sweden.

14 Feb 2020

Legionella Conference 2020 focuses on prevention of health care-associated waterborne diseases

Discussions at Legionella Conference 2020: Prevention of Disease and Injury From Waterborne Pathogens in Health Care will focus on hazards related to medical devices, cleaning and disinfection in sterile settings and water quality requirements in hospitals and health care facilities.

14 Feb 2020

Effectiveness of travel bans to control infectious disease outbreaks is mostly unknown

Because of the quick and deadly outbreak in late December of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, now known as COVID-19 – infecting tens of thousands and killing hundreds within weeks, while spreading to at least 24 other countries – many governments, including the United States, have banned or significantly restricted travel to and from China.

14 Feb 2020

Antibiotic resistance poses a growing risk during pandemics

Researchers investigating the drug prescription response to a "superbug" enzyme that renders bacteria resistant to antibiotics are available to discuss why such resistance is posing a growing risk during pandemics such as the current coronavirus.

14 Feb 2020

Tourists place endangered mountain gorillas at risk of disease transmission

Researchers at Ohio University have published a new study in collaboration with Ugandan scientists, cautioning that humans place endangered mountain gorillas at risk of disease transmission during tourism encounters.

14 Feb 2020

Shale drilling activity linked to high rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia in Texas

Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health have found that rates of two sexually transmitted infections, gonorrhea and chlamydia, are 15% and 10% higher, respectively, in Texas counties with high shale drilling activity ("fracking"), compared to counties without any fracking.

14 Feb 2020

Study finds no advantage in using two antibiotics to treat MRSA infections

A world-first clinical trial has called into question the effectiveness of using more than one antibiotic to treat the deadly 'super-bug', Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia, commonly known as Golden Staph.

14 Feb 2020

Facts vs. fears: Five things to help weigh your coronavirus risk

The news about the novel coronavirus in China grows more urgent daily. The number of related deaths is now greater than 1,300, while tens of thousands of people have been infected — most of them in China. People returning to the U.S. from China are quarantined for 14 days.

14 Feb 2020

Experimental antiviral prevents MERS-CoV in rhesus macaques

The experimental antiviral remdesivir successfully prevented disease in rhesus macaques infected with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), according to a new study from National Institutes of Health scientists.

13 Feb 2020

Is the coronavirus disease outbreak slowing down?

Chinese officials recorded the lowest number of new coronavirus cases in two weeks, supporting a medical adviser’s projection that the outbreak may end by April. Is the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ending soon?

13 Feb 2020

Researchers develop high-resolution forecast model for the spread of malaria

Climate change aggravates global health problems, above all for people in Africa. The group "Climate change and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa" funded by the German Research Foundation studies climate-induced damage to health in Burkina Faso and Kenya.

13 Feb 2020

Coronavirus tests public health infrastructure in the heartland

Every weekday at noon since Jan. 27, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Director Randall Williams gathers his outbreak response team for a meeting on coronavirus.

13 Feb 2020

Coronavirus spread will remain under control and specific groups should not be stigmatized, urges microbiologist

As the global outbreak of coronavirus continues to dominate the headlines, a leading medical microbiologist from Kingston University says it is inevitable the United Kingdom will see more cases, but emphasized the spread of the virus will remain under control and called on people not to stigmatize particular communities.

13 Feb 2020

Study tests hypothesis that empty SV40 capsids would improve sepsis outcomes

Numerous previous attempts to develop therapeutic treatments, directed at discreet targets of the sepsis cascade, could not cope with the complex pathophysiology of sepsis and failed.

13 Feb 2020

To fight Chinese outbreak, doctors deploy drugs targeting HIV, malaria and Ebola

As the scientific community scrambles to find a drug that can effectively treat tens of thousands of patients sickened by a new respiratory virus, they are trying some surprising remedies: medicines targeting known killers like HIV, Ebola and malaria.

13 Feb 2020

Study finds no evidence of intrauterine vertical transmission of COVID-19 infection

There is currently no evidence that the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) causes severe adverse outcomes in neonates or that it can pass to the child while in the womb, according to a small observational study of women from Wuhan, China, who were in the third trimester of pregnancy and had pneumonia caused by COVID-19.

12 Feb 2020