Disease/Infection News

RSS

Study highlights the need to better understand immunity against mumps virus

Immunity against mumps virus appears insufficient in a fraction of college-aged people who were vaccinated in childhood, research from Emory Vaccine Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates.

3 Sep 2019

Pneumonia uses hydrogen peroxide to weaken the immune system

Pneumonia is a lung infection, filling up the alveoli with pus and fluid. At present, it’s the leading cause of death among children. The lung infection accounts for 15 percent of all deaths in children below five years old, killing more than 800,000 children in 2017 alone.

3 Sep 2019

ATS publishes clinical guideline on laboratory diagnosis of fungal infections

The American Thoracic Society has published an official clinical guideline on laboratory diagnosis of fungal infections in pulmonary and critical care medicine in the Society's Aug. 30 American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

30 Aug 2019

Scientists join hands to protect Australia from growing threat of infectious diseases

A new project in Northern Australia will focus on how Australia can better protect and rapidly respond to the growing global risk of emergent infectious diseases which can spread to humans through animals and insects.

30 Aug 2019

Study opens up new ways to understand the cause of chronic viral arthritis

Since chikungunya virus emerged in the Americas in 2013, it has infected millions of people, causing fever, headache, rash, and muscle and joint pain.

29 Aug 2019

New model system uses red blood cells to study malaria invasion

Researchers at the University of Bristol and Imperial College London have established a new model system that uses red blood cells grown in the laboratory to study how malaria parasites invade red blood cells.

29 Aug 2019

Graphene-lined fabric could slow the spread of malaria

Lining clothes with graphene could prevent the spread of malaria as mosquitoes are not able to pick up on chemical signals that encourage them to bite.

29 Aug 2019

We still don't understand the full impact of prenatal opioid exposure on childhood development

While the opioid epidemic has been reported on extensively, data on the effects of prenatal opioid exposure on childhood development is still lacking.

29 Aug 2019

DNA vaccine for tick-borne disease ‘SFTS’ confers protection against lethal infection in ferrets

A KAIST research team reported the development of a DNA vaccine for Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus (SFTSV) which completely protects against lethal infection in ferrets.

29 Aug 2019

Researchers analyze people’s initial immune response to dengue fever

Researchers have come one step closer to understanding how our immune system responds to acute dengue fever, a disease that has affected hundreds of thousands of people in Southeast Asia this summer alone.

29 Aug 2019

Community-based wildlife mortality surveillance program could help prevent Ebola outbreaks

Human Ebola epidemics, like the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are known to start from a contact with wildlife infected with Ebola virus. In

29 Aug 2019

Probiotic use helps reduce health care cost and societal impact of flu-like RTIs

A study published on August 27 in Frontiers in Pharmacology found that general probiotic use in the U.S. could save the health care payer and the economy around $1.4 billion in medical bills and lost productivity due to acute respiratory tract infections.

28 Aug 2019

Promising vaccine may protect against the Klebsiella superbug

A powerful superbug, a hypervirulent form of the bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae, is a very difficult to curb infection. It causes a variety of infections including rare but life-threatening liver, respiratory tract, bloodstream and other infections.

28 Aug 2019

Promising new strategy to treat severe dengue disease on the horizon

Researchers led by Duke-NUS Medical School have discovered that tryptase, an enzyme in human cells that acts like scissors to cut up nearby proteins, is responsible for blood vessel leakage in severe dengue hemorrhagic fever.

27 Aug 2019

Human infective nematode identified in canine carriers for the first time

A human infective nematode found in remote northern areas of Australia has been identified in canine carriers for the first time.

27 Aug 2019

Studying human behavior might help curb mosquito-borne illness

Control and prevention of Aedes-transmitted viruses, such as dengue, chikungunya, or Zika relies heavily on vector control approaches. Given the effort and cost involved in implementation of vector control, targeting of control measures is highly desirable. However, it is unclear to what extent the effectiveness of highly focal and reactive control measures depends on the commuting and movement patterns of humans.

27 Aug 2019

Discovery of protein that may be key to treating tropical diseases

Neglected tropical diseases form a group of infectious parasitic diseases that affect a large percentage of the world population, mostly in emerging nations. Sleeping sickness affects millions in sub-Saharan Africa and is caused by the protozoan parasite, Trypanosoma brucei, which is transmitted by the tsetse fly.

27 Aug 2019

Individual’s trust and proximity to disease outbreak may affect vaccination attitudes

An individual’s trust in institutions such as the CDC, and how close they live to a recent measles outbreak, may affect their attitudes on measles vaccination, according to a study published August 28, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Florian Justwan of the University of Idaho, USA, and colleagues.

From PLOS ONE 26 Aug 2019

Blood sugar levels linked to DNA damage and cancer in diabetics

Increased blood sugar levels in diabetics could damage DNA and make the genome unstable, increasing the risk of certain cancers.

26 Aug 2019

Vaccinating older adults against shingles is likely cost-effective in Canada

Vaccinating older adults against shingles in Canada is likely cost-effective, according to a study in CMAJ, and the Shingrix vaccine appears to provide better protection than the Zostavax vaccine.

26 Aug 2019