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New initiative aims to bolster human resources at medical schools in Rwanda

U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby is "expected to announce a new initiative between the U.S. government, the Rwandan Ministry of Health and 14 American medical schools at a press conference Monday in Kigali, Rwanda," the New York Times reports.

16 Oct 2012

Hepatitis C rapid and point of care tests highly accurate and reliable

Timely screening and diagnosis is critical to the success of new treatments and ultimately to the survival of hepatitis C patients. A new study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) is the first to show that hepatitis C rapid and point of care tests with a quick turnaround time are highly accurate and reliable as conventional first-line laboratory tests.

16 Oct 2012

NIAID-funded study to evaluate PPSV23 and PCV13 in Phase Iib pneumococcal trial

Researchers plan to see if a higher dose of a pneumococcal vaccine will create a stronger immune response in older adults who received an earlier generation vaccine against pneumonia and other pneumococcal diseases.

16 Oct 2012

U.N. report shows francophone African countries lag behind in AIDS Treatment; NGOs call for increased funding

"Despite great progress within a short time, the 29 French-speaking countries of sub-Saharan Africa are lagging far behind other states in the region in the battle against HIV/AIDS and need a massive increase in international aid, according to a United Nations report" released Friday, the U.N. News Centre reports.

16 Oct 2012

Current status, challenges and opportunities of pulmonary vaccine delivery

In addition to the obvious benefit of eliminating the need for an injection, new vaccine delivery methods via the lungs offer particular advantages for protecting against infectious agents that enter the body through the respiratory track.

16 Oct 2012

Experts discuss recent U.S. meningitis outbreak at ANESTHESIOLOGY 2012 meeting

Four experts in anesthesiology, infectious disease and pain medicine discussed the recent U.S. meningitis outbreak in the Late-Breaking Education Panel, "The Fungal Meningitis Crisis," on Sunday, Oct. 14.

16 Oct 2012

Screening practices for multidrug-resistant organisms in ICUs vary widely between hospitals

Screening practices for multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) in intensive care units (ICUs) vary widely from hospital to hospital, according to a new study by researchers at Columbia University School of Nursing and published in the October 2012 issue of the American Journal of Infection Control.

16 Oct 2012

Saint Louis University to participate in PPV23 vaccine trial for pneumonia

Saint Louis University is participating in a multi-site, National Institutes of Health-sponsored clinical trial in older adults of a new vaccine designed to protect against one of the most common types of pneumonia and related diseases such as bloodstream infections and meningitis.

16 Oct 2012

Saint Raphael Campus of Yale New Haven Hospital honored for achievements in eliminating HAIs

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) today recognized the Saint Raphael Campus of Yale New Haven Hospital with the 2012 Partnership in Prevention Award for achieving the greatest sustainable improvements towards eliminating healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

16 Oct 2012

Physicians urged to think twice before they prescribe compounded drugs

The recent outbreak of meningitis in the US-and the subsequent deaths of 15 individuals-has renewed scrutiny on the contemporary practice of pharmacy compounding. The risks to patients, and associated liability risk to prescribing physicians, largely outweigh the benefits when the practice goes beyond the traditional, extemporaneous role, according to Sarah Sellers from q-Vigilance LLC and Wulf Utian from Case Western Reserve University in the US. Sellers and Utian's opinion piece appears online in the journal Drugs, published by Adis.

16 Oct 2012

UPC improves antimicrobial properties of medical textiles

The Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology Group of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC) has improved the antimicrobial properties of medical textiles using an enzymatic pre-treatment combined with simultaneous deposition of nanoparticles and biopolymers under ultrasonic irradiation.

16 Oct 2012

International cooperation essential to help Uganda fight malaria

Uganda "has overcome a violent past, but hope is daily threatened by a force more deadly than any warlord or civil unrest": the mosquito, Ugandan Health Minister Christine Ondoa writes in a GlobalPost opinion piece. According to the WHO, "Uganda has the highest incidence of malaria in the world," and the disease is endemic in more than 95 percent of the country, she notes.

15 Oct 2012

U.S. can draw lessons from PEPFAR success to address epidemic in black America

"Thirty years ago, the CDC reported the first cases of HIV/AIDS in New York and Los Angeles," Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Kwei Quartey writes in the Huffington Post World Blog, noting, "Since the beginning of the epidemic, over 600,000 people have died of AIDS in the United States, and 1.2 million people are currently living with HIV."

15 Oct 2012

Merck, AiCuris enter licensing agreement for novel HCMV candidates

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, and AiCuris today announced that they have entered into an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement for AiCuris' novel portfolio of investigational medicines targeting Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV), including letermovir (AIC246), an oral, late-stage antiviral candidate being investigated for the treatment and prevention of HCMV infection in transplant recipients.

15 Oct 2012

Researchers develop two ultra-rapid tests for diagnosis of antibiotic resistance

With their excellent sensitivity and specificity, the use of these extremely efficient tests on a world-wide scale would allow us to adapt antibiotic treatments to the individual's needs and to be more successful in controlling antibiotic resistance, particularly in hospitals.

15 Oct 2012

Researchers identify keys and doors of Anaplasmataceae tick-borne bacterium

Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine researchers have identified the "keys" and "doors" of a bacterium responsible for a series of tick-transmitted diseases. These findings may point researchers toward the development of a single vaccine that protects against members of an entire family of bacteria that cause disease in humans, domestic animals and livestock.

15 Oct 2012

Indonesia issues order to override patents on 7 HIV, hepatitis drugs

"Indonesia's government has quietly issued an order to override the patents on seven important medicines used to treat people with HIV and hepatitis B and allow cheap versions to be made by local drug companies," Guardian Health Editor Sarah Boseley reports in her "Global Health Blog."

15 Oct 2012

GlaxoSmithKline to make clinical trial data available to other researchers

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) CEO Andrew Witty "said on Thursday detailed data from its clinical trials would be made available to other researchers," Reuters reports, adding, "That would include anonymized patient-level results that sit behind clinical trials of approved and failed drugs."

15 Oct 2012

PEPFAR launches training initiative for HIV/AIDS organizations in Bahamas

"On Wednesday, October 10, U.S. and Bahamian officials attended the official launch of 'The Caribbean Grant Solicitation and Management Program,' a new PEPFAR initiative that will be executed locally by the U.S.-based nonprofit World Learning through USAID," a press release from the U.S. Embassy in Nassau, Bahamas, reports.

15 Oct 2012

S. African National AIDS Council CEO speaks to PlusNews about reform, funding

Fareed Abdullah, CEO of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), who took office in July, spoke with PlusNews regarding the body's reform, the revival of provincial AIDS councils, resource mobilization, and the appointment of a new board that allows SANAC to operate independently.

15 Oct 2012