Disease/Infection News

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FSU researcher to explore gene-controlling effects of addictive drugs in pursuit of new HIV treatments

A Florida State University researcher is on a mission to explore the gene-controlling effects of addictive drugs in pursuit of new HIV treatments.

24 Sep 2012

Newly discovered Eilat virus harmless and potentially valuable

A mosquito sample collected three decades ago in Israel's Negev Desert has yielded an unexpected discovery: a previously unknown virus that's closely related to some of the world's most dangerous mosquito-borne pathogens but, curiously, incapable of infecting non-insect hosts.

24 Sep 2012

Transmitted HIV strains may have evolutionary advantage, suggest scientists

A new study has found that even though HIV diversifies widely within infected individuals over time, the virus strains that ultimately are passed on through heterosexual transmission often resemble the strain of virus that originally infected the transmitting partner.

24 Sep 2012

Global trade pressures may heighten disease incidence

The pressures of global trade may heighten disease incidence by dictating changes in land use. A boom in disease-carrying ticks and chiggers has followed the abandonment of rice cultivation in Taiwanese paddies, say ecologist Chi-Chien Kuo and colleagues, demonstrating the potential for global commodities pricing to drive the spread of infections.

24 Sep 2012

Global AIDS response provides lessons for fighting NCDs

"If left unaddressed, [non-communicable diseases (NCDs)] will lead to more death, disability and the implosion of already overburdened health systems in developing countries at huge cost to individuals, families, businesses and society," Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and former UNAIDS executive director, writes in the Huffington Post "Impact" blog, adding, "Like AIDS, NCDs are a problem for rich and poor countries alike, but the poor suffer the most."

21 Sep 2012

Sanofi, TB Alliance form research collaboration to search for new treatment compounds

French drug maker Sanofi on Thursday announced a new three-year research collaboration agreement with the TB Alliance "to accelerate the discovery and development of novel compounds against tuberculosis," RTTNews reports.

21 Sep 2012

NCDs should be considered a 'human rights concern'

Noting that "non-communicable diseases (NCDs) kill four times the number of people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) that they do in high-income countries," Benn Grover, a health communications specialist who manages policy for the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, and Felicia Knaul, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative, write in the Huffington Post Blog.

21 Sep 2012

Blogs examine progress on NCDs one year after U.N. summit

On the one-year anniversary of the U.N. High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), two blogs examine what has happened since. In the Center for Global Development's (CGD) "Global Health Policy" blog, Victoria Fan, a research fellow at the center, and Laura Khan of Princeton University ask, "[W]here has the attention and commitment to NCDs gone?" They say "subsequent attention and action after the NCD Summit last year has been paltry," and they explore some reasons why this might be the case.

21 Sep 2012

Ciprofloxacin use is major contributor to MRSA spread in hospitals

The use of a commonly prescribed antibiotic is a major contributor to the spread of infection in hospitals by the 'superbug' MRSA, according to new research. The study also found that increasing measures to prevent infection - such as improved hygiene and hand washing - appeared to have only a small effect on reducing MRSA infection rates during the period studied.

21 Sep 2012

Cholera vaccine stockpiles could help save lives in future outbreaks

In a post in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Helen Matzger, a program officer in new vaccine delivery at the foundation, writes about outbreaks of cholera in Haiti, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and other areas, and says creating stockpiles of a recently WHO-approved cholera vaccine could help save lives in the future.

21 Sep 2012

September issue of 'Global Fund News Flash' email newsletter available

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has published Issue 8 of its newsletter, the "Global Fund News Flash."

21 Sep 2012

Strand Life Sciences to validate and commercialize Trovagene's urine-based HPV test

Trovagene, Inc. and Strand Life Sciences Pvt Ltd., of Bangalore, India, completed their agreement to validate and commercialize Trovagene's proprietary urine-based Human Papillomavirus (HPV) test for clinical diagnostic and carrier screening use.

21 Sep 2012

Mosquitoes show signs of behavior change in response to bed net use, study says

About three years after two villages in Benin began using insecticide-treated bed nets to help prevent malaria, mosquitoes in the area changed their biting habits, so their "hours of 'peak aggression' [went] from 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. to around 5 a.m." and "in one village, the proportion of mosquito bites inflicted outdoors rose," according to a study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Reuters reports.

21 Sep 2012

First phase of Global Fund-managed AMFm shows success in bringing malaria drugs to clinics

The Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria (AMFm) -- an innovative financing mechanism that subsidizes the cost of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) in order to expand access to the most effective treatment for malaria -- "brought more than 100 million doses of malaria drugs to clinics and pharmacies in 2011" and "also increased access to the top malaria medicines by 26 to 52 percent in six countries."

21 Sep 2012

Medivir’s simeprevir and TMC647055 to enter phase IIa combination trial for HCV genotype-1

Medivir AB, announced today that simeprevir (TMC435) and TMC647055, a non-nucleoside inhibitor (NNI) will enter a phase IIa interferon free combination trial.

21 Sep 2012

TB Alliance, Sanofi partner to discover and develop novel compounds against tuberculosis

Sanofi and the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development announced today a new research collaboration agreement to accelerate the discovery and development of novel compounds against tuberculosis (TB), a deadly infectious disease that resulted in almost 1.5 million deaths worldwide in 2010.

21 Sep 2012

Study finds nearly 50% decline in child mortality in Niger over the last decade

A study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Niger Countdown Case Study Working Group found that child mortality in Niger-one of the world's poorest countries-declined nearly 50 percent over the last decade.

21 Sep 2012

'Greater commitment' needed to fight NTDs

In a guest post on USAID's "IMPACT Blog," Rachel Cohen, regional executive director of DNDi North America, writes, "The United States government and its country partners should be commended for the tremendous achievements in the fight against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) as part of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) NTD Program" and the National Institutes of Health.

20 Sep 2012

WHO working with partners to stop Ebola from spreading in DRC

The WHO on Tuesday "said it is continuing to work with authorities from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to stop an Ebola outbreak from spreading, with the number of detected cases having reached 46 in the past week," the U.N. News Centre reports.

20 Sep 2012

Study finds high levels of ESBL bacteria in Danish chicken meat

Nearly half of the samples from chicken meat imported into Denmark contain ESBL bacteria and for the first time the level is almost as high in Danish chicken meat. By contrast, the occurrence in Danish pigs has decreased significantly since farmers stopped using cephalosporins for pigs.

20 Sep 2012