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Success in fighting malaria helping to fuel Africa's economic growth, Reuters reports

Reuters examines how the fight against malaria in Africa is helping to fuel the continent's economic growth. "

22 Jun 2012

U.S. journal Science publishes controversial H5N1 research

The U.S. journal Science on Thursday published the results of a controversial study in which researchers at the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands "identified five mutations apparently necessary to make the [H5N1] bird flu virus spread easily among ferrets, which catch the same flus that humans do," the New York Times reports (McNeil, 6/21).

22 Jun 2012

UC3M joins European research project on tuberculosis treatments

Scientists at the Carlos III University in Madrid (UC3M) are participating in a European research project designed to study tuberculosis treatments. The objective of the study is to improve diagnostic imaging technology in order to help develop new drugs to treat the disease.

22 Jun 2012

Research funding in sub-Saharan Africa needs to 'reflect true disease burden'

With the disease burden of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria expected to make up less than 15 percent of the total disease burden in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by 2030, and non-communicable diseases to account for nearly 40 percent of the total in the region, "[a] revision of the approach to research and health care in SSA is therefore urgently needed, but international donors and health communities have generally been slow to respond to the changing environment."

22 Jun 2012

Shanghai Institutes of Preventative Medicine, Gentris sign MOU to advance personalized medicine

Gentris Corporation, a global leader in the application of genomic biomarkers to clinical studies, announced today that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Shanghai Institutes of Preventative Medicine to advance global personalized medicine.

22 Jun 2012

Selenium reduces Staph populations in medical implants

Selenium is an inexpensive element that naturally belongs in the body. It is also known to combat bacteria. Still, it had not been tried as an antibiotic coating on a medical device material. In a new study, Brown University engineers report that when they used selenium nanoparticles to coat polycarbonate, the material of catheters and endotracheal tubes, the results were significant reductions in cultured populations of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, sometimes by as much as 90 percent.

22 Jun 2012

Polio eradication efforts threatened by funding shortfall, vaccination resistance in some countries, experts say

Marking the 10th anniversary since Europe was declared polio-free, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative on Wednesday released a report saying there is "a unique window of opportunity to stamp out polio for good," with the number of reported cases at historical lows, but a funding shortfall of about $1 million is threatening eradication progress, Reuters reports.

22 Jun 2012

GlobalPost examines investment in community care workers in South Africa as PEPFAR moves toward local implementation of programming

"Nearly a decade after it came into being, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) ... is moving increasingly to support local leadership and implementation capacity" in South Africa, GlobalPost's "Global Pulse" blog reports.

22 Jun 2012

New issue of 'Global Fund News Flash' available

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Tuesday released Issue 4 of its newsletter, the "Global Fund News Flash." The issue features a commentary by Mireille Guigaz, a Global Fund Board member representing France, on the Global Fund's work in Madagascar, and a piece examining "a Board decision last November that 55 percent of all funding for grant renewals should go to low-income countries," among other stories.

21 Jun 2012

India emerging as model for improvement in developing countries

In this NDTV opinion piece, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reflects on his recent trip to India, writing, "During my recent visit, I had a chance to see the latest progress on things that matter a lot to us: on eradicating polio and curtailing the spread of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, for example."

21 Jun 2012

Examining the threat of multi-drug resistant TB in India

The Wall Street Journal reports on a rise of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) in India, writing, "India's slow response to years of medical warnings now threatens to turn the country into an incubator for a mutant strain of tuberculosis that is proving resistant to all known treatments, raising alarms of a new global health hazard."

21 Jun 2012

VOA News, PlusNews examine tuberculosis in South Africa

Several articles published on Tuesday examine tuberculosis (TB) in South Africa. "According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the country has the highest rate of new TB cases annually," VOA News writes, adding, "Thousands of people in South Africa continue to be infected by a disease that's been virtually eradicated in the developed world."

21 Jun 2012

New research suggests local strains of cholera may have contributed to Haiti's epidemic

NPR's "Shots" blog reports on efforts to determine the source of Haiti's cholera epidemic, writing, "Most researchers currently believe that United Nations peacekeeping soldiers introduced cholera to Haiti in October of 2010," but researchers from the University of Maryland report they "have found two very different cholera strains in some of the first Haitians to be struck by the disease."

21 Jun 2012

VOA News examines South African policy promoting exclusive breastfeeding for mothers with HIV

VOA News examines the South African government's decision in September 2011 to stop providing a free six-month supply of infant formula to mothers with HIV and have "its health facilities ... encourage the women to exclusively breastfeed for at least the first six months of their babies' lives."

21 Jun 2012

Children exposed to HIV before birth may be more likely to experience hearing loss

Children exposed to HIV in the womb may be more likely to experience hearing loss by age 16 than are their unexposed peers, according to scientists in a National Institutes of Health research network.

21 Jun 2012

FDA grants Orphan Drug Designation to Medgenics’ INFRADURE Biopump

Medgenics, Inc., the developer of Biopump, a novel technology for the sustained production and delivery of therapeutic proteins in patients using their own tissue, today announced that its INFRADURE Biopump has received Orphan Drug Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Orphan Products Development (OOPD) for the treatment of hepatitis D.

21 Jun 2012

Celebrating the true birthday of PEPFAR

"Ten years ago today President Bush stepped into the Rose Garden to announce a $500 million program to stop the transmission of HIV passed from mothers to children during birth," an announcement that "led the way to PEPFAR," which Bush announced in his 2003 State of the Union address, John Donnelly, correspondent for GlobalPost's "Global Pulse" blog, writes in this commentary in the blog.

21 Jun 2012

Family planning summit offers opportunity to integrate reproductive services with HIV, other health initiatives

Noting that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.K. government will co-host an international family planning summit in London in July, Gavin Yamey of the Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco; Craig Cohen, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive services at the University of California; and Elizabeth Bukusi, chief research officer and deputy director of research and training at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, write in a BMJ commentary, "More than 120 million women worldwide aged 15-49 years have an unmet need for family planning, which is due a renaissance after years of neglect."

21 Jun 2012

Authors propose mathematical model to study malaria transmission

Malaria affects over 200 million individuals every year and kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. The disease varies greatly from region to region in the species that cause it and in the carriers that spread it. It is easily transmitted across regions through travel and migration. This results in outbreaks of the disease even in regions that are essentially malaria-free, such as the United States.

21 Jun 2012

FimH antagonists can effectively treat UTIs

A potential new approach for treating urinary tract infections (UTIs) - which affect millions of people annually - without traditional antibiotics is being reported in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. It involves so-called FimH antagonists, which are non-antibiotic compounds and would not contribute to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance bacteria.

21 Jun 2012

Disease/Infection News

Success in fighting malaria helping to fuel Africa's economic growth, Reuters reports

U.S. journal Science publishes controversial H5N1 research

UC3M joins European research project on tuberculosis treatments

Research funding in sub-Saharan Africa needs to 'reflect true disease burden'

Shanghai Institutes of Preventative Medicine, Gentris sign MOU to advance personalized medicine

Selenium reduces Staph populations in medical implants

Polio eradication efforts threatened by funding shortfall, vaccination resistance in some countries, experts say

GlobalPost examines investment in community care workers in South Africa as PEPFAR moves toward local implementation of programming

New issue of 'Global Fund News Flash' available

India emerging as model for improvement in developing countries

Examining the threat of multi-drug resistant TB in India

VOA News, PlusNews examine tuberculosis in South Africa

New research suggests local strains of cholera may have contributed to Haiti's epidemic

VOA News examines South African policy promoting exclusive breastfeeding for mothers with HIV

Children exposed to HIV before birth may be more likely to experience hearing loss

FDA grants Orphan Drug Designation to Medgenics’ INFRADURE Biopump

Celebrating the true birthday of PEPFAR

Family planning summit offers opportunity to integrate reproductive services with HIV, other health initiatives

Authors propose mathematical model to study malaria transmission

FimH antagonists can effectively treat UTIs

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