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Lunch boxes and school eating areas are hotspots for bacteria

Canadian moms earn top marks when it comes to good hygiene practices, but a new study by Lysol and the Global Hygiene Council reveals they could do more to safeguard against bacteria hotspots in schools, especially at lunch time.

27 Aug 2012

Oral FluCide drug candidates effective in reducing lung viral load: NanoViricides

NanoViricides, Inc. announced today that anti-influenza drug candidates under its FluCide program, when given orally, were nearly as effective as when administered as IV injections in terms of reduction in lung viral load.

27 Aug 2012

AIDS Healthcare Foundation acquires MOMS Pharmacy

On August 20, 2012, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) announced that it acquired MOMS Pharmacy, a specialty pharmacy focused exclusively on providing medications and support services to people living with HIV/AIDS.

27 Aug 2012

Detect-to-Protect project to measure performance of new sensors for biological agents

The idea that disease and infection might be used as weapons is truly dreadful, but there is plenty of evidence showing that biological weapons have been around since ancient times. Bioterrorism, as it is dubbed, is nothing new, and although medicines have made the world a safer place against a myriad of old scourges both natural and manmade, it still remains all too easy today to uncork a nasty cloud of germs.

27 Aug 2012

PEI adjuvant improves effect of vaccines against flu, HIV and herpes

Oxford University scientists have discovered a compound that greatly boosts the effect of vaccines against viruses like flu, HIV and herpes in mice.

26 Aug 2012

International community must address MSM population in order to end AIDS epidemic

"Over the 30 years of the AIDS epidemic, the disease has had a profound impact on every country in the world," and "in each country, that impact is experienced a different way," Vivek Anand, CEO of the Humsafar Trust, and Kenneth Mayer, medical research director of Fenway Health and co-director of the Fenway Institute, write in this post in Huffington Post's "Gay Voices" blog.

26 Aug 2012

Global Fund releases funding recommendations for Transitional Funding Mechanism

"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Monday released the funding recommendations of its Technical Review Panel for the Transitional Funding Mechanism," the Stop TB Partnership reports in an article on its webpage.

26 Aug 2012

Dominican Republic establishes commission to examine implications of including ART in country health plan

"The Dominican Republic is one step closer to ensuring that all people living with HIV access treatment," UNAIDS reports in an article on its webpage, adding, "The country's National Social Security Council has established a commission to look into the technical, financial and operational implications of including antiretroviral therapy (ART) in the Basic Health Plan."

26 Aug 2012

Children more likely to pick up stomach infections from private water supplies

Children drinking from around half the UK's private water supplies are almost five times more likely to pick up stomach infections - according to research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

26 Aug 2012

Sierra Leone cholera outbreak continues to spread

"Sierra Leone's health ministry said Thursday that deaths from a cholera outbreak had reached 220, affecting over 12,000 people in the west African nation, which is struggling to curb the disease," Agence France-Presse reports.

24 Aug 2012

Bushmeat blamed for Ebola outbreak in DRC

"Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo's north-eastern Orientale Province are urging the population to desist from activities that could put them at risk of contracting the Ebola virus, including contact with infected individuals and the consumption of bushmeat," IRIN reports.

24 Aug 2012

PathGEN signs Powered by Affymetrix Program agreement

Affymetrix, Inc. and PathGEN Dx Pte. Ltd., a spin-off molecular diagnostics company founded by researchers from the Genome Institute of Singapore, today announced they have signed a Powered by Affymetrix (PbA) Program agreement

24 Aug 2012

Novira secures $23M in Series A financing to support antiviral development for HBV, HIV

Novira Therapeutics Inc. today announced it has secured $23 million in Series A financing to support the development of its capsid-targeting antivirals for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B (HBV) and HIV infections.

24 Aug 2012

Dartmouth’s professor shares news of DAR-901 TB vaccine development

Tuberculosis (TB) is second only to HIV/AIDS as the greatest killer worldwide attributable to a single infectious agent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). With 8.8 million cases in 2010 and 95 percent of TB deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries, the disease continues to be a major public health problem in the developing world. In a July address to the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Dartmouth's C. Fordham (Ford) von Reyn shared news of a promising vaccine in the works.

24 Aug 2012

Pre-emptive therapy better than valacyclovir prophylaxis in treating CMV in transplant recipients

Waiting to treat the commonest viral infections in transplant recipients until they reach a certain threshold is better than prophylactically treating all recipients, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).

24 Aug 2012

Guidelines for parents to beat back-to-school bugs

School bells are beginning to sound again across the country, so it will only be a matter of time until every parent comes face-to-face with a child who wakes up with a cold, fever or upset stomach.

24 Aug 2012

Study highlights importance of using appropriately treated water for sinus irrigation

When water containing the Naegleria fowleri ameba, a single-celled organism, enters the nose, the organisms may migrate to the brain, causing primary amebic meningoencephalitis, a very rare-but usually fatal-disease. A new study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases describes the first reported cases in the United States implicating nasal irrigation using disinfected tap water in these infections.

24 Aug 2012

Researchers discover new way to disarm harmful bacteria

Rather than trying to kill bacteria outright with drugs, Université de Montréal researchers have discovered a way to disarm bacteria that may allow the body's own defense mechanisms to destroy them. "To understand this strategy one could imagine harmful bacteria being like Darth Vader, and the anti-virulence drug would take away his armor and lightsaber," explained Dr. Christian Baron, the study's lead author and Professor at the Department of Biochemistry.

24 Aug 2012

Researchers create super-sensor that can detect even single samples of viruses

By affixing nanoscale gold spheres onto a microscopic bead of glass, researchers have created a super-sensor that can detect even single samples of the smallest known viruses. The sensor uses a peculiar behavior of light known as "whispering gallery mode," named after the famous circular gallery in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, where a whisper near the wall can be heard around the gallery.

24 Aug 2012

Religion not a barrier to HIV testing, treatment, study finds

"Preachers who promise divine healing have often been blamed for turning desperate HIV-positive people against their life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) medication and risking their health, but recent research suggests that religious beliefs may not be a barrier to treatment after all," IRIN/Plus News reports.

24 Aug 2012