Disease/Infection News

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Suspected case of polio under investigation in India, threatens country's eradication efforts

On Monday, "a girl admitted to a hospital in West Bengal with polio-like symptoms sparked worries that India's battle against polio may not be over yet," the Wall Street Journal's "India Real Time" blog reports, noting, "The suspected polio case ... comes just two weeks after the WHO removed India from the list of countries where polio is endemic."

15 Mar 2012

UMDNJ to receive TB biomarkers grant from Gates Foundation

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) announced today that Dr. David Alland, professor of medicine, chief of infectious diseases, and director of the Center for Emerging and Re-Emerging Pathogens at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, will receive a tuberculosis (TB) biomarkers grant awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges in Global Health program, an initiative which seeks to overcome persistent bottlenecks in creating new tools that can radically improve health in the developing world.

15 Mar 2012

New study suggests another benefit to antimicrobial stewardship

Curbing unnecessary use of antibiotics is our best defense against the spread of drug-resistant infections. A new study suggests another benefit to antimicrobial stewardship: a potential cost savings of millions of dollars now wasted on therapies that don't help patients.

15 Mar 2012

Mobile phones could play a valuable role in helping HIV patients to take medication every day

Mobile phones could play a valuable role in helping HIV patients to take their medication every day, according to a new Cochrane Systematic Review. The researchers found that patients were less likely to miss doses if they were sent weekly mobile phone text message reminders.

15 Mar 2012

New position paper outlines national approach to antimicrobial stewardship

As the supply of life-saving antibiotics becomes increasingly threatened, infectious diseases experts urge healthcare systems and policymakers to step up efforts to protect patients by preserving the effectiveness of available antibiotics through antimicrobial stewardship initiatives.

15 Mar 2012

Fecal transplantation effective treatment for recurrent C. difficile infection

Fecal transplantation through colonoscopy is an effective treatment for recurrent Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association.

15 Mar 2012

One in four HIV patients have been sexually abused as a child

One in four HIV patients was found to have been sexually abused as a child, according to a two-year Duke University study of more than 600 HIV patients. Traumatic childhood experiences were also linked to worse health outcomes among these patients, who are aged 20 to 71.

15 Mar 2012

Largest-ever study of community-wide TB drug prevention did not improve TB control in South African mines

"After seven years of research, the world's largest study of preventative tuberculosis (TB) therapy has found that untargeted, community-wide distribution of TB prevention drugs did not improve TB control in South African gold mines," PlusNews reports.

15 Mar 2012

Researchers discover how Salmonella thrives in the digestive tract

UC Irvine researchers have discovered how Salmonella, a bacterium found in contaminated raw foods that causes major gastrointestinal distress in humans, thrives in the digestive tract despite the immune system's best efforts to destroy it.

15 Mar 2012

Antibody-based therapies successfully protect monkeys from deadly Ebola and Marburg viruses

Army scientists have demonstrated, for the first time, that antibody-based therapies can successfully protect monkeys from the deadly Ebola and Marburg viruses. In addition, the animals were fully protected even when treatment was administered two days post-infection, an accomplishment unmatched by any experimental therapy for these viruses to date.

14 Mar 2012

Azithromycin associated with lower duration of bacterial carriage in E. coli outbreak

In the E coli outbreak in Germany in May 2011, treatment with azithromycin was associated with a lower frequency of long-term carriage of the bacteria and shorter duration of shedding of the bacteria in stool specimens, according to a study in the March 14 issue of JAMA.

14 Mar 2012

Bend Research announces licensing agreement with Affinium

Bend Research Inc., a leading independent drug-formulation development and manufacturing company, today announced a licensing agreement with Affinium Pharmaceuticals, Ltd.

13 Mar 2012

Inovio achieves strong T cell immune responses in PENNVAX-B Phase I HIV study

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that it has achieved strong T cell immune responses in a Phase I clinical study of PENNVAX-B, its product for the treatment of the HIV subtype prevalent in North America and Europe, in HIV-positive subjects.

13 Mar 2012

EBV can infect and may also contribute to lymphomas in man's best friend

More than 90 percent of humans have antibodies to the Epstein Barr virus. Best known for causing mononucleosis, or "the kissing disease," the virus has also been implicated in more serious conditions, including Hodgkin's, non-Hodgkin's and Burkitt's lymphomas. Yet little is known about exactly how EBV triggers these diseases.

13 Mar 2012

Medivir initiates two new HPC3001 and HPC3011 phase III trials in HCV

MedivirAB a research based specialty pharmaceutical company focused on infectious diseases announces that its oral, once daily investigational protease inhibitor TMC435, developed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals for the treatment of Hepatitis C virus (HCV), has commenced patient dosing and started screening in two new phase III clinical trials, HPC3001 and HPC3011, respectively.

13 Mar 2012

Trudeau Institute creates TICRO to expand the scope of biomedical research

The Trudeau Institute announced today that it has expanded the scope of its biomedical research by creating a contract research organization (CRO), the Trudeau Institute Contract Research Organization.

13 Mar 2012

Global Fund donors 'earmark' funds for capacity-building, Fund's general manager says

Gabriel Jaramillo, the general manager of the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said in an interview on Friday that "quite a few donors" to the fund "have earmarked portions of their donations to us, their contributions, to capacity-building," the Associated Press/Washington Post reports.

13 Mar 2012

Scientists at Seattle conference discuss progress, obstacles in fight against HIV/AIDS

"Scientists, stymied for decades by the complexity of the human immunodeficiency virus, are making progress on several fronts in the search for a cure for HIV infections," but "a major stumbling block is the fact that HIV lies low in pools or reservoirs of latent infection that even powerful drugs cannot reach, scientists told the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, one of the world's largest scientific meetings on HIV/AIDS," in Seattle last week, Reuters reports.

13 Mar 2012

Study addresses how human body controls gamma-herpesviruses

New research from the Trudeau Institute addresses how the human body controls gamma-herpesviruses, a class of viruses thought to cause a variety of cancers. The study, carried out in the laboratory of Dr. Marcia Blackman, awaits publication in The Journal of Immunology.

13 Mar 2012

Partner reduction strategies essential to reversing spread of HIV

"The rising enthusiasm for providing more medicines threatens to come at the expense of promising initiatives for preventing HIV infections in the first place -- initiatives that could save many lives, with less money," Craig Timberg, the newspaper's deputy national security editor, and Daniel Halperin, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, write in this Washington Post opinion piece.

12 Mar 2012