Disease/Infection News

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MPIIB, QIAGEN partner to develop latent TB diagnostic test

QIAGEN N.V. and the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology (MPIIB), Department of Immunology have announced a new collaboration to develop a molecular diagnostic test to assess the risk of an individual with latent tuberculosis (TB) developing active TB disease during their lifetime.

From QIAGEN Manchester Limited 9 Jan 2012

Anthrax defenses need to be strengthened say experts

It has been a decade since the anthrax attacks brought home the reality of bioterrorism and the nation has a stockpile of some basic tools to fight back against a few of the threats that worry defense experts the most.

8 Jan 2012

Kenyan government adopts new HIV testing guidelines following WHO recall

"The Kenyan government has changed its HIV testing algorithm following the withdrawal of a widely used brand of HIV test [based] on warnings from" the WHO, PlusNews reports.

7 Jan 2012

Pennsylvania Department of Health to provide free influenza and Tdap vaccines

The Department of Health will offer free influenza and Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis (Tdap) vaccines at the 2012 Pennsylvania Farm Show, Jan. 9-13, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.

7 Jan 2012

Stimflora launches new dietary health product

An exciting new dietary health product has been launched which promotes healthy digestion while strengthening the immune system.

7 Jan 2012

Governments must rethink policies surrounding biosecurity, not resort to censorship

Author Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in this Foreign Policy opinion piece that the announcement researchers from the Netherlands and the U.S. have developed a supercontagious variety of bird flu "has highlighted a dilemma: How do you balance the universal mandate for scientific openness against the fear that terrorists or rogue states might follow the researchers' work -- using it as catastrophic cookbooks for global influenza contagion?"

7 Jan 2012

WHO confirms bird flu cases in Egypt, China

The WHO on Thursday "announced the deaths of two men from H5N1 avian influenza, one from Egypt and another from China whose death was reported earlier in the media," CIDRAP News reports. Both men are suspected to have contracted the virus from avian sources, although an investigation into the man from China's exposure to the virus is ongoing, according to news service.

7 Jan 2012

Street News Service/IPS examine challenges of fighting HIV/AIDS in a Senegalese prison

Street News Service/Inter Press Service examines how Senegal is addressing HIV/AIDS among prisoners in a Dakar maximum-security facility. "Prisons are high-risk environments for the transmission of the disease, due to the prevalence of hard drugs, violence and sexual relations," the news service writes and discusses how addressing such issues can present challenges in the majority-Muslim country.

7 Jan 2012

Researchers crack structure and function of malarial protein

A biology lab at Washington University has just cracked the structure and function of a protein that plays a key role in the life of a parasite that killed 655,000 people in 2010.

7 Jan 2012

Research roundup: New ethics guidelines for doctors urge cost consideration; HIV testing in teens

Today's research comes from the Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, George Washington University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

7 Jan 2012

FDA approval of raltegravir offers new weapon to treat HIV infection in children

For children and adolescents with HIV infection, the recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the use of raltegravir, an antiretroviral drug that slows the spread of HIV infection, offers a new weapon to treat HIV infection in children.

7 Jan 2012

UNC HIV researcher Cohen discusses his work, HPTN 052

PSI's "Healthy Lives" blog features a video from the UNC Medical Center News Office in which Myron Cohen, a professor of medicine, microbiology, immunology and public health at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, discusses his research into HIV/AIDS prevention, including his lead role in HPTN 052.

6 Jan 2012

New HIV vaccine candidates show promise in monkeys

"The quest for a vaccine against AIDS is gaining momentum, with research published Wednesday identifying promising new candidates that protected monkeys against a powerful strain of the virus and that soon could be tested in humans," the Wall Street Journal reports.

6 Jan 2012

IRIN examines risk of waterborne diseases in Zimbabwe

IRIN examines how a lack of sanitation facilities and access to clean water, as well as the onset of the rainy season, are increasing the risk of waterborne diseases in rural areas of Zimbabwe.

6 Jan 2012

Bringing health solutions to women, children

In this Huffington Post "Impact" blog post, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes that she will be visiting Bangladesh to "learn even more about two of the biggest killers of children -- pneumonia and diarrhea," and says "Bangladesh has made incredible progress in recent years, reducing the number of childhood deaths by 65 percent since 1990."

6 Jan 2012

CSIS's Morrison discusses 'end of aids'

SmartGlobalHealth.org features the latest episode of "Small Screen Sessions," in which J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Center for Strategic & International Studies' Global Health Policy Center, discusses the policy changes that enabled the International AIDS Conference to return to the U.S. in 2012 after a 22-year hiatus, and the beginning of the "end of aids."

6 Jan 2012

British Columbia's 'treatment-as-prevention strategy' helping to reduce HIV/AIDS cases, deaths

"New HIV cases and AIDS deaths are both going steadily down in British Columbia, according to data released last week," the New York Times reports.

6 Jan 2012

Olympus adds dissolvable sinus spacing and hemostat products to ENT portfolio

Olympus, a precision technology leader in designing and delivering innovative solutions in Medical and Surgical Products, among other core businesses, today announced the addition of a broad line of advanced, dissolvable sinus spacing and hemostat products to its already extensive ENT product portfolio. These products include spacers, foams and powders available in either plant-based or chitosan polysaccharide polymers.

From Evident Corporation - Life Sciences 6 Jan 2012

Tetragenetics reports results from G-SOME H5N1 vaccine preclinical study

Tetragenetics Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the development of recombinant vaccines, today reported preclinical study results showing that an investigational nanoparticle-based influenza vaccine protects against a highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza strain.

6 Jan 2012

Researchers identify potential target for schistosomiasis vaccine

In the complicated life cycle of ancient flatworms that cause schistosomiasis, Case Western Reserve University researchers have identified a gene activator crucial to development of the parasites within humans - a potential target for a vaccine.

6 Jan 2012