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Positive final results from Medicago's H5N1 Avian Influenza VLP vaccine Phase II trial

Medicago Inc. a biotechnology company focused on developing highly effective and competitive vaccines based on proprietary manufacturing technologies and Virus-Like Particles (VLPs), today reported positive final results from a Phase II human clinical trial with its H5N1 Avian Influenza VLP vaccine candidate.

30 Jun 2011

Senate resolution supporting World Malaria Day

The Senate on Monday night unanimously passed the Senate World Malaria Day Resolution, S. Con. Res. 15, a concurrent resolution with the House of Representatives, according to a post on the Malaria Policy Center blog.

30 Jun 2011

Improving health vital to good governance in Nigeria

In a Daily Independent opinion piece, U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Terence McCulley writes that after "truly historic" elections in April, "the Nigerian Government faces complex challenges in the post-election environment. Security, electricity, good roads, education and reliable health care top most people's lists of immediate concerns."

30 Jun 2011

Global malaria R&D funding has received sustained growth, report says

"Annual funding for research and development (R&D) in the fight against malaria has quadrupled over 16 years, generating the strongest pipeline of potential treatments in history, according to a report on Tuesday," Reuters reports.

30 Jun 2011

Rinderpest - fatal animal disease eradicated

Rinderpest, German for cattle plague, has finally met its match and does not exist anymore. It is the first animal disease to be eradicated and only the second disease ever, after smallpox in 1980. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization declared Tuesday that the world was rid of Rinderpest.

30 Jun 2011

Swaziland's supply of antiretroviral drugs running low

"Cash-strapped Swaziland's state hospitals have only two months' supplies of AIDS drugs, the country's health minister has told parliament in an assessment that AIDS patients and activists took as a death sentence," the Associated Press/Seattle Times reports. More than 60,000 Swazis receive antiretroviral medicine at no cost from state-run hospitals.

30 Jun 2011

Goosby discusses global AIDS fight at CSIS event

Ambassador Eric Goosby, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator, said that a recent $75 million pledge from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Chevron and Johnson & Johnson could help "eliminate new HIV-infected children by 2015 and keep mothers alive," McClatchy/News & Observer reports.

30 Jun 2011

Drug companies collaborate with DNDi support to develop drug for African sleeping sickness

Researchers from Scynexis Inc. of Research Triangle Park, N.C., and Anacor Pharmaceuticals in Palo Alto, Calif., sponsored by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, on Tuesday reported in the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases that a new experimental drug kills the parasite that causes African sleeping sickness in mice and will enter human clinical trials this year, ScienceNOW reports.

30 Jun 2011

Global Fund reports mid-year results

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Tuesday announced that programs it supports have distributed 190 million insecticide-treated bed nets to protect families from malaria since 2003, according to mid-year results, a Global Fund press release notes.

30 Jun 2011

Recombinant attenuated Salmonella vaccines hold promise against infectious diseases

A powerful new class of therapeutics, known as recombinant attenuated Salmonella vaccines (RASV), holds great potential in the fight against fatal diseases including hepatitis B, tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid fever, AIDS and pneumonia.

30 Jun 2011

Physicians urge FDA not to approve Truvada as an HIV prevention pill

Last week, a group of 55 U.S. physicians sent a letter to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), urging the agency not to approve the use of Gilead's HIV/AIDS treatment drug Truvada for use as an HIV prevention pill - also known as "pre-exposure prophylaxis" (PrEP).

30 Jun 2011

Rapid, accurate test differentiates between bacterial and viral infections

Scientists are reporting development and successful testing of a rapid and accurate test to tell the difference between bacterial and viral infections. Those common afflictions often have similar symptoms but vastly different treatments - antibiotics work for bacterial infections but not for viruses. The report appears in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry.

30 Jun 2011

Queensland authorities try to contain Hendra virus outbreak

The Queensland authorities have stepped up their efforts to contain an outbreak of the deadly Hendra virus on a farm near Beaudesert, south of Brisbane.

29 Jun 2011

Nurses drive quality initiative, save lives and money

Nurses on a surgical intensive care unit (SICU) at a large academic medical center cut bloodstream infections to zero and saved more than $200,000 during a six-month period.

29 Jun 2011

GAO reports on government response to H1N1 pandemic

GAO on Monday published two reports on the government's response to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.

29 Jun 2011

Gene PNPLA3 offers potential therapeutic target in chronic hepatitis C liver damage

New research confirms that a variant on the patatin-like phospholipase-3 (PNPLA3) gene increases risk of steatosis and fibrosis progression in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV). The PNPLA3 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs 738409 may represent an important genetic predictor and potential therapeutic target in chronic HCV liver damage.

29 Jun 2011

France 24's Health program examines challenges to fighting malaria in Madagascar

France 24's video program Health examines challenges to fighting malaria in Madagascar, where some people who cannot afford newer artemisinin-based combination therapies use older, less-effective medications that can promote drug resistance and others misuse mosquito nets.

29 Jun 2011

Anacor, DNDi and SCYNEXIS complete SCYX-7158 pre-clinical studies for combating sleeping sickness

Anacor Pharmaceuticals, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), and SCYNEXIS Inc. today announced the successful completion of pre-clinical studies for the first new oral drug candidate discovered specifically to combat human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness.

29 Jun 2011

Prototype small molecule drugs could suppress hepatitis C

Targeted multi-drug treatments for hepatitis C patients that could stop the virus in its tracks have come a step closer, thanks to researchers at the University of Leeds, UK.

29 Jun 2011

Voluntary medical male circumcision is a cost-effective, safe way to prevent HIV

Emmanuel Njeuhmeli, a senior biomedical prevention advisor in the USAID Office of HIV/AIDS, discusses efforts to raise awareness about male circumcision as a "cost saving and effective form of HIV prevention" in a post on USAID's "Impact Blog."

29 Jun 2011