Feature Channels: Infectious Diseases

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The Ebola epidemic and resulting international public health emergency is referred to as a “Black Swan” event in medical circles because of its unpredictable and impactful nature. However, a paper in the June 30 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, a leading journal in the field of infectious diseases, suggests that the response of the Chicago Ebola Response Network (CERN) in 2014-2015 has laid a foundation and a roadmap for how a regional public health network can anticipate, manage and prevent the next Black Swan public health event.

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An international team of scientists — led by researchers from the University of Washington and two other institutions — has announced that a new compound to fight malaria is ready for human trials.

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In the U.S. and other industrialized nations, testing for infectious diseases and cancer often requires expensive equipment and highly trained specialists. In countries where resources are limited, performing the same diagnostics is far more challenging. To address this disparity, scientists are developing a portable, low-cost “paper machine” for point-of-care detection of infectious diseases, genetic conditions and cancer. Their report appears in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry.

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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center and in Australia have shown that a drug currently in testing shows potential to cure malaria in a single dose and offers promise as a preventive treatment as well.

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Researchers at the University of Georgia have developed new tools to study and genetically manipulate cryptosporidium. Their discoveries, published in the journal Nature, will ultimately help researchers find new treatments and vaccines for cryptosporidium, a major cause of disease and death in children under 2 years old.

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Researchers from the University of Georgia have determined that various freshwater sources in Georgia, such as rivers and lakes, could feature levels of salmonella that pose a risk to humans. The study is featured in the July edition of PLOS One.

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Viruses, not bacteria, are the most commonly detected respiratory pathogens in U.S. adults hospitalized with pneumonia, according to a New England Journal of Medicine study released today and conducted by researchers at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and hospitals in Chicago and Nashville, including Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

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Can offering a flu vaccination program at work benefit your organization?

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An examination of state vaccination requirements for adolescents finds that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is currently required in only two states, many fewer than another vaccine associated with sexual transmission (hepatitis B) and another primarily recommended for adolescents (meningococcal conjugate), according to a study in the July 14 issue of JAMA.

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Infections with one of the most troublesome and least understood antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” are increasing. But now scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown the bacteria, A. baumannii, can naturally relinquish its defenses against antibiotics.

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Research with human tissue and cells suggests that genetic variations, in addition to failure to comply with treatment regimens, may account for some failures of an anti-HIV drug to treat and prevent HIV infection.

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The percentage of U.S. Air Force recruits with detectable immunity to measles, mumps and rubella was lower than found in previous nationwide samples and may be low enough for outbreaks to occur, according to a study, "Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Titers in Air Force Recruits: Below Herd Immunity Thresholds?" released July 7, in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

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Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have shown that, unlike other antiretroviral therapies, a natural compound called Cortistatin A establishes a near-permanent state of latency and greatly diminishing the HIV virus’ capacity for reactivation.

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Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s James Crowe, M.D., Ann Scott Carell Professor and director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, and his team are reporting the first large panel of antibody treatments against the chikungunya virus in the current issue of Cell Host and Microbe.

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Infectious diseases such as hepatitis C and some of the world’s deadliest superbugs—C. difficile and MRSA among them—could soon be detected much earlier by a unique diagnostic test, designed to easily and quickly identify dangerous pathogens.

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Other topics include memories and protein, physics and gas mileage, agriculture and food safety, vaccine for Dengue, retinoblastoma proteins in cancer progression, and more.

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Over the same time period that multiple outbreaks of measles and whooping cough made headlines around the country, parents’ views on vaccines became more favorable.

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To protect consumers from foodborne illness, produce farmers should wait 24 hours after a rain or irrigating their fields to harvest crops,

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Researchers at Vanderbilt University and the National University of Singapore have determined the structure of a human monoclonal antibody which, in an animal model, strongly neutralizes a type of the potentially lethal dengue virus.

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The McMaster team recruited 75 patients with a flare up of their ulcerative colitis and randomized them to fecal transplant therapy given as an enema derived from stool donated by an anonymous healthy donor, and placebo.

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Mosquitoes transmit malaria, West Nile virus and chikungunya virus. Monitoring these insects is critical to understanding when and where to control them and lessen the risk of human disease. Insect experts the world over use carbon dioxide, the same gas that humans exhale, to attract blood-feeding bugs to traps, so they can measure their abundance, test them for diseases and make decisions about whether or not to control them.

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HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is the retrovirus that leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDS. Globally, about 35 million people are living with HIV, which constantly adapts and mutates creating challenges for researchers. Now, scientists at the University of Missouri are gaining a clearer idea of what a key protein in HIV looks like, which will help explain its vital role in the virus’ life cycle. Armed with this clearer image of the protein, researchers hope to gain a better understanding of how the body can combat the virus with the ultimate aim of producing new and more effective antiviral drugs.

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A mosquito in western South Dakota has tested positive for West Nile virus—the next step is transmission to humans. Two South Dakota State University researchers will help mosquito control officials use mosquito surveillance and environmental data to target West Nile virus through a three-year NASA grant.

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Other topics include; grape seed oil to reduce obesity, gender differences in chronic pain, workplace wellness, healthcare in rural Africa after Ebola, cancer treatment, and finding a cure for MERS.

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As Liberia rebuilds a health care system decimated by the 2014 Ebola outbreak, understanding precisely how far citizens live from health facilities and its impact on seeking care can help shape new strategies to improve health care delivery and reduce geographic disparities.

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As the South Korean MERS outbreak continues, researchers have discovered and validated two therapeutics that show early promise in preventing and treating the disease, which can cause severe respiratory symptoms, and has a death rate of 40 percent.

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An overview and analysis of the factors underlying the recent Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) outbreak in Korea has been published online ahead of print in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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The flu virus can be lethal. But what is often just as dangerous is the body’s own reaction to the invader. Now, a University of Maryland School of Medicine researcher has identified a “decoy” molecule that can rein in this runaway inflammatory response.

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A new study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute identifies new immune molecules that protect against deadly Marburg virus, a relative of Ebola virus. The research provides ingredients needed to develop treatments for future Marburg outbreaks.

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The acidity of urine — as well as the presence of small molecules related to diet — may influence how well bacteria can grow in the urinary tract, a new study shows. The research, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, may have implications for treating urinary tract infections, which are among the most common bacterial infections worldwide.

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Viruses like influenza have the ability to mutate over time, and given that the flu vaccines administered during the 2014-2015 season were largely ineffective at preventing the spread of the flu, it appears the virus that recently circulated had taken on mutations not accounted for when last year’s vaccine was developed. Now, researchers at The Wistar Institute identified specific mutations that influenza recently acquired to escape the current vaccine design.

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A new study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute reveals a key part of the Ebola virus life cycle at a higher resolution than ever before. The research sheds light on how Ebola virus assembles—and how researchers might stop the often-fatal infection.

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Congress needs to immediately lift the ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs to counter the threat of HIV outbreaks among injection drug users like the one that has seen an alarming number of new cases erupt in a single rural Indiana county.

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Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that some individuals exposed to HIV-1, but who remain uninfected, have a certain pattern of virus-specific immune responses that differentiated them from individuals who became infected.

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Public health officials stand poised to eliminate polio from the planet. But a new study shows that the job won't be over when the last case of the horrible paralytic disease is recorded.

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Topics include: A bioengineered patch to improve stem cell therapy for heart patients, Antacid meds raise risk of C. Diff. bacteria infection in kids, nutrition, new treatments for aggressive breast cancer, lab tests, genetic risks.

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New research led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and The Rockefeller University shows in mice that an experimental vaccine candidate designed at TSRI can stimulate the immune system activity necessary to stop HIV infection.

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As a spinoff from their research aimed at fighting a specific parasite, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Brandeis University may have found a way around an infectious bacterium’s natural defenses.

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In a finding that furthers the understanding of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), researchers from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles discovered two locations where a single difference in HIV’s genetic code altered the way the virus infected the cell, thereby influencing the progression of the disease.

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Rita Rio, associate professor of Biology at West Virginia University, has been awarded approximately $1.1 million by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to better understand the relationship between the tsetse fly and the parasite that spreads the disease.

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Infants and children who are given prescription acid-reducing medications face a substantially higher risk of developing Clostridium difficile infection, a potentially severe colonic disorder.

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During the coming monsoon season, survivors of the recent earthquake that destroyed parts of Nepal face a “very high” risk of a hepatitis E outbreak that could be especially deadly to pregnant women, according to a consensus statement from a group of infectious disease experts from around the world.

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Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have located a new – and likely more promising, they say – target for a potential vaccine against malaria, a mosquito-borne illness that kills as many as 750,000 people each year.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: new drug for heart disease, astronomy, sleep, stroke, diabetes, materials science, MERS, and U.S. Politics.

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Having had community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) greatly increases the risk of long-term morbidity and mortality compared to the general population who have never had CAP, according to a new study from researchers in Canada, the longest and largest outcomes study of patients with CAP reported to date.

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While not linked in this case, Streptococcus mutans serotype k, has been associated with bacteremia, infective endocarditis and hemorrhagic stroke.

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Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have developed a cutting-edge new medical therapy that could protect UK hospital patients against a lethal superbug.