A bacterial molecule that initially signals to animals that they have been invaded must be wiped out by a special enzyme before an infected animal can regain full health, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
Mice given quercetin, a naturally occurring substance found in fruits and vegetables, were less likely to contract the flu, according to a new study. The study also found that stressful exercise increased the susceptibility of mice to the flu, but quercetin canceled out that negative effect.
The widely-held perception that the influenza vaccination reduces overall mortality risk in the elderly does not withstand careful scrutiny, according to researchers in Alberta. The vaccine does confer protection against specific strains of influenza, but its overall benefit appears to have been exaggerated by a number of observational studies that found a very large reduction in all-cause mortality among elderly patients who had been vaccinated.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Malaria Research Institute have identified a previously unknown virus that is infectious to Anopheles gambiae"”the mosquito primarily responsible for transmitting malaria.
Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found a potential new way to stop the bacteria that cause gastroenteritis, tularemia and severe diarrhea from making people sick.
An infectious ocean-dwelling bacterium found in oysters and other shellfish kills its host's cells by causing them to burst, providing the invader with a nutrient-rich meal, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
In a study described in the August 14 issue of Cell Host and Microbe, Johns Hopkins researchers reveal that when red blood cells are infected with the malaria parasite, they activate platelets to secrete the PF4 protein, which triggers the immune system to inflame blood vessels and obstruct capillaries in the brain; both are hallmarks of cerebral malaria.
New research has discovered that infection and natural exposure to the 1918 influenza virus made survivors immune to the disease for the remaining of their lives. Antibodies produced by cells isolated from these survivors served as an effective therapy to protect mice from the highly lethal 1918 infection. The study entitled "Neutralizing antibodies derived from the B cells of 1918 influenza pandemic survivors," was released for advanced online publication by the journal Nature.
Ninety years after the sweeping destruction of the 1918 flu pandemic, researchers at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt have recovered antibodies to the virus "“ from elderly survivors of the original outbreak.
Hospital patients with rare types of meningitis, including fungal and parasitic meningitis, are 15 times more likely to die than patients hospitalized with viral meningitis. Meningitis is a rare but serious condition that mainly attacks younger people, or those whose immune systems are weakened from AIDS or other causes.
If influenza pandemic hits the United States, acute care hospitals are likely to be overwhelmed. Nursing homes may then be expected to assist with the patient overflow, but a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that many are not prepared for such a task.
Scientists and researchers have taken a big step closer to a cure for the most common strain of avian influenza, or "bird flu," the potential pandemic that has claimed more than 200 lives and infected nearly 400 people in 14 countries since it was identified in 2003.
A long-time microbial inhabitant of the human stomach may protect children from developing asthma, according to a new study among more than 7,000 subjects led by NYU Langone Medical Center researchers. Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that has co-existed with humans for at least 50,000 years, may lead to peptic ulcers and stomach cancer. Yet, kids between the ages of 3 and 13 are nearly 59 percent less likely to have asthma if they carry the bug, the researchers report.
Scientists may be able to stave off influenza infection by targeting one of more than 100 proteins inside host cells on which the virus depends. These potential drug targets are the result of a study in which researchers tested the ability of a modified influenza virus to infect fruit fly cells.
Scientists at Tulane and North Carolina State universities have identified the chemical cues in water that entice yellow fever mosquitoes to lay their eggs. The research could lead to targeted lures to kill the deadly mosquitoes, which also spread dengue fever .
You needn't be a public health official to know that as of July 1, there were over 40 states with alerts on salmonella outbreaks, nor wait for traditional sources like the WHO or CDC to issue reports. An online project called HealthMap, described in the July PLoS Medicine, extracts, categorizes, filters and integrates a variety of data sources on the Web -- including blogs, listservs, chatrooms, and news reports.
A new report called Home Health Care During an Influenza Pandemic: Issues and Resources identifies home health care as a critical component in providing care during a pandemic influenza event, and it offers resources to home health care providers and community planners to help prepare for such an event.
North Carolina State University scientists have figured out one reason why pregnant yellow fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti), one of the most important disease transmitters worldwide, choose to lay their eggs in certain outdoor water containers while eschewing others.
As the specter of a worldwide outbreak of avian or "bird flu" lingers, health officials recognize that new drugs are desperately needed since some strains of the virus already have developed resistance to the current roster of anti-flu remedies.
By delivering vaccine via DNA constructed to build antigens against flu, along with a minute electric pulse, researchers have immunized experimental animals against various strains of the virus. This approach could allow for the build up of vaccine reserves that could be easily and effectively dispensed in case of an epidemic.
As a human avian influenza pandemic remains a very real global threat, the University of Maryland-based Prevention and Control of Avian Influenza Coordinated Agricultural Project, AICAP, has been re-funded with a second five million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
An outbreak of pandemic influenza in the U.S. could be mitigated with prompt implementation of social-distancing measures combined with antiviral treatment and prophylaxis until a vaccine is available.
If the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza ever comes to Kansas, diagnosticians at Kansas State University's Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory will be the first to know.
Physical barriers, such as regular handwashing and wearing masks, gloves and gowns may be more effective than drugs to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses like influenza and SARS, concludes a study published on bmj.com today.
Q&A about flu season with Dr. Eric Westerman, an infectious disease expert with The Methodist Hospital in Houston.
If SARS makes a comeback or a serious flu epidemic becomes a reality, structured hygiene routines aimed at younger children could become an important focus in fighting back against these deadly viruses, according to a new review of recent studies.
Since it first appeared in Hong Kong in 1997, the H5N1 avian flu virus has been slowly evolving into a pathogen better equipped to infect humans. The final form of the virus, biomedical researchers fear, will be a highly pathogenic strain of influenza that spreads easily among humans.
Media Advisory on a series of SARS research reports, bringing to media attention to the latest discoveries.
According to results from the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, 65 percent of parents plan to have their children, ages 6 months to 5 years, vaccinated against the flu this season. The poll also finds that parents are more likely to vaccinate their kids if they plan to vaccinate themselves.
A new biosensor developed at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) can detect avian influenza in just minutes. In addition to being a rapid test, the biosensor is economical, field-deployable, sensitive to different viral strains and requires no labels or reagents.
Vaccinating children against the influenza virus will help prevent many outpatient visits and hospitalizations due to the flu, according to a recent study published in the September issue of Pediatrics by a pediatrician at Brenner Children's Hospital, part of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have found key features that distinguish influenza viruses found in birds from those that infect humans.
In a study published in the Aug. 8 Journal of the American Medical Association, a team of University of Michigan medical historians and epidemiologists from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that social restrictions allowed 43 U.S. cities to save thousands of lives during the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-1919.
Scientists studying the potential spread of a flu pandemic must be careful to distinguish the different rates of infection among different groups, including the sociable and the shy, those most susceptible to infection and those less so, according to a new study in the "O.R. Forum" section of Operations Research, a flagship journal of The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).
Less than half of doctors with an interest in infectious diseases in children believe that a flu pandemic resulting from an avian strain is very likely, according to a study published online ahead of print in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Veterinarians who work with birds are at increased risk for infection with avian influenza virus and should be among those with priority access to pandemic influenza vaccines and antivirals, according to a study conducted by researchers in the University of Iowa College of Public Health.
Public health officials say a major concern is an outright flu pandemic, such as a human strain of avian flu. It's not a question of if such a health crisis will come but when. Are we prepared? In a word, say three UCLA researchers, no.
The antiviral drug peramivir might offer humans significant protection during a pandemic of the avian influenza virus H5N1, according to results of mouse studies conducted by investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Scientists have designed a new, interactive map of the spread of the avian flu virus (H5N1) that for the first time incorporates genetic, geographic and evolutionary information that may help predict where the next outbreak of the virus is likely to occur.
A team of researchers report the first ever large-scale sequencing of western genomes of the deadly avian influenza virus, H5N1, that confirms not only that the virus has very recently spread west from Asia, but that two of the new western strains have already independently combined, or "reassorted," to create a new strain.
UC San Diego and University of Hawaii researchers have received $350,000 from U.S. Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center to use bioinformatics, grid computing, networking infrastructure and Pacific Rim collaboration to learn more about avian flu.
A new tool can help public health officials better predict when a bird flu pandemic will strike and plan ways to stem its effects. A collaboration of the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business and Carver College of Medicine, the Iowa Health Prediction Market has launched the Avian Flu Market
A new flu vaccine study led by a Saint Louis University researcher appears today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study involved thousands of children across the world.
The yearly influenza vaccine that health officials urge people to get each fall might also offer certain individuals some cross protection against the H5N1 virus, commonly known as bird flu, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Modest changes in the 1918 flu virus's hemagglutinin receptor binding site"”a molecular structure critical for the spread of infection"”stopped viral transmission in ferrets, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Aaron Margolin, professor of microbiology and director of UNH's Virus and Waterborne Disease Laboratory, says that an increase in norovirus outbreaks may be due to better detection and identification of virus. Yet lax sanitation, combined with an aging population and our society's notions about sickness, are hastening the virus's spread.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers has developed a portable biosensor for in-field, rapid screening of avian influenza virus. The inexpensive device specifically and sensitively detects the avian influenza strain H5N1 from poultry cloacal or tracheal swab samples in less than 30 minutes and could help health officials coordinate a rapid response for the eradication, quarantine and vaccination of animals.
An Indiana University School of Informatics-led team of researchers has constructed a model that predicts how an emerging pandemic influenza might spread across the globe by airliners. The model they devised is said to be the world's largest-scale epidemic simulation of its kind.
In response to the federal government's high priority for accelerated research to combat bird flu and bioterrorism, the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee has been awarded a five-year, $8.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health's Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to develop a rapid, miniaturized, automated diagnostic device to test for avian flu and the majority of potential bioterrorism agents.
Cornell researchers studied a virus related to the avian influenza virus to see whether a hypothetical mutated form of H5N1 could infect people through drinking and wastewater systems.
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