A new study shows that more people were at risk of anthrax infection in the Oct_2001 attack on US Senator Tom Daschle’s office than previously known. The research is published in the January 15 issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. On the other hand, the study shows, prompt intervention with antibiotics and vaccination appeared to be highly effective against the disease.
A new study on risk factors of new-onset diabetes mellitus (NODM) following liver transplant found that a history of obesity, impaired fasting glucose and hepatitis C infection (HCV) paired with the use of a particular immunosuppressant are associated with an increased risk of NODM. Since all of these factors can be detected prior to undergoing a transplant, treatment should be tailored to the patient’s risk.
Infectious bronchitis virus causes devastating losses to the poultry industry but scientists are now developing a new way to vaccinate chicks against the disease — one that can be delivered while they are still in their egg. Researchers have used a “reverse genetic” system to produce a new vaccine strain which is safe to deliver to chicks while they are still in the egg, making it more effective than current vaccines.
The first human trial of a DNA vaccine designed to prevent H5N1 avian influenza infection began on December 21, 2006, when the vaccine was administered to the first volunteer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD. Scientists from the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the NIH Institutes, designed the vaccine. The vaccine does not contain any infectious material from the influenza virus.
Infection with the human papilloma virus, the major cause of cervical cancer, is forever. The virus remains latent in skin cells, ready to flare up at any time to create warts on the skin or the genitals. A new finding by UC Berkeley’s Michael Botchan and colleagues offers hope that a drug can halt spread of the virus into new cells, and perhaps even eliminate the virus from the body.
To eliminate tuberculosis (TB) in the United States, current guidelines should be changed to reclassify all foreign-born residents from high incidence countries as “high-risk” regardless of the amount of time they have lived in the US.
Researchers reported that all five standard hospital-based performance measures used to gauge quality-of-care for hospitalized heart-failure patients may not be the best benchmarks since none were significant predictors of patient mortality during the critical first 60 to 90 days immediately following hospital discharge.
The Avian and Human Influenza Facility of the World Bank announced today that six grants with a combined value of US$28 million have been approved to assist some 13 countries in five regions to fight the threat posed by avian and human influenza:
Two novel treatments — a basic compound found in every cell in the body and an extract of green tea — may prevent brain damage caused from stroke, according to two studies in rats led by a researcher at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.
Scientists at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville have succeeded in imaging, in unprecedented detail, the virus that causes influenza.