The Public Health Agency of Canada is recommending that health care providers in Canada not prescribe amantadine to treat and prevent influenza during the current flu season. This recommendation is based on test results from the 2005-2006 flu season and initial results from the 2006-2007 season.
China has found no evidence of a new strain of H5N1 bird flu in its southern provinces and said on Thursday there was no need to share virus samples with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The World Health Organization criticized the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture officials for not informing the global community of the emergence of a new variant of the worrisome H5N1 avian flu virus – Fujian-like virus, and hoarding virus samples and for not doing enough to contain the spread of H5N1 in poultry.
The NIH has received 34 fresh samples of suspected cases of Dengue fever from Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Mardan, and Sawabi, during the last 24 hours.
For years researchers have been trying to understand how a few HIV-infected patients naturally defeat a virus that otherwise overwhelms the immune system. Last year, a research team at the University of Rochester Medical Center confirmed that such patients, called long-term non-progressors, maintain higher than normal levels of the enzyme called APOBEC-3G (A3G) in their white blood cells, which function to stave off infections. Now, the same group has teamed up with a structural biologist to provide the first look at the A3G structure. Such information represents an early step toward the design of a new class of drugs that could afford to all the same natural protection enjoyed by few, according to a study published today in The Journal of Biological Chemistry.
A new study found that individuals who had tested positive for hepatitis C (HCV) but later tested negative for the virus were significantly less likely to become infected again compared to those who had never been infected, even though they had the same exposure risks.
The highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza has been detected in at least 55 countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa. This often fatal disease is of pressing concern because it can be transmitted from birds to humans, although such transmissions have been rare so far. Unfortunately, according to a Roundtable article in the November 2006 BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), critical information about incidence of the disease in wild birds–even the species of the infected bird–is often recorded inaccurately or not recorded at all. The deficiencies in data collection, the authors write, “can lead to unwarranted assumptions and conclusions that in turn affect public perceptions, practical control and management measures, and the disposition of resources.”
Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has opened a new clinical study using a vaccine strain of the measles virus to attack recurrent glioblastoma multiforme, a largely untreatable brain tumor. This is the second of several pending molecular medicine studies in patients using measles to kill cancer.
GlaxoSmithKline plc [NYSE:GSK, LSE:GSK] announced results from a global Phase II study of eltrombopag, an investigational non-peptide oral platelet growth factor. In this study of 74 hepatitis C patients with thrombocytopenia, (a condition where the blood has low platelet levels) more than 95% (p< 0.001) of patients treated with the highest dose of eltrombopag (75mg) had increased platelet counts. In addition, 71% - 91% of patients in all treatment groups were able to initiate antiviral therapy with pegylated interferon-α (IFN) and ribavirin, and 65% were able to be maintained on therapy.1 Full results from this Phase II study are being presented today at the 57th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) in Boston, Massachusetts.
In a new clinical practice guideline, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) outlines recommendations for diagnosing and managing bronchiolitis, the most common lower respiratory infection in children under age 2. The symptoms of bronchiolitis often mirror those of asthma or bacterial pneumonia, resulting in misdiagnosis and incorrect treatment.