Tag: Infectious Diseases

Billions spent on coronavirus fight, but what happens next?

Congress has poured tens of billions of dollars into state and local public health departments in response to the coronavirus pandemic, paying for masks, contact tracers and education campaigns to persuade people to get vaccinated. Public health officials who have juggled bare-bones budgets for years are happy to have the additional money. Yet they worry

New restrictions irk many in Canada's most populous province

TORONTO — New pandemic restrictions imposed by Canada’s most populous province immediately ran into opposition on Saturday as police departments insisted they wouldn’t use new powers to randomly stop motorists and health experts complained the rules focus on outdoor activities rather than more dangerous indoor settings. Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government announced Friday it was

Iran sets coronavirus infection record for 3rd straight day

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran hit a new coronavirus infection record on Thursday for the third straight day, reporting 22,586 new cases as the country grapples with a severe spike following the Persian New Year holiday. The new case count pushes Iran’s total during the pandemic over 2 million, including 63,884 deaths after health authorities reported

Foreigners flock to Serbia to get coronavirus vaccine shots

BELGRADE, Serbia — Thousands of vaccine-seekers from countries neighboring Serbia flocked to Belgrade on Saturday after Serbian authorities offered foreigners free coronavirus jabs if they showed up over the weekend. Long lines of Bosnians, Montenegrins and Macedonians — often entire families — formed in front of the main vaccination center in the Serbian capital as

New evidence supports ivermectin use in children weighing less than fifteen kilograms

Millions of children weighing less than 15kg are currently denied access to Ivermectin treatment due to insufficient safety data being available to support a change to the current label indication. The WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN)'s new meta-analysis published today provides evidence that supports removing this barrier and improving treatment equity. A systematic review and

Hungary emerges as an EU vaccination star amid surging cases

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary has emerged as a European Union leader in COVID-19 vaccinations thanks to a strategy that sought shots from Russia and China as well as from inside the bloc, spurring increasing trust in jabs from eastern nations. But that strategy is up against a skyrocketing rise in new COVID-19 cases and deaths

Speaking whilst infected with COVID-19 may cause it to spread

Thought LeadersDr. Keiko IshiiAssistant ProfessorAoyama Gakuin University In this interview, News-Medical speaks to Dr. Keiko Ishii about her research efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic and how speaking whilst infected can cause the virus to spread, and why wearing masks is so important. What provoked your research efforts into the COVID-19 pandemic? Our research started when

Australia asks EU to stop blocking vaccine exports

BRUSSELS — Australia is seeking assurances from the European Union’s executive arm that future shipments of vaccines will not be blocked, after Italy banned a large export of the AstraZeneca coronavirus shots. The shipment to Australia of more than a quarter-million doses was blocked from leaving the 27-nation bloc — the first use of an

Current monoclonal antibodies less potent against SARS-CoV-2 variants

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), continues to wreak havoc across the globe. Scientists are racing to develop effective therapeutic regimens to combat the infection. One of therapy currently used to stimulate a robust immune response against the virus is monoclonal antibodies, a treatment used for

Researchers develop systems to detect an atypical fungus responsible for severe pneumonia

The group led by Dr. Enrique J. Calderón – "Clinical Epidemiology and Vascular Risk" at the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville – IBiS/University Hospitals Virgen del Rocío and Macarena/CSIC/University of Seville, also a member of CIBERESP, participated in a project with researchers from CIBER-BBN, in which they developed systems to detect Pneumocystis jirovecii, an atypical

What are Coronaviruses?

Skip to: What are coronaviruses? Why are coronaviruses dangerous? SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 SARS-CoV MERS-CoV The rapid spread of the virus that causes the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has sparked alarm across the globe. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the condition a global pandemic, with many countries grappling with the rise of infections. The disease

Does the Immune System Differ between Men and Women?

Research has repeatedly shown that women have a stronger immune response to infections than men. Studies from as early as the 1940s have elucidated that women possess an enhanced capability of producing antibodies. Image Credit: Peterschreiber.media/Shutterstock.com Even though this builds an effective resistance barrier to infections, women have a higher predisposition to autoimmunity caused by

Drug-resistant staph can spread easily in household environments

EDITOR’S NOTE: The embargo date and time were changed by The Lancet. Please note new embargo information above. Once rare, the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infects hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. each year and kills about 20,000. Antibiotic overuse has made MRSA more common and difficult to treat because of the

New strain of strep a is causing scarlet fever and invasive infections in England and Wales: Scientists warn vigilance is needed to monitor impact of new bacterial strain on public health

Scientists studying scarlet fever have identified a new strain of disease-causing bacteria, which may explain a rise in more serious Strep A infections in England and Wales, according to results from cases in London and across England and Wales from 2014-16 published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal. In 2014, England experienced the biggest surge

Mumps study shows immunity gaps among vaccinated people: College-aged study participants received MMR as children

Immunity against mumps virus appears insufficient in a fraction of college-aged people who were vaccinated in childhood, research from Emory Vaccine Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates. The findings highlight the need to better understand the immune response to mumps and mumps vaccines. In the last 15 years, several mumps outbreaks

Targeting apolipoprotein E could be key to eliminating hepatitis B virus

Human apolipoprotein E (apoE) promotes hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and production, according to a study published Aug 8 in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by Luhua Qiao and Guangxiang (George) Luo of the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. The findings suggest that inhibitors interfering with apoE biogenesis, secretion, and/or binding to

Using quantum dots and a smartphone to find killer bacteria: Australian scientists develop cheap and rapid way to identify antibiotic-resistant golden staph (MRSA).

A combination of off-the-shelf quantum dot nanotechnology and a smartphone camera soon could allow doctors to identify antibiotic-resistant bacteria in just 40 minutes, potentially saving patient lives. Staphylococcus aureus (golden staph), is a common form of bacterium that causes serious and sometimes fatal conditions such as pneumonia and heart valve infections. Of particular concern is