Avian Flu Resources
We have put together a list of useful resources for Avian Flu here:
We have put together a list of useful resources for Avian Flu here:
Pursuing a longstanding interest in maternal and fetal health, Courtney Rowland spent last year deeply involved in several key investigations: the role of folic acid in preventing encephalocele (a congenital neural-tube defect), the effects of maternal analgesics on congenital cardiovascular malformations, and the incidence of birth defects among infants born to mothers with the viral disease lymphocytic choriomeningitis.
Those would be formidable assignments for any medical researcher, let alone someone who was still a medical student. But that's what Rowland was (and still is) at the University of Kansas Medical School in Wichita, where she is now in her fourth year.
Rowland's investigations, which gave her a chance to learn first-hand about epidemiological methods and public health, were part of a new fellowship program in applied epidemiology offered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Ga.
Under the program—called "The CDC Experience: Applied Epidemiology Fellowship—eight medical students between their second and third, or third and fourth, years of medical school are selected each year to spend 10 to 12 months at the CDC, where they carry out investigations in areas of public health that interest them. They receive stipends of $17,000 to $20,000. The program is financed by Pfizer Inc. and the Pfizer Foundation through a grant to the CDC Foundation, a nonprofit group designed to facilitate collaboration between the CDC and other organizations.
Full Article: http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporter/oct05/fellowships.htm
MINNEAPOLIS/ST.PAUL, MN (Aug. 3, 2005) – Julie A. Ross, Ph.D.,Photo of Dr. Julie Ross professor and internationally known childhood cancer epidemiologist, has been named associate director for population sciences at the University of Minnesota Cancer Center, announces John Kersey, M.D., Cancer Center director.
Full Announcement: http://www.cancer.umn.edu/page/news/release080305.html
ARHP calls for women to talk to their providers, request comprehensive screenings
Washington, DC, June 28, 2005 - Eighty-eight percent of women rely on their healthcare providers to learn about gynecological issues, yet only 19 percent said their doctor has talked to them about cervical cancer and its cause - the human papillomavirus (HPV) - according to a new survey released by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP). HPV is extremely common, affecting an estimated 80 percent of sexually active adults in their lifetime, in some cases staying dormant until years after the initial infection. Yet few are talking about the relationship between HPV and cervical cancer despite the fact that advanced screening is available, which can detect the virus early and help prevent cervical cancer.
"The communications gap between providers and patients related to cervical cancer and HPV is an issue that is largely due to time constraints, and a reluctance to discuss a sexually transmitted infection with women," said Dr. Beth Jordan, medical director at ARHP. "But because new techniques, including improved types of diagnostic testing, now make cervical cancer a disease that can be better prevented, we're encouraging women to discuss with their healthcare provider their HPV risk, get regular screenings with the Pap test and, if they are age 30 or older, ask about HPV testing as well."
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/lt-srw062805.php
With Epi Info™ and a personal computer, epidemiologists and other public health and medical professionals can rapidly develop a questionnaire or form, customize the data entry process, and enter and analyze data. Epidemiologic statistics, tables, graphs, and maps are produced with simple commands such as READ, FREQ, LIST, TABLES, GRAPH, and MAP. Epi Map displays geographic maps with data from Epi Info™.
Research shows combination of exercise and weight control may cut disease risk dramatically
PHILADELPHIA – In a large epidemiological study of the link between energy balance and breast cancer risk, scientists have provided strong evidence that more exercise together with less weight gain affect considerably the likelihood of contracting breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women.
Energy balance represents the difference between energy intake, by eating, and energy expenditure, through physical activity.
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/aafc-ktb060905.php
Americans have more options than ever to use in protecting themselves from mosquito bites. Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new guidance about effective mosquito repellents available in the United States. The updated guidance includes addition of two active ingredients - picaridin and oil of lemon eucalyptus - which have been shown to offer long-lasting protection against mosquito bites. Repellents containing DEET continue to be a highly effective repellent option and are also included in the CDC guidelines.
Full Article: http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r050428.htm
They might be cute and cuddly, but furry "pocket pets" and docile petting zoo animals can spread deadly bacteria to children just like snakes and exotic pets.
. . .
"I don't want people to be alarmed by these pets. That's not our goal," said Swanson, who also works in the Minnesota Department of Health and was involved in the investigation. "I really just want them to be aware of the possibility of infection from these cute, but potentially contaminated pets."
Full Article: http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_334623.html
10 May 2005 – With the success of vaccinations leading to a dramatic drop in fatalities but an increase in the number of alarmist and misleading websites threatening to counter that accomplishment, the United Nations health agency today welcomed 23 non-commercial Internet pages to its Vaccine
Full Article: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=14224&Cr=vaccine&Cr1=
Montreal, 17 May 2005--Those considered high-risk for melanoma--the most dangerous form of skin cancer--are no more likely to sunbathe protected than those who are unaware of their risk, according to a new study conducted by MUHC researchers. The study, published in the Journal of Cutaneous Medicine and Surgery, examined the behaviour of melanoma patients in order to assess the efficacy of sun-awareness and protection campaigns.
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/mu-tah051605.php
PORTLAND, Ore. -- While prostate cancer is a very common diagnosis, it is a deadly disease in relatively few men. One in 6 men will develop prostate cancer during his lifetime. However, of these, only one in 10 cases will be life-threatening.
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/ohs-poh051605.php
One out of 12 people in the western world suffers from type 2 (adult onset) diabetes. Worldwide, 150 million people are diabetic and their numbers are expected to double in the next 20 years, a result of the growing obesity epidemic. Yet, the reasons for the strong correlation between excess body fat and diabetes have been puzzling researchers. Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the University of Umea, Sweden, have now unraveled a mechanism by which fat contributes to the onset of the disease. Their results were published in the April issue of Cell Metabolism.
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/acft-tfc051605.php
A study published last month in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests an association between maternal exposure to toxoplasmosis and increased risk for developing schizophrenia in adult children. The study, which evaluated archived blood samples from pregnant women who participated in a large birth cohort called the Child Health and Development Study (CHDS) from 1959–1967, was conducted by researchers at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, in collaboration with the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Plan, Northern California Region.
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/cums-sfm051605.php
A study led by a Mayo Clinic medical oncologist and conducted by the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) provides important new data about the effectiveness and safety of a breast cancer treatment combining chemotherapy and a drug called trastuzumab (Herceptin).
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/mc-mrt051305.php
A pediatric oncologist at Brenner Children's Hospital hopes his latest research into treating a common childhood cancer will reduce the number of long-term side effects that survivors experience as they grow into adulthood. Allen Chauvenet, M.D., presented his findings today at the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (ASPHO) annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/wfub-ldo050905.php
FRIDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- The first year of college can take a toll on students' health, with a new study suggesting the stresses and loneliness experienced by many freshmen weakens their immune systems.
Lonely students had less robust immune responses to the flu shot than other students, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh report in the May issue of the journal Health Psychology.
Full Article: http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docid=525415
12th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections HIV InSite's coverage of the 12th CROI, Boston, MA, 2/22-25/05.
After nearly two years of planning, community meetings and in-depth study involving more than 300 health care professionals and community leaders, Minnesota’s first plan to coordinate cancer control and prevention activities in the state was announced last week.
The plan is titled Cancer Plan Minnesota 2005-2010: Recommendations for policymakers, planners, providers and advocates. The four areas of action for the first year of the plan include:
• Reduce smoking by advocating for increased state taxes on cigarettes and expanded smoke-free workplace laws.
• Reduce racial disparities by expanding cancer screening and treatment for racial minorities to reduce the high incidences of lung, colon, prostate and other cancers.
• Reduce colon cancer by increased emphasis on screening to detect cancer early when it can be prevented or treated.
• Increase information by creating an interactive website so that Minnesotans can more easily find out about services and support programs.
Several Cancer Center members played key roles in developing this plan: DeAnn Lazovich, Ph.D., served on the steering committee and co-chaired the Prevention Work Group; Nancy Baxter, M.D., Ph.D., co-chaired the Early Detection Work Group; and Bruce Peterson, M.D., co-chaired the Treatment Work Group. In addition, the following Cancer Center members served on work groups: DeAnn Lazovich, Ph.D., and Beth Virnig, Ph.D., M.P.H., Data Review Committee; Marva Bohen, M.S., R.N. and Janet Smith Yee, Disparities Committee; Andrew Flood, Ph.D., Deb Hennrikus, Ph.D., and Phyllis Pirie, Ph.D., Prevention Work Group; Ann Mertens, Ph.D., Survivorship Work Group; Timothy Church, Ph.D., Resa Jones, M.P.H., and Mark Yeazel, M.D., Early Detection Work Group; and Beth Virnig, Ph.D., M.P.H., Treatment Work Group. The Cancer Center also was part of a resolution to support the Cancer Plan, and John Kersey, M.D., spoke at the appreciation event for people who developed the plan.
Full Announcement: http://www.cancer.umn.edu/page/ccmembers/members.html
Congressional and Public Affairs
(202) 720-9113
Steven Cohen
WASHINGTON, April 20, 2005 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) isssuing a public health alert to remind consumers to ensure that frozen meat and poultry products are fully cooked before they are consumed. Using a food thermometer is the only sure way of knowing if your food has reached a high enough temperature to destroy foodborne bacteria.
Full Article: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/NR_042005_01/index.asp
After decades of under-investment, our public health system lacks the resources it needs to tackle the full range of health threats -- from preparing for potential chemical or biological attacks, to addressing the serious chronic disease epidemics of cancer or asthma, or responding to emerging infectious diseases like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or Avian Flu. As the leading federal agency responsible for protecting the public’s health, the CDC’s budget must reflect the vital role it plays in the lives of every individual, every day, and its increasing responsibilities for homeland security.
Full Article: http://healthyamericans.org/policy/criticalcare/
Washington -- Three vaccine scenarios are being eyed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the upcoming flu season: rain, shine or hurricane.
A "rainy" scenario, the one the agency considers realistic, would mimic last season's scattered storms of accessibility. The supply would be about 60 million doses of injectable flu vaccine and 3 million doses of nasal vaccine, said Lance E. Rodewald, MD, director of the CDC's Immunization Services Division, speaking during last month's 39th National Immunization Conference in Washington, D.C. The conference, sponsored by the CDC, brought officials together to assess the most recent flu season and look to the upcoming one.
Full Article: http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/04/18/hlsc0418.htm
MONDAY, April 18 (HealthDay News) -- An antibody called Sphingomab shows promise in treating some of the most deadly kinds of tumors, according to studies presented Monday at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Anaheim, Calif.
Researchers say Sphingomab has been tested in several animal models of human cancer and was found to significantly slow cancer growth on a consistent basis. In some cases, it eliminated the tumor.
The antibody, developed by San Diego-based Lpath Therapeutics Inc., targets sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), a compound thought to play a role in cancer cell growth and spread. In animal studies, Sphingomab blocked the effects of S1P on cancer cells and also prevented formation of new blood vessels that feed growing tumors.
Full Article: http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docid=525131
THURSDAY, March 31 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have launched an international study to evaluate the ability of a new estrogen-suppressing drug, exemestane, to prevent breast cancer in women at increased risk for the disease.
The ExCel study will track more than 4,500 postmenopausal women in Canada, the United States and Spain for five years. Researchers say it will include women at increased risk for breast cancer due to risk factors such as age, family history, age at first menstrual period, and age at first live birth.
Full Article: http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docid=524871
The largest, most comprehensive study ever done comparing the effectiveness of hand hygiene products shows that nothing works better in getting rid of disease-causing viruses than simply washing one's hands with good old-fashioned soap and water.
Among the viruses soapy hand washing flushes down the drain is the one that causes the common cold. Other removable viruses cause hepatitis A, acute gastroenteritis and a host of other illnesses.
A separate key finding was that waterless handwipes only removed roughly 50 percent of bacteria from volunteer subjects' hands.
As this season's window of opportunity to administer the flu vaccine comes to a close, the attention of those in the supply chain -- from physicians who give the shot to the people involved in manufacturing it -- has turned to next year.
And there is already a hiccup.
Many physicians are having problems placing their pre-orders for next season's supply, an activity usually on the to-do list at this time.
Full Article: http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/03/07/hlsb0307.htm
"BOSTON, Feb. 24 - The researchers whose findings led the New York City health department to warn of a rare and possibly virulent strain of H.I.V. defended on Thursday their decision to notify city officials, saying the virus presented a serious threat to public health.
Giving a detailed account of their investigation for the first time at a scientific meeting here, the researchers said their discovery of the potentially more aggressive strain in a New York City man with multiple sexual partners was reason enough to sound the alarm."
Willmar, Minn. — So far, domestic chicken flocks in southeast Asia have been hit hardest by avian influenza. But the disease puts fear in any poultry producer. Dale Lauer, who directs the Minnesota Poultry Testing Laboratory in Willmar, the epi-center of the state's turkey industry, says turkeys are just as susceptible.
Full Article: http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/11/29_bensonl_birdflu/
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Minnesota health officials are alerting doctors to watch for what might be a new, drug-resistant strain of HIV that is said to move quickly to AIDS.
Full Article: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MN_DRUG_RESISTANT_HIV_MNOL-?SITE=MNROC
Boston, MA -- Routine HIV screening should be extended to most Americans, according to the findings of two research teams described in the February 10, 2005 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers at Yale, Harvard and the Massachusetts General Hospital found that such screening could increase survival, prevent transmission of the disease and be undertaken at reasonable cost relative to the benefit for society. Another team from the VA, Duke and Stanford Universities employed different data and methods and reached similar conclusions. An editorial in the same issue of NEJM calls explicitly for a change in US screening policies which currently recommend testing only in high risk groups.
Full Article: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/press/releases/press02092005.html
Contact: Andrea Brunais
MediaRelations@moffitt.usf.edu
813-632-1478
University of South Florida Health Sciences Center
Tampa, FL (Feb. 1, 2005) In the largest grant ever to a Cancer Control and Prevention researcher at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, the National Institutes of Health awarded $10 million to Anna Giuliano, Ph.D., to help determine men's roles in spreading the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes deadly cervical cancer in women.
The grant is the largest of its kind in the world. Up to this point in the world of cancer research, little has been done to study men's roles in spreading the sexually transmitted organism linked to cervical cancer in women. The men will be followed every six months for four years. They need not have the HPV virus. But they must be willing to visit a clinic at Moffitt twice a year for the four-year study duration.
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/uosf-se020105.php
Researchers say obesity is associated with lower prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels in men, making the screening test likely to produce unreliable results in this population. The full study is published in the March 1, 2005 issue of CANCER (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/cancer-newsroom), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-01/labr-lbm013105.php
The federal government is making its emergency stockpile of 3 million flu vaccines available to doctors nationwide in a new effort announced Thursday to immunize more people.
Article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-01-28-flu-usat_x.htm
BANGKOK, Jan 21 (TNA) - Monitoring measures on bird flu in Thailand are still being strictly imposed to prevent its re-emerging for the third time, Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan has affirmed.
"New cases of bird flu patients have not been found in Thailand since October," said Mrs. Sudarat.
The monitoring measures have been increased to the highest level of awareness, especially the preventative measures on human-to-human transfer.
Read more...MCOT
Wed Jan 19, 2005 9:27 PM ET
HANOI (Reuters) - An 18-year-old girl has died of bird flu in southern Vietnam and the first confirmed human infection in the country's north has raised concerns about possible human-to-human transmission of the virus.
The girl died in a Ho Chi Minh City hospital on Wednesday after battling the highly virulent H5N1 strain for nearly two weeks since she was hospitalized on Jan. 6 from the southern province of Tien Giang, the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said.
Read more...Reuters Health
Wed Jan 19, 2005 7:54 PM ET
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered a new cancer-causing gene that they believe could be a molecular master switch for the disease.
Dubbed the Pokemon gene, it is one of several so-called oncogenes that lead normal cells to become cancerous. But it could be one of the most important.
"Pokemon is a main switch in the molecular network that leads toward cancer," said Dr Pier Paolo Pandolfi, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York who headed the team that identified the gene.
Read more...Reuters Health
Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:18 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More Americans than ever before are surviving cancer and rates in general are falling, mostly because fewer people are smoking, the American Cancer Society reported on Wednesday.
The group predicts that 1.372 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in 2005 and 570,280 will die of it. This does not include a million cases of two not very threatening forms of skin cancer called basal and squamous cell carcinoma.
Read more...Reuters Health
Deaths from both fall, but heart disease at faster rate
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Posted: 3:51 PM EST (2051 GMT)
(AP) -- For the first time, cancer has surpassed heart disease as the top killer of Americans under 85, health officials said Wednesday. The good news is that deaths from both are falling, but improvement has been more dramatic for heart disease.
"It's dropping fast enough that another disease is eclipsing it," said Dr. Walter Tsu, president of the American Public Health Association.
Read more...CNN Health
Deaths from both fall, but heart disease at faster rate
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Posted: 3:51 PM EST (2051 GMT)
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(AP) -- For the first time, cancer has surpassed heart disease as the top killer of Americans under 85, health officials said Wednesday. The good news is that deaths from both are falling, but improvement has been more dramatic for heart disease.
"It's dropping fast enough that another disease is eclipsing it," said Dr. Walter Tsu, president of the American Public Health Association.
Read more...CNN Health
Gene transfer technique immunizes mice within 12 hours
Using gene transfer technology, investigators were able to immunize mice against anthrax in just 12 hours, according to new research featured in the February 2005 issue of Molecular Therapy, the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy (ASGT).
In any bioterror attack, vaccines that provide a rapid, effective defense against the pathogen will be key to saving lives. Research underway at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City may provide health officials with a much quicker option than vaccines currently available, which can take weeks or months to gain full effect.
"This research is important, because in the event of an attack, it may not be known whether another attack is coming -- or who might be affected. In that case, you want immunity to be built up in key populations as quickly as possible," said Dr. Ronald G. Crystal, Chairman of the Department of Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College and Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Vaccines tend to fall into one of two groups -- active vaccines, where the body is prompted over time to build up antibodies against specific threats; and passive vaccines, where fully-formed antibodies are delivered to the body in vaccine form.
"Because the body continues to produce antibodies, active vaccines last much longer than the passive kind, whose effectiveness tends to diminish over time," Dr. Crystal explained.
Read more...Eurekalert
NEW YORK-- The best method for preventing HIV patients from developing drug resistance is a careful, dedicated adherence to their prescribed drug regimen, according to a long-term, large-scale study presented today in New York City at the American Medical Association Media Briefing, HIV/AIDS, The Drug Resistance Epidemic. Other key predictors of resistance include measures of how much virus was present in a person's bloodstream at the start of therapy and how much their immune status was compromised.
"We have a lot of studies showing that triple therapy works, as well as a lot of good information on the problem of resistance developing in triple antiretroviral therapy," said Richard Harrigan, Ph.D., director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV Research Labs at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver and lead author of the paper. "The problem with past studies is that they were limited to people in clinical trials and as people drop out they are lost to the study. In this study, we followed people beginning initial triple therapy for 30 months and were able to really get a sense of how the therapy works outside of clinical trials."
Read more...Eurekalert
Increase fueled by Nigeria outbreak after vaccine boycott
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The number of worldwide polio cases last year rose by almost one-third after a vaccine boycott in Nigeria spawned a resurgence of the disease across Africa, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
The number of cases worldwide in 2004 reached 1,185, compared with 784 in 2003, the United Nations health agency said.
Most of the cases were in Africa -- largely in Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation. Hardline Islamic clerics in Nigeria's northern Kano state led the immunization boycott, claiming the polio vaccine was part of a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria's Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS.
The boycott triggered an outbreak across the continent, infecting children in formerly polio-free countries and hurting WHO-led attempts to eradicate the crippling disease by December 31, 2005.
"It's slowed the efforts for sure," said Sona Bari, a spokeswoman for WHO's Polio Eradication Initiative. "It's going to take months to deal with the effects."
Amid the vaccine boycott, the Nigerian-rooted virus spread to neighbor countries including Benin, Chad and Cameroon. It also was exported farther afield, to Botswana, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Togo and even Saudi Arabia.
Vaccination programs restarted in Nigeria in July after local officials ended their 11-month boycott. WHO also boosted immunization across Africa.
Nigeria, which had 763 cases last year versus 355 the year before, is one of the six countries where polio is still considered endemic. India had 129 cases, Pakistan 46, Niger 25, Afghanistan four and Egypt one.
Read more...CNN Health
Increase fueled by Nigeria outbreak after vaccine boycott
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The number of worldwide polio cases last year rose by almost one-third after a vaccine boycott in Nigeria spawned a resurgence of the disease across Africa, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
The number of cases worldwide in 2004 reached 1,185, compared with 784 in 2003, the United Nations health agency said.
Most of the cases were in Africa -- largely in Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation. Hardline Islamic clerics in Nigeria's northern Kano state led the immunization boycott, claiming the polio vaccine was part of a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria's Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS.
The boycott triggered an outbreak across the continent, infecting children in formerly polio-free countries and hurting WHO-led attempts to eradicate the crippling disease by December 31, 2005.
"It's slowed the efforts for sure," said Sona Bari, a spokeswoman for WHO's Polio Eradication Initiative. "It's going to take months to deal with the effects."
Amid the vaccine boycott, the Nigerian-rooted virus spread to neighbor countries including Benin, Chad and Cameroon. It also was exported farther afield, to Botswana, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Togo and even Saudi Arabia.
Vaccination programs restarted in Nigeria in July after local officials ended their 11-month boycott. WHO also boosted immunization across Africa.
Nigeria, which had 763 cases last year versus 355 the year before, is one of the six countries where polio is still considered endemic. India had 129 cases, Pakistan 46, Niger 25, Afghanistan four and Egypt one.
Read more...CNN Health
OTTAWA, Canada (AP) -- The Canadian government has confirmed a new case of so-called mad cow disease.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Tuesday the brain wasting disease showed up in an Alberta cow under seven years old. Officials say no part of the animal has entered the human or animal feed system.
This is the second case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) found in Canada this year. Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials were to hold a news conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss the new case.
Read more...CNN News
Posted on : 2005-01-08| Author : James Q.
News Category : Health
World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that an outbreak of bird flu that is showing signs in Vietnam would create a difficult burden on top of the recent Asian earthquake and tsunami.
“In this situation now, when we already have such a problem here in Asia with this earthquake and the aftermath of this earthquake, it will of course put a lot of strains on both individual countries like Vietnam as well as the international community,” said WHO health experts.
Read more....EARTHtimes.org
Posted on : 2005-01-12| Author : Martin Booth
News Category : Health
Two new studies related to cancer research recently concluded and had their reports published in the Journal of American Research Association (JAMA). Both serve as eye-openers to people who have held myths about cancer and how it is formed.
One study concluded that having a regular diet that largely consisted of red meat greatly increased the chances of developing colorectal cancers by a considerable degree. This research was conducted by the American Cancer Society of Atlanta.
Read more...EARTHtimes.org
www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-08 16:02:34
KUNMING, Jan. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Southwest China's Yunnan Province, which borders Vietnam, has taken a series of emergency measures to prevent bird flu in Vietnam from spreading into China, sources with the local government said Saturday.
All major transportation lines, poultry farms, regions on the Sino-Vietnam border and places which were hit by bird flu outbreak early last year have been urged to inject vaccine on poultry, the sources said.
Read more...China View
AFX News
01/07/05 7:50 AM PT
African-Americans had four copies of the CCL3L1 gene, compared with two and three in European-Americans and Hispanic-Americans. Each additional copy lowered the risk of acquiring HIV by between 4.5 and 10.5 percent.
Read more....TechNewsWorld
DermaVir, a novel treatment for HIV/AIDS, offers a new option which complements and improves present drug therapies. The vaccine, applied topically to the skin, has demonstrated efficacy in boosting immune responses and controlling virus replication in chronically infected monkeys. This treatment possibly offers a new, non-invasive option for HIV-infected patients.
"The immune system demonstrated an unexpected capacity for recovery after DermaVir vaccinations in these monkeys, some of which had already progressed to AIDS before starting treatment," states lead researcher, Julianna Lisziewicz, Ph.D. Though the immune control is not permanent, data shows that antiviral activity of immune responses induced by DermaVir are significantly longer than that of existing antiviral drugs. It is suggested that DermaVir would only need to be re-administered periodically, about 8 times a year, rather than daily.
Read more...Eurekalert.com
By Kurt Achin
Hong Kong
07-January-2005 1101
Health authorities are investigating new human cases of bird flu in Vietnam. They say the cases appear to be isolated, but they are watching closely for possible signs of a wider outbreak.
World Health Organization officials say a team of experts is in southern Vietnam, trying to determine how an 18-year-old girl may have contracted avian influenza, also known as "bird flu."
If confirmed, hers would be Vietnam's fourth case of bird flu in humans in recent weeks. This week, Vietnamese officials reported two new deaths from the disease: a six-year-old boy who died December 30, and a nine-year-old boy who died Tuesday. A 16-year-old girl is in the hospital in serious condition with the disease.
Read more...Voice of America
By Randy Dotinga
02:00 AM Jan. 07, 2005 PT
Throughout the history of the AIDS epidemic, a few lucky people have avoided infection despite being exposed again and again. Now, researchers are traveling back in evolutionary time to understand why some people are resistant -- and in some cases virtually immune -- to the AIDS virus.
Studies released this week and last year suggest that the roots of AIDS immunity extend back for centuries, long before the disease even existed. Our ethnic backgrounds and the illnesses suffered by our distant ancestors appear to play a crucial role in determining whether our genes will allow HIV to take hold in our bodies.
Read more...Wired News
Financial Gazette (Harare)
NEWS
January 6, 2005
Posted to the web January 6, 2005
By Charles Rukuni
Bulawayo
A drug that is being vigorously promoted in Zimbabwe as the answer to solving the mother-to-child transmission of HIV may have serious side-effects, especially if used as a single dose.
Reports now surfacing show that the drug, nevirapine, may cause long-term resistance to AIDS drugs if used as a lone dose, thus foreclosing other treatment options.
Associated Press says while the United States' National Institute of Health (NIH) knew about the problems way back in 2002, it did not tell the White House before President George W Bush launched a plan to spread nevirapine throughout Africa.
The NIH's AIDS division chief, Dr Edmund Tramont, even doctored a report by one of his subordinates, Dr Betsy Smith, that showed some of the negative safety concerns that had been discovered in Uganda during clinical trials there.
Tramont's report, submitted shortly before Bush's visit to Africa from July 7-12 2003, concluded that nevirapine was safe even when used as a single dose. Bush visited Botswana, South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and Senegal.
Read more...AllAfrica.com
German researchers have developed a new treatment for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It is not a cure, but stops the virus from multiplying and is effective against strains that have become resistant to treatment.
The new treatment, developed by scientists at the Heinrich Pette Institute at the University of Hamburg and the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, takes a slightly different approach to traditional HIV therapies. While conventional anti-retroviral treatments attempt to block the virus' own proteins to keep it from replicating, this time researchers have focused on a human protein which the virus needs to make copies of itself.
Read more....DW-WORLD.DE
Canada confirms 2nd mad cow case
TORONTO, Canada (AP) -- An older dairy cow from Alberta has tested positive bovine spongiform encephalopathy, otherwise known as mad cow disease, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
The results confirmed preliminary tests released earlier this week.
The border was closed 19 months ago when a cow in northern Alberta was discovered with mad cow disease.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last Wednesday that the border could be opened in March.
Despite learning of the new suspected case, the Bush administration said Thursday it would stand by its decision to renew Canadian cattle imports beginning in March.
Canadian officials said the United States was aware of the suspected case before they made their announcement Wednesday.
From CNN Health
02 Jan 2005
WHO has received informal reports of a laboratory-confirmed case of H5N1 infection in Viet Nam.
The patient, who has been hospitalized since 26 December, is a 16-year-old girl who fell ill in the southern province of Tay Ninh.
Vietnamese authorities are investigating the source of her infection, including the possibility of contact with infected poultry.
Read more...Medical News Today
Triple-Drug Therapy Promising Against African HIV Subtype
Triple-drug antiretroviral regimens that are widely used in the United States and Europe against one HIV-1 subtype appear to be effective in South African patients infected with a different HIV-1 subtype who also have tuberculosis (TB) or Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), according to a study published in the Feb.1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. The South African subtype, known as subtype C, is rapidly spreading in developing countries, where TB and KS are major factors in AIDS morbidity and mortality. Since the triple-drug regimens have markedly reduced the morbidity and mortality associated with the subtype that predominates in developed countries (subtype B), the implication is that they may be similarly effective against the C subtype in developing countries as well.
Press Release
For Immediate Release: Dec. 28, 2004
Contact: Steve Baragona
sbaragona@idsociety.org
703-299-0412
Read more...Eurekalert.com
Posted 12/22/2004 9:27 PM
By Anita Manning, USA TODAY
Imagine showing up to work one day and finding half your co-workers out sick. Imagine the business world in slow motion, healthy workers overburdened by taking on the jobs of the sick, hospitals overflowing with patients, schools closed and not enough medicine to go around.
That's an apocalyptic vision of what could burst out of a smoldering bird flu outbreak that has spread across Asia, threatening to turn into a global epidemic of flu: a pandemic.
Scientists long have expected another flu pandemic, the kind of wildfire epidemic that emerges every few decades. Nobody knows when it will happen or how bad it could be.
Plans are being made to handle what could be a public health nightmare, but "much of the world is unprepared for a pandemic of any size," the World Health Organization says.
An Institute of Medicine report, "The Threat of Pandemic Influenza," last month estimated that in a worst-case scenario, up to 207,000 people could die of the flu in the USA along with 733,000 hospitalizations and 42 million people treated as outpatients. By comparison, an average flu season claims 36,000 lives and results in 200,000 hospitalizations
Read more...USA Today
Dec 21, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – Overcoming the threat of avian influenza is the single most pressing agricultural and public health issue facing Southeast Asia, Singapore's minister of state for national development, Cedric Foo, said yesterday in opening a regional meeting on the disease, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
In his address to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Singapore, Foo made a point others have raised in recent months: that combating the deadly avian flu will require regional collaboration.
"A coordinated regional approach to prevent, control and eradicate HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza] is crucial to overcoming this threat," AFP quoted Foo as saying.
The ASEAN members agreed today to focus on several activities for preventing and controlling avian flu, according to Xinhua, the Chinese news service.
The report said tasks were split out this way: Singapore will share information on regional epidemiologic studies; Thailand will attend to disease surveillance and alerts as well as diagnostic abilities; and Malaysia is to focus on disease-free zones, containment, and emergency preparedness. Coordinating countries will make detailed work plans.
Members of the ASEAN task force on avian flu will meet next in Thailand in May, the story added.
From CIDRAP
20 Dec 2004 16:35:03 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Frank Nyakairu
KAMPALA, Dec 20 (Reuters) - A key anti-HIV/AIDS drug distributed in Africa causes drug resistance in pregnant women, but only if they ignore doctors' orders on how to take the pills, medical officials said on Monday.
The drug, nevirapine, is distributed as part of U.S. President George W. Bush's high-profile bid to fight the spread of the disease in Africa and help AIDS sufferers.
The announcement confirms in part media reports which suggested single doses of nevirapine, used to stop HIV-positive mothers passing the virus to their babies, could result in resistance to future treatment.
Uganda's Makerere University Medical School and two U.S. institutions issued a joint statement on Monday in a bid "to clarify the scientific facts, based on the full body of evidence".
They were the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the U.S.-based Elisabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
Posted on Thursday, December 16, 2004 @ 3:30 PM PST by
A $42.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will create a powerful new approach to developing a more affordable, accessible cure for malaria, which kills more than a million children each year. UC Berkeley will conduct research to perfect a microbial factory for the compound artemisinin, currently the most effective treatment for malaria, and Amyris, a new biotech company founded on the breakthroughs in synthetic biology pioneered at UC Berkeley, will develop the process for industrial fermentation and commercialization.
Javier Ochoa Repáraz defended his PhD thesis at the University of Navarre Faculty of Science on the development of an acellular vaccine aginst Salmonella enteritidis. This involves a world pandemia considered to be the most importante zoonosis or illness/infection transmissible salmonellosis by animals to humans under natural conditions. It is estimated that the incidence of acute worldwide is more than a thousand million cases per annum and causes three million deaths.
Rapidly distributing antibiotics to people exposed to anthrax spores during a bioterrorist attack, could by itself, prevent about 70 percent of anthrax infections, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. To increase the prevention rate to 90 percent, their study found that at least 63 percent of the population would need to be immunized with vaccine before an anthrax attack, which might not be practical. However, the study found that anthrax vaccination given even after an attack could be beneficial in reducing the length of time antibiotic treatment would be needed. These findings could be an important tool for policymakers who must develop effective strategies for containing an anthrax outbreak. The study is published in the December 16, 2004, edition of Nature.
Contact: Tim Parsons
paffairs@jhsph.edu
410-955-6878
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Researchers at Johns Hopkins University said Wednesday that early detection -- and not a pre-exposure vaccination -- is the key to limiting an outbreak of anthrax.
Ron Brookmeyer, Elizabeth Johnson and Robert Bollinger published their results in the journal Nature, saying that delivering antibiotics within six days of exposure can prevent up to 70 percent of cases of the disease.
But, the researchers said, at least 63 percent of those exposed must have been vaccinated and quickly receive a full regimen of antibiotics to reach a prevention rate of 90 percent.
Brookmeyer said the public health system may not quite be up to the task of catching early onset.
"It is true that, caught early, we think antibiotics would work, but most cases when people become ill with anthrax, inhalational anthrax, you don't recognize it as anthrax right away," he said.
"I think we can do better," he said. "I think there are a lot of improvements that can be made to public health preparedness in terms of detecting emerging outbreaks."
From CNN Health
Scientists have found a ''molecular Achilles heel'' in the organism that causes pneumonia, providing a target for the development of a new class of antibiotics that could eventually eradicate the disease.
Their report is scheduled to appear in the Dec. 28 edition of Biochemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
''Streptococcus pneumoniae places an enormous burden on the welfare of humanity,'' says Thomas Leyh, Ph.D., a professor of biochemistry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and lead author of the paper. ''Worldwide, the organism takes the lives of some 3,700 people daily, the majority of whom are children below the age of five.''
A team of researchers based partly in South Africa has identified a key set of immune system molecules that helps determine how effectively a person resists infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Their work shows that mothers with a specific type of genetic makeup may be less likely to pass HIV to their offspring.
The finding has important implications for the development of vaccines to combat the AIDS epidemic, according to Bruce D. Walker, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher. Walker is one of the leaders of the project, and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Partners AIDS Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Fri Dec 10, 2004 01:11 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Among patients treated at urban public hospital emergency rooms for skin and soft-tissue infections, more and more often the cause appears to be the antibiotic-resistant 'superbug' known as MRSA, new research shows.
MRSA -- methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- is not killed by penicillin-type drugs, so these kinds of antibiotics can no longer be considered standard treatment for wounds and abscesses, Dr. Bradley W. Frazee and colleagues suggest in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Frazee's team at Alameda County Medical Center in Oakland, California, obtained cultures from 137 patients who came to their emergency department with such infections.
Friday, December 10, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
By Paul Recer
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A novel type of antibiotic has been shown in laboratory tests to powerfully attack and control tuberculosis, and some experts predict it could become the first new drug in 40 years to combat the killer disease effectively.
Results from mouse experiments conducted by researchers in a Belgium lab of Johnson & Johnson suggest the new drug works better and faster than current medications, suggesting it could reduce by half the time required to cure TB. Early trials show the new drug is safe, and human testing is under way.
Clinicians say there is a critical need for a new tuberculosis treatment because the disease has become increasingly resistant to current drugs. TB kills more than 2 million people a year worldwide. The last major new TB drug, rifampin, was introduced in 1963.
The candidate drug, R207910, is part of a new group of anti-TB compounds called diarylquinolines, or DARQ. It attacks tuberculosis by neutralizing an enzyme the TB bacillus uses to make energy. This mechanism is different from that of rifampin, isoniazid and pyrazinamide, the cocktail of drugs that is standard treatment for TB.
Dr. Koen Andries, lead author of a study on the drug published this week in the journal Science, said experiments with a laboratory-mouse species commonly used to test TB drugs show the new compound concentrates in the lungs and other organs that are the major targets of tuberculosis.
[Health India]: Washington, Dec 10 : HIV infection might soon be curtailed as scientists have reportedly suceeded in identifying key genes that help the body to fend off deadly viruses.
The study, a joint project by the Universities of Oxford, KwaZulu-Natal and Harvard and published in Nature, provides a greater understanding of how some people can survive symptom free for years, while others rapidly develop AIDS.
The researchers collected data from HIV-positive women attending antenatal clinics in Durban, South Africa and found that type B molecules do the best job of identifying HIV infected cells for termination, and consequently the speed of progression in the infection seemed to be strongly linked to which version of the B molecule gene each woman carried.
Report says human tests could begin ‘very soon’
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post
A chemical compound that drug developers had shelved as a failed treatment for inflammation has unexpectedly become the most promising new tuberculosis medicine to emerge in 40 years, scientists said Thursday.
The surprise discovery that the drug is a potent antibiotic – and one that in animals, at least, has many advantages over current TB drugs – has generated a flurry of excitement among public health specialists struggling to control the growing global scourge.
Contact: Jessica Lawrence-Hurt
jlawrenc@aaas.org
1-202-326-7088
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Antibiotic is effective in mice, safe in humans, Science study suggests
This release is also available in French.
A new antibiotic shows promise, thus far in mice, for treating tuberculosis much faster than current drugs do, scientists report. Additional evidence indicates that the antibiotic may work against multidrug-resistant strains of the tuberculosis bug. Studies in healthy human volunteers have indicated that the drug is safe for humans to take, and further human studies are currently underway.
These findings, by Koen Andries of Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development, LLC in Beerse, Belgium and colleagues, will appear online in the 9 December Science Express, part of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.
Contact: Elizabeth Crown
e-crown@northwestern.edu
312-503-8928
Northwestern University
Northwestern University researchers have identified a key molecular "signal" that allows malarial parasites to release virulence proteins inside human red blood cells.
The investigators, led by Kasturi Haldar and N. Luisa Hiller, also found that the process by which the malarial parasite remodels red blood cells is far more complex than scientists previously had realized.
Haldar is Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor in Pathology and professor of microbiology-immunology and Hiller a sixth-year student in the Integrated Graduate Program in the Life Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Other key researchers on this study were Souvik Bhattacharjee; Christiaan van Ooij; Konstantinos Liolios; Travis Harrison; and Carlos Estrano.
Findings from the Northwestern study were published in the Dec. 10 issue of the journal Science.
he malaria parasite survives in its host by remodeling the red blood cells in which it dwells. Once ensconced in its newly refurbished home, the parasite evades detection by the host's immune system. Alan F. Cowman, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholar at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues report on studies that reveal this clever survival strategy, in the December 10, 2004 issue of the journal Science. Their findings provide a novel target for new anti-malaria drugs.
Contact: Anne A. Oplinger
aoplinger@niaid.nih.gov
301-402-1663
NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
In an effort to expand the supply of flu vaccine available in the United States in the future, a clinical trial of an influenza vaccine widely used in Europe has begun recruiting participants at four sites nationwide. Funding for the study comes from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, which is collaborating with the vaccine's manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals of Rixensart, Belgium, to conduct the study.
The new trial aims to enroll 1,000 healthy adults by December 23rd to assess the immune response and safety of the vaccine. More than 126 million doses of the test vaccine, Fluarix, have been distributed in more than 70 countries worldwide, demonstrating a similar safety profile as U.S.-licensed injectable flu vaccine, but the Fluarix vaccine has never been tested or licensed for use in the United States.
Press Release: http://www.niaid.nih.gov
MANILA, Dec. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The World Health Organization (WHO)Thursday warned that the recent appearance and widespread distribution of an avian influenza virus, Influenza A/H5N1, has the potential to ignite the next pandemic and result in unpredictable calamities.
The WHO's Regional Office for the Western Pacific said in a statement that all countries should develop or update their influenza pandemic preparedness plans for responding to the widespread socioeconomic disruptions that would result from having large numbers of people unwell or dying.
According to the WHO, the focus of the preparedness plans is an estimate of how deadly the next pandemic is likely to be, whose answers from experts have ranged from 2 million to over 50 million.
However, the WHO said that the specific characteristics of a future pandemic virus cannot be predicted. It is also unknown how pathogenic a novel virus would be, and which age groups will be affected.
December 09, 2004
A team of researchers based partly in South Africa has identified a key set of immune system molecules that helps determine how effectively a person resists infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Their work shows that mothers with a specific type of genetic makeup may be less likely to pass HIV to their offspring.
Wed Dec 8, 2004 01:04 PM ET
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists said Wednesday they have identified key genes involved in the body's response to HIV, which causes AIDS -- a finding that could narrow the search for an effective vaccine against the deadly illness.
A vaccine is considered the Holy Grail in the battle against the global AIDS epidemic but efforts to find one have been hampered because of HIV's uncanny ability to mutate.
"We have narrowed down the focus of which particular genes are important in determining the outcome of HIV infection," said Dr Philip Goulder, of the Partners AIDS Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States.
Public release date: 7-Dec-2004
A new treatment for the age-old scourge of cholera and perhaps a whole new type of antibiotic medicine may emerge from chemicals discovered in an Australian seaweed, new research results suggest.
Researchers at the University of New South Wales have found that compounds known as furanones – isolated from the seaweed Delisea pulchra – can prevent the bacteria that cause cholera from switching on their disease-causing mechanisms.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government announced new rules Monday aimed at helping trace the source of food contamination, particularly in the event of a bioterror attack on the food supply.
Food manufacturers and others who work in the nation's human and animal food supply will have to keep records showing where they received food and where they shipped it next.
The idea behind the rules, announced by the Food and Drug Administration, is to help investigators figure out where in a long chain of supply a particular item of food may been tainted.
The regulations implement part of a law, passed after the 2001 anthrax attacks, which focused attention on many of the nation's vulnerabilities to bioterror attacks. Just Friday, outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said he worries "every single night" about a possible terror attack on the food supply.
"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," Thompson said at a news conference announcing his resignation.
On Monday, however, Thompson was considerably more upbeat.
"Publication of this record-keeping rule represents a milestone in U.S. food safety and security," he said in a statement. "We have a lot of work yet to do, but our nation is now more prepared than ever before to protect the public against threats to the food supply."
The new rules affect anyone who manufacturers, processes, packs, transports, distributes, receives, holds or imports food. Officials at every step must keep records showing the chain of supply, including the immediate previous source of all food received and the next recipient of all food released.
The Namibian (Windhoek)
NEWS
December 7, 2004
Posted to the web December 7, 2004
Windhoek
HIV and AIDS are expected to kill 16 million farmworkers in southern Africa by 2010, with severe implications for agricultural production and food security.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says between 60 and 80 per cent of AIDS-related deaths are due to malnutrition.
James Morris, United Nations envoy for humanitarian needs in southern Africa, says the region's food production capability will decline.
"The pandemic is threatening the future of nations and a bold approach is needed to address the crisis of devastating illness and drought-afflicted agriculture," Morris said in a message on World AIDS Day last week.
Scott Drimie, of the Human Sciences Research Council, said food security should be seen in context with HIV and AIDS.
"The challenge is to develop food security interventions and farming practices that adapt to the reality of HIV-AIDS affected environments," he said.
In Windhoek, the Namibian AIDS Law Unit's Michaela Clayton said poverty could not be seen in isolation either, and needed to be factored into the HIV and AIDS and food security debate.
Monday, December 6, 2004 Posted: 12:52 AM EST (0552 GMT)
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Chinese researchers have developed a SARS vaccine that has passed the first stage of human trials, state media has reported, raising hopes for the prevention of a virus that killed some 800 people since it emerged in 2002.
Antibodies against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) developed in 24 of 36 volunteers in the trial, the official Xinhua news agency said Monday, though several more clinical trials were required before the vaccine would be ready for commercial use.
Monday, December 6, 2004 Posted: 1:11 PM EST (1811 GMT)
ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- The federal government will announce a plan this week to purchase additional flu shots to help relieve the nation's shortage, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.
Dr. Julie Gerberding told delegates at the American Medical Association's annual winter meeting that outgoing federal Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is expected to make the announcement
Wed December 01, 2004 04:03 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Any effort to battle the AIDS epidemic must focus on changing the fate of women by educating them, helping them own property and giving them the power to stand up to men, experts said on Wednesday.
Women make up nearly 60 percent of all people infected with the AIDS virus in Africa, the continent hardest-hit by the deadly virus.
"Of the 14,000 people newly infected with HIV every single day, nearly half of them are women," said Geeta Rao Gupta, president of the International Center for Research on Women.
Tue Nov 30, 7:16 AM ET
BOMBAY, India (Reuters) - India, home to the world's second largest HIV (news - web sites) population after South Africa, is set to begin human trials of a new vaccine against the virus in January, a research institute said Tuesday.
The country has over 5.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS (news - web sites) and experts saying the number could quadruple by 2010.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - An experimental vaccine reduced the level of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, by at least 80 percent in a Brazilian study of 18 infected patients released in the journal Nature Medicine.
Viral loads in all patients fell and stayed low for one year after being inoculated with the vaccine three times in a six-week period, the study said. In eight of the patients, viral loads fell by more than 90 percent, according to the article posted on the journal's Web site (nature.com).
Therapeutic dendritic-cell vaccine for chronic HIV-1 infection. Nature [Epub ahead of print]
Author: Lu W
From: Nature medicine
Date: 2004
ISSN: 1078-8956
Thursday, November 25, 2004 Posted: 10:06 PM EST (0306 GMT)
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The World Health Organization has issued a dramatic warning that bird flu will trigger an international pandemic that could kill up to seven million people.
The influenza pandemic could occur anywhere from next week to the coming years, WHO said.
"There is no doubt there will be another pandemic," Klaus Stohr of the WHO Global Influenza Program said on the sidelines of a regional bird flu meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.
Sat Nov 27, 2004 10:40 AM ET
By Fayen Wong
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore, facing a rise in AIDS cases, is considering making it compulsory for pregnant women to be screened for HIV/AIDS, an official said on Saturday.
"If all mothers had been tested for HIV, and treatment started for HIV positive mothers, the risk of the baby having AIDS would be reduced from 25 percent to 2 percent," said Balaji Sadasivan, senior minister of state for health, at the fourth Singapore AIDS Conference.
Although Singapore has one of the lowest levels of HIV infection in Asia, the number of new infections hit a record high with 257 cases reported in the first 10 months of this year, more than the 242 new cases reported for all of 2003.
Chicago, November 25: A teenage girl has become the first known rabies victim to survive the disease without the benefit of a rabies vaccination, her doctors said.
Doctors at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin broke the news of the medical first on Wednesday, crediting an experimental treatment that they crafted when the sick teenager showed up at the hospital with an advanced case of the disease.
Jeanna Giese, 15, contracted the deadly virus when she was bitten by an infected bat at a church on September 12 and was admitted to hospital a month later, according to hospital officials.
THE GUARDIAN , LONDON
Thursday, Nov 25, 2004,Page 6
The AIDS pandemic rampaging around the globe will not be stopped without radical social change to improve the lot of women and girls, who now look likely to die in greater numbers than men, UN agencies said on Tuesday.
Infections among women are soaring, from sub-Saharan Africa to Asia to Russia. What began as a series of epidemics among men -- in some regions gay and bisexual men, in others men who frequented sex workers or male drug users -- has spread to their female partners who are biologically more easily infected.
New tests show initial screening was false alarm
WASHINGTON (AP) -- No sign of mad cow disease was found in an animal the Agriculture Department had singled out for followup tests, officials said Tuesday. Initial screenings last week had raised the possibility of a new case of the disease in the United States.
A more definitive test at the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, came back negative, the officials said. The announcement was a relief to the U.S. beef industry, which is still trying to recover from the nation's first case of the disease last December.
The department said it ran a "gold standard" test twice. Officials did not say where the cow came from or why it was suspected of being diseased.
"Negative results from both ... tests make us confident that the animal in question is indeed negative," the announcement said.
The initial screenings had produced what officials said were "inconclusive" results, but just the possibility of a second case had rattled cattle producers, meatpackers and hamburger chains.
By Karishma Vyas
BANGKOK (Reuters) - The bird flu virus that rampaged across much of Asia this year is the most likely cause of the next human flu pandemic, which could hit up to 30 percent of the world's people, a top international expert said Thursday.
There was no question about whether another influenza pandemic would sweep through the world's more than six billion people, only a question of when, Dr Klaus Stohr told a news conference.
"There are estimates that would put the number of deaths in the range between 2 and 7 million and the number of people affected will go beyond the billions as 25 to 30 per cent will fall ill," he said.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Posted: 7:49 PM EST (0049 GMT)
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Women make up nearly half of the 37.2 million adults living with HIV and in sub-Saharan Africa the proportion rises to almost 60 percent, according to a U.N. report released on Tuesday.
"Increasingly the face of AIDS is young and female," said Dr. Kathleen Cravero, deputy executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
In every region of the globe, the number of women infected with the deadly virus has risen during the past two years. East Asia had the highest jump with 56 percent, followed by Eastern Europe and Central Asia with 48 percent.
Published: Wednesday 24 November 2004 - 08:30
In Short:
The number of people living with HIV has reached 39.4 million people worldwide - with high increases reported from EU's neighbouring Russia and Ukraine, according to an annual AIDS report.
Brief News:
The number of people living with HIV has reached its highest level ever, with approximately 39.4 million people infected all over the world, a UNAIDS / World Health Organisation (WHO) report has revealed. The highest increases in HIV infections in the last couple of years have been reported from East Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
According to the annual 'AIDS Epidemic Update', an increase in the number of infected individuals at the doorstep of the EU (in countries such as Ukraine and Russia) accounts for most of the 40 per cent increase in the Eastern European and Central Asian regions. The report claims that Russia has the worst epidemic in Europe, with 860,000 people living with HIV at the end of 2003.
Last Updated: 2004-11-18 16:16:30 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Paul Simao
ATLANTA (Reuters) - An unexpectedly high number of U.S. soldiers injured in the Middle East and Afghanistan are testing positive for a rare, hard-to-treat blood infection in military hospitals, Army doctors reported on Thursday.
A total of 102 soldiers were found to be infected with the bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii. The infections occurred among soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and three other sites between Jan. 1, 2002, and Aug. 31, 2004.
Posted on Fri, Nov. 19, 2004
U.S. reports possible new case of mad cow disease
By Johanna Neuman
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - U.S. Department of Agriculture officials announced Thursday that they had discovered a possible new case of mad cow disease but cautioned that the preliminary positive test was "inconclusive."
Final results should be available from the USDA lab in four to seven days, officials said.
After the first U.S. case was discovered last December in a cow in Washington state, the USDA instituted a rapid-screening test on cows considered at risk for the disease older cattle, "downers" too ill to walk, cattle displaying symptoms of neurological ailments as well as on 20,000 healthy cows.
HONG KONG, Nov. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- The staff of the Hong Kong Center for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health hasperformed contact tracing on over 300 healthcare workers, their home contacts, visitors and patients discharged from the pediatrics wards of the Caritas Medical Center (CMC).
Among those contacts who reported fever and respiratory symptoms, two were health care workers who have now recovered, and four were discharged patients from the pediatrics ward.
FOR RELEASE: Nov. 19, 2004
Contact: Susan S. Lang
Office: 607-255-3613
E-Mail: SSL4@cornell.edu
ITHACA, N.Y. -- What's the best way to get a statistically reliable sample of people who are hard to identify, such as illegal-drug users in large cities, itinerant jazz musicians, aging Manhattan artists and semi-professional storytellers?
Answer: Use a new "pyramid" sampling method developed by a Cornell University sociologist. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will use the method to recruit injection drug users (IDUs) and measure their HIV-risk behavior in the 25 U.S. cities with the largest number of AIDS cases.
Fri Nov 19, 2004 08:26 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - A low-cost antibiotic which has performed well in tests should be given to all HIV children in developing countries to prevent infections such as pneumonia and reduce deaths, scientists said on Friday.
Dr. Diana Gibb of Britain's Medical Research Council said a trial involving HIV-infected children in Zambia was stopped early because it was so successful.
A daily dose of the drug co-trimoxazole nearly halved the death rate in youngsters taking it compared to those given a placebo.
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Consumer and cattle-industry groups joined the government in cautioning against public alarm as federal scientists investigate a possible new case of mad cow disease.
The Agriculture Department said Thursday that additional checks were needed after an initial screening proved inconclusive for the disease in a single animal. Results will be known in four days to seven days.
The announcement raised fears that the United States might have its second case of the fatal brain-wasting disease and rattled the cattle industry, meat companies and hamburger restaurant chains.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, attacks an animal's nervous system. People who eat food contaminated with BSE can contract a rare disease that is nearly always fatal _ variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
By Jan Blackburn
Contributing Writer
Since the flu is a dangerous but easily preventable disease, it should receive much more attention from the public health community, Dr. Stephen Morse told an engaged crowd in the Aidekman Center for the Performing Arts last night.
"Influenza is one of the most common and transmissible infections," Morse said. In a normal year for the flu, thousands of people die from a disease "preventable with a vaccine," he said.
Morse is the principal investigator and director of the Columbia University's Center for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP), a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established in October of 2000.
Last Updated: 2004-11-15 16:20:34 -0400 (Reuters Health)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers who found a genetic pattern that predicts who will be helped by a revolutionary new lung cancer drug said on Monday they were looking for patients to help them confirm their findings.
The team at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston needs to find patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer to see if DNA patterns indeed show who will be helped by the drug, called Iressa.
Last Updated: 2004-11-15 8:40:32 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Lindsay Beck
BEIJING (Reuters) - SARS is expected to emerge in China again this winter, but an epidemic is unlikely as the world's most populous country is better prepared this time round, health officials say.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome emerged in China in 2002, when the communist country was accused of covering up the extent of the virus, contributing to its eventual spread to 8,000 people around the world, 800 of whom died.
"We wouldn't be surprised to see the resurgence of a small number of cases," said Julie Hall, who heads the World Health Organization's SARS team in Beijing.
WHO board supports genetic engineering experiments
Friday, November 12, 2004 Posted: 9:49 AM EST (1449 GMT)
An influential World Health Organization committee is sending shock waves through the scientific community with its recommendation that researchers be permitted to conduct genetic-engineering experiments with the smallpox virus.
The idea is to be able to better combat a disease that is considered a leading bioterror threat though it was publicly eradicated 25 years ago.
Article from CNN Health
Thursday, November 11, 2004 - Page A11
Toronto -- Canada's public-health agency wants to commission the country's major flu vaccine maker to produce trial batches of a vaccine to protect against the lethal avian strain -- known as H5N1 -- that experts fear may provoke the next flu pandemic.
Article from the Globe and Mail.com
By MARC LALLANILLA
Nov. 9, 2004 — Like many young athletes, 12-year-old Nicholas Johnson spent last autumn playing football with his local team, the Stafford Spartans from Stafford, Texas. A minor shoulder injury sent him to the doctor.
"He was like a stroke victim when he came out of the hospital," said Nicholas' mother, Janet. "He was on a ventilator for 12 days. It was the scariest thing I ever went through."
Nicholas was felled by a deadly new bacterium named MRSA that is sweeping the United States and Europe.
And medical experts are alarmed that MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is just one of several deadly new strains of bacteria that are becoming resistant to modern antibiotics.
Article from ABC News Health
BY DELTHIA RICKS
STAFF WRITER
November 8, 2004
When public health officials and vaccine manufacturers convene in Geneva Thursday, they'll keep an eye on the past as they try to anticipate the future.
Their goal: To plan for the eventuality of a worldwide flu pandemic -- a global outbreak on the scale of the deadly Spanish flu of 1918. It is an issue considered urgent because of the persistent presence of bird influenza in Asia.
Article from Newsday.com
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded 14 contracts totaling more than $73 million to fund the Large-Scale Antibody and T Cell Epitope Discovery Program, an initiative aimed at quickly identifying the regions of selected infectious agents that elicit immune reactions. The study of these regions, known as epitopes, promises to uncover targets for new and improved vaccines, therapies and diagnostic tools against potential bioterror agents as well as emerging/re-emerging infectious diseases such as West Nile virus and influenza. NIAID will make information on each newly identified epitope freely available to scientists through a searchable online database currently under development.
"Elucidating the basic mechanisms of immune function is a major focus of our biodefense research agenda," says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of NIAID. "The information generated by this program will deepen our understanding of how components of the immune system defend against certain infectious agents, enabling researchers to design new and improved medical countermeasures."
Article from EurekAlert
Leading experts address need to reduce risk to global blood supply
East Hills, NY (Oct.26, 2004) - - There is increasing evidence that infectious prions that can cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), the human form of "mad cow" disease, can be transmitted through blood transfusion, according to Roger Eglin, Ph.D., Head of National Transfusion Microbiology Laboratories for the English National Blood Service. He spoke at a symposium on Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs) where he was joined by prominent government, public health and blood safety experts from around the globe, including the U.S. and Canada, who raised concerns about a second wave of the disease brought about by human-to-human transmission via blood transfusions.
The panelists convened to discuss the adequacy of safeguards and precautionary measures to prevent human-to-human transmission of this fatal, neurodegenerative prion disease at a symposium held last night at the annual AABB blood banking conference in Baltimore, Maryland. The symposium was sponsored by Pall Corporation (NYSE: PLL), the global leader in filtration technology.
Article from EurekAlert
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has submitted detailed recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the agency's Draft Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response Plan.
"Although IDSA applauds HHS's efforts on a thoughtful and scientifically based plan, we are proposing a number of recommendations that, if incorporated, could help to strengthen the U.S. and global response to an influenza pandemic," said Walter E. Stamm, MD, IDSA president.
Press release from IDSA
Friday, October 29, 2004 Posted: 9:56 AM EDT (1356 GMT)
ATLANTA, Georgia (Reuters) -- A rare sexually transmitted disease that is spreading among gay and bisexual men in Europe could be poised to surface in the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
The CDC urged doctors and clinics across the nation to be prepared to diagnose and treat gay and bisexual men infected with Lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV).
Article from CNN.com
29 Oct 2004
Federal health officials could import up to 5.2 million additional flu vaccine doses from Canada and Germany to help mitigate an unexpected national flu vaccine supply shortage if manufacturing facilities in those countries pass FDA inspections, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson announced Thursday, USA Today reports.
Article from: Medical News Today
Associated Press
October 28, 2004
WASHINGTON -- For the second time in a year, a federal judge on Wednesday ordered the military to stop requiring anthrax vaccines for U.S. military personnel.
In response, the Pentagon halted mandatory anthrax vaccinations "until further notice."
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said the Food and Drug Administration violated its procedures when it gave final approval to the vaccine last year because it failed to give the public an adequate opportunity to comment.
"The men and women of our armed forces deserve the assurance that the vaccines our government compels them to take . . . have been tested by the greatest scrutiny of all -- public scrutiny," Sullivan said.
Articel from the INDYSTAR.com
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
BY PATRICIA ANSTETT
FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER
There's no need to panic about flu shots, two federal health officials reassured the public Tuesday. More vaccine is coming to ensure that most people at high-risk of getting the flu with get vaccinated, they said.
"This is not a crisis; this is a challenge," Dr. Cristina Beato, acting assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said. She spoke at a media briefing in Detroit, as part of a national tour to educate the public about this season's flu vaccine shortage.
Articel from Detroit Free Press
Last Updated: 2004-10-22 15:15:28 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A measles outbreak earlier this year was contained by instituting quarantine measures after exposed persons refused post-exposure preventative treatment, according to a report from the Iowa Department of Pubic Health and other state offices.
As described in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, local and state health departments contacted people exposed to a student returning to Iowa from India who had come down with measles.
Two of these contacts caught measles, and people exposed to them were also identified.
Articel from Reuters Health
21/10/2004 - A new technology that could revolutionise vaccine delivery by eliminating the need for refrigeration has been given UK government funding in a project to deliver immunisations to the developing world.
The UK Department for International Development has awarded the company behind the development, Cambridge Biostability, a Ł950,000 (€1.38bn) grant to bring to production a pentavalent childhood vaccine - i.e. one that guards against five infections in one shot - that can be stored without refrigeration.
Article from In-PharmaTechnologist.com
Tokyo, Japan, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Japan's Health Ministry reported a record 209 new HIV/AIDS infections in the July through September quarter, with most victims in their 20s or 30s.
The previous record high for a three-month period was 199, recorded in the second quarter of this year.
Article from the Washington Times
Covington center helps with research
Sunday, October 17, 2004
By Regina McEnery
Newhouse News Service
CLEVELAND -- An international team of researchers, including a researcher at the Tulane National Primate Research Center near Covington, has brought millions of vulnerable women closer to a potentially powerful weapon against HIV.
The experimental drug, a topical agent applied before sexual intercourse, has only been tested in animals. It is both expensive and complicated to produce on a mass scale. But the research team, led by scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, predicts a less expensive cousin one day can be developed.
Article from: The Times Picayne
October 18
News of an effective vaccine against malaria being developed is certainly a shot in the arm for the fight against this disease which kills over a million children and infects an estimated 300 million annually. Researchers led by Pedro Alonso from the University of Barcelona reportedly vaccinated thousands of children — the ultimate target group — in Mozambique and reportedly cut their risk of developing severe malaria by nearly 60 per cent. This is a remarkable rate of success when compared to several other vaccines that are in various stages of development around the world.
Article from: HindustanTimes.com
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Don't expect imports of flu shots from Canada or other countries to ease the crippling shortage, the nation's health secretary cautioned Thursday.
The Food and Drug Administration is in discussions with two companies that sell flu vaccine in Canada and elsewhere, and have found a few million unsold doses.
But that vaccine is not licensed for sale in the United States, and thus meeting FDA requirements in time for this flu season "is doubtful," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson told reporters Thursday.
Article from CNN.com
(CNN) -- None of the influenza vaccine produced by Chiron Corp. in its Liverpool, England plant is salvageable, the Food and Drug Administration announced Friday.
A recent FDA inspection of the plant found "good manufacturing practice violations," Commissioner Dr. Lester Crawford said.
Public health inspectors now say they cannot vouch for the safety of any of the doses.
British authorities shut down production at Chiron's Liverpool plant after investigating possible bacterial contamination.
The shortfall in flu vaccine -- roughly half the U.S. supply -- means there will not be enough for those most at risk of infection this flu season.
Article from CNN.com
[Date: 2004-10-15]
The UK is providing 30 million euro to build a new centre for cancer research and cell biology at Queen's University in Belfast, making Northern Ireland one of Europe's leaders in the fight against cancer.
The centre will focus on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer by investigating the causes of the disease.
'The creation of a world-class centre for cancer research and cell biology, recognised as a flagship by the international scientific community, will ensure that Queen's and Northern Ireland contribute in a strategically important way to future UK and international research initiatives in cancer,' said Professor Peter Gregson, Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University.
Article from CORDIS News
Catherine Brahic
15 October 2004
Source: SciDev.Net
Researchers have developed a protein able to block the transmission of HIV in monkeys.
They say their findings could lead to a new kind of microbicides — creams and gels applied directly to the vagina or rectum to stop transmission of the disease.
Currently, no microbicides are available on the market, but several candidates are being tested in clinical trials.
The new potential microbicide, developed by Michael Lederman of Case Western Reserve University, United States, and colleagues, could lead to a 'second generation' of products that would either complement the ones currently in trials or replace them if these were to fail.
Lederman's candidate drug is based on a modified protein. Unlike the products that are being tested, this protein seems to stop transmission by preventing HIV from getting into host cells — a necessary step for the virus to replicate and spread infection.
Article from SciDev Net
Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
October 15, 2004
Posted to the web October 15, 2004
Maputo
Clinical tests of a product candidate to be a vaccine against malaria, the RTS/ASO2A, that were carried out by the Manhica Health Reaserach Centyre, in the southern Mozambican province of Maputo, revealed its efficacy and safety to reduce this disease, that has been the main cause of deaths in Mozambique and in Africa at large.
The results were anounced by Mozambican Health Minister Francisco Songane, during a press conference caaled for that effect on Thursday.
The tests, that covered a total of 2,022 children, showed a 30 per cent efficacy on clinically detectable malaria (with symptoms), 45 per cent on non-symptomatic cases, and 58 per cent on severe malaria cases.
Article from allAfrica.com
Drug/DNA combination could offer longer-lasting more efficient flu vaccine
Research from Sweden suggests that adding the drug tucaresol to plasmid DNA influenza vaccines could offer longer-lasting and more efficient protection against the influenza virus. The findings appear in the October 2004 issue of the Journal of Virology.
Annual flu epidemics continue to pose major health problems worldwide despite yearly vaccination efforts. Studies indicate protection offered by the current vaccine to be short-lived and only capable of targeting specific strains of the virus. Because influenza strains are highly variable, a vaccine with higher efficacy is necessary.
Article from EurekaAlert
Potential for developing a new cream or gel to block AIDS transmission during heterosexual sex
WASHINGTON -- Researchers have shown that it may be possible to block male to female HIV transmission in heterosexual intercourse and have identified the target for blocking that transmission, according to an article from the Oct. 14 issue of Science, presented today at the American Medical Association 23rd Annual Science Reporters Conference in Washington, D.C.
"Effective methods for blocking the transmission of HIV are urgently needed," said Michael Lederman, M.D., Scott R. Inkley Professor of Medicine and director of the Case Western Reserve University/University Hospitals of Cleveland Center for AIDS Research, in Cleveland, Ohio, and lead author on the paper. "Our study focuses on a strategy for preventing transmission of HIV through the vagina. We have identified a potential target, a mechanism critical for the transmission at vaginal sites of infection, that may offer a simple strategy for preventing HIV transmission."
Article from EurekAlert
By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, Oct. 14 (HealthDayNews) -- While U.S. health officials say it's too soon to predict the severity of the coming flu season, unofficial accounts indicate it could be relatively harsh.
If that proves true, it could leave health-care providers scrambling. They are already reeling from the surprise announcement last week that British regulators had suspended the license of a firm that had been expected to produce nearly half of the United States' anticipated 100 million to 105 million vaccine doses.
Article from Forbes.com
Drug Protects Monkeys from AIDS in Experiment
Thursday, October 14, 2004 2:04 p.m. ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A souped-up version of a naturally occurring immune system protein can protect female monkeys from the AIDS virus, scientists reported on Thursday in a finding they say may lead to a new way to prevent infection in people.
They hope to eventually use their discovery to develop a microbicide -- a cream or gel that women and men could use to protect themselves from sexual transmission of the deadly virus.
With 43 million people infected and more than 25 million already dead from the incurable virus, a microbicide would be a valuable way to help fight the epidemic.
"The vast majority of HIV infections in the world are sexually transmitted, most commonly through heterosexual sex," said Dr. Michael Lederman of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, who helped lead the international study
Article from Wired News
This historic approach to infection-control may still have a role today, although the human rights implications are troubling.
By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Oct. 18, 2004.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quietly, the trail of disease stretched from the New York City suburb of Mamaroneck, N.Y., to Manhattan and Long Island's Oyster Bay, leaving suffering in its wake. Twenty-two people had been infected and one person had died from a terrible illness, marked by high fever, swollen lymph nodes and rose-colored spots on the chest and abdomen. It took time, but William H. Park, MD, and S. Josephine Baker, MD, zeroed in on where the illness was coming from -- an Irish-born cook employed by the wealthy families of those who had become ill.
The sickness, of course, was typhoid and the cook was Mary Mallon, who claimed in 1907 never to have had it. Nonetheless, she was found to be a carrier, excreting large numbers of typhoid bacilli. To keep her from infecting anyone else, she was isolated in a hospital for three years before being released with a warning that she must never again be employed in a kitchen.
Article from amednews.com
On October 5, 2004, CDC was notified by Chiron Corporation that none of its influenza vaccine (Fluvirin®) would be available for distribution in the United States for the 2004-05 influenza season. The company indicated that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the United Kingdom, where Chiron's Fluvirin vaccine is produced, has suspended the company's license to manufacture Fluvirin vaccine in its Liverpool facility for 3 months, preventing any release of this vaccine for this influenza season. This action will reduce by approximately one half the expected supply of trivalent inactivated vaccine (flu shot) available in the United States for the 2004-05 influenza season.
The remaining supply of influenza vaccine expected to be available in the United States this season is nearly 54 million doses of Fluzone® (inactivated flu shot) manufactured by Aventis Pasteur, Inc. Of these doses, approximately 30 million doses already have been distributed by the manufacturer. In addition, approximately 1.1 million doses of live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV/FluMist ®) manufactured by MedImmune will be available this season.
News Release from the CDC Health and Human Services
Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology and MOLOGEN initiate development of a new tuberculosis subunit vaccine
A cooperation agreement to initiate the development of a new type of preventive DNA subunit vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) has been signed by the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology (MPI-IB) and MOLOGEN AG in Berlin. Subunit vaccines are composed of defined molecular immunogenic modules. Under its director Prof. Dr. Stefan H. E. Kaufmann, the Department of Immunology at the MPI-IB is studying the mechanisms of host - pathogen interactions and develops novel vaccination strategies; it is amongst the leading groups in Tuberculosis immunology research world wide. MOLOGEN focuses on proprietary DNA technologies to develop treatments for non- or inadequately treatable diseases.
Max Plank Society Press Release
Acting FDA head is 'pessimistic' about impounded vaccine
Friday, October 8, 2004 Posted: 3:36 PM EDT (1936 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration is unlikely to clear influenza vaccine made by Chiron Corp. as safe for Americans to use this flu season, Dr. Lester M. Crawford, the agency's acting commissioner, said Friday.
Crawford's pessimism came as FDA officials in England met with Chiron officials and were poised to begin an in-depth inspection of the company's Liverpool vaccine production facility on Saturday and Sunday.
Article from CNN Health
Today, HIV drug Fuzeon was awarded the 2004 International Prix Galien for the most innovative new medicine.
Revolutionary HIV drug Fuzeon wins most prestigious award for innovationToday, HIV drug Fuzeon (enfuvirtide or T-20) was awarded the 2004 International Prix Galien for the most innovative new medicine. Fuzeon was selected out of 12 major new drugs in all therapeutic areas which each won national awards. Since 1970 Roche has won a total of 24 international and national Prix Galien medals, notably winning the international award twice in the field of HIV. This reflects Roche's strong track record in innovation across its entire product portfolio.
"Fuzeon was considered as the clear winner by the whole jury because it represents a new therapeutic approach, in fact the only new class of antiretroviral HIV drugs to emerge in the last eight years. Fuzeon markedly contributes to a significant increase in patients' quality of life", said Professor Walter Osswald, the President of the International Prix Galien Jury.
Article from EurekAlert!
Sudden flu vaccine shortage as UK blocks consignment
Christopher Bowe & David Firn / New York/London October 07, 2004
A public health crisis faces the US as the influenza season begins, after US drugmaker Chiron was blocked from shipping half the expected US flu vaccines by UK regulators.
Chiron yesterday said human error at a late-stage in vaccine manufacturing at its UK plant in Liverpool had caused UK regulators to suspend its license to make Fluvirin vaccines for three months.
The company said the suspension by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency effectively blocked its ability to ship all of this year’s vaccines — about 50 million doses.
Article from: Business Standard
October 4th - 6th, New York
Harnessing the exquisite specificity of the immune system to detect and attack cancer cells has long been a dream of cancer immunologists. Cancer vaccines are getting ever closer to becoming reality as they are shown to consistently and reproducibly stimulate the immune system to attack cancer-specific targets. Now early-phase clinical trials are beginning to show hints of the promise of immunotherapy.
WHAT: New findings in the development of cancer vaccines from the USA, Australia, Europe and Japan will be presented as part of the International Cancer Immunotherapy Symposia Series.
WHEN: October 4-6, 2004
WHERE: Manhattan Conference Center at the Millenium Broadway Hotel 145 West 45th Street, New York.
WHO: Organized by the Cancer Research Institute, New York. Speakers are drawn from the international Cancer Vaccine Collaborative, leading US academic groups, and industry efforts. Over 250 scientists and physicians registered so far.
Links:
Oct. 4, 2004. 01:00 AM
C. difficile caused dozens of deaths in Quebec
Possibly same type of bacterium found in U.S. study
HELEN BRANSWELL
CANADIAN PRESS
A strain of a common bug with properties linked to increased virulence has become predominant in several U.S. hospitals, prompting researchers to suggest it may be responsible for the sharp increase in cases and severity of disease in parts of the United States.
It may also explain the exploding problem some hospitals in Canada are experiencing with the bug, Clostridium difficile, said Dr. Clifford McDonald of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Article from: Toronto Star
Last Updated: 2004-09-28 15:32:49 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - This year's U.S. flu vaccine will be safe and will be distributed on time, Chiron Corp. President and Chief Executive Officer Howard Pien pledged on Tuesday.
Pien also said the company was working hard to develop a better and more efficient way to make influenza vaccine so it can adapt to epidemics that change as the virus mutates every year.
Last month Chiron said it would delay shipment of its FluVirin vaccine because lots containing 4 million doses of the vaccine did not meet sterility standards.
Article from: Reuters.com
28 September 2004
Two new cases confirmed
Since yesterday, the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand has confirmed two new cases of H5N1 avian influenza in humans. The cases are a 26-year-old woman, who died on 20 September, and her 32-year-old sister, who remains hospitalized in stable condition.
These new cases bring the total in Thailand confirmed since early September to three. Altogether, Thailand has reported 15 cases, of which 10 were fatal, since the first human cases were detected in January of this year.
Investigation of possible human-to-human transmission in a family cluster
The most recent cases are part of a family cluster of four cases under investigation to determine whether human-to-human transmission may have occurred. Immediate investigation of any possible human-to-human transmission is always needed to determine whether transmission has been efficient and sustained. Such a situation would be cause for alarm, as it might signal the start of an influenza pandemic. Inefficient, limited human-to-human transmission may occur on rare occasions and is in line with what is known, from epidemiological and laboratory investigations, about the possible behaviour of the H5N1 virus.
Article from: WHO Communicable Disease Surveillance & Response (CSR)
Tue Sep 28, 2004 03:51 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are caught between worries over the safety of the flu vaccine and fears that they will not be able to get it when they need it, a health official told Congress on Tuesday.
But the president of a major flu vaccine manufacturer pledged that his company's vaccine was safe and would be distributed on time for the October start of the flu season.
Last year's early influenza season led to heavy demand for the vaccine. And health officials miscalculated, so the vaccine, which is made up of three different flu strains, did not protect against the most common and dangerous strain.
Articel from: Reuters.com
26 Sep 2004
New guidelines on managing HIV have been published recently in Clinical Infectious Diseases (CID) and are available free online to all HIV care providers via the journal's electronic edition. The guidelines, developed by the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) of IDSA, summarize important changes in the way HIV/AIDS should be managed.
The success of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has extended the life of those infected with HIV and changed HIV/AIDS into a chronic disease that requires long-term management in the context of a person's overall life and health, the guideline authors say.
Article from : Medical News Today
Monday, September 27, 2004 —
The Measles Initiative is integrating innovative malaria prevention activities into mass measles vaccination campaigns in Africa. Current plans call for Togo to be the first country to achieve nationwide, household coverage of insecticide treated bednets (ITNs) in six days with plans to distribute 730,000 ITNs during the December 2004 campaign.
Insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) are an important tool to fight death and disease due to malaria, especially in Africa south of the Sahara, which accounts for 90% of deaths due to malaria worldwide. One of the goals of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership is that in Africa south of the Sahara, 60% of the people most at risk (young children and pregnant women) will sleep under ITNs.
To date this target has not been met, because too often people who are most in need of the ITNs do not know about them, do not have access to them, or cannot afford them (even a unit cost of $5 is high for a rural African family).
Link to Red Cross
Irvine, Calif. , September 23, 2004
In what may be a first step toward expanding the arsenal against HIV, UC Irvine researchers have successfully targeted an HIV protein that has eluded existing therapies.
Researchers targeted Nef, a protein responsible for accelerating the development of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. Nef was targeted with small molecules synthesized by the researchers – molecules that disrupted Nef’s interaction with other proteins.
Article from: Today@UCI
BuaNews (Pretoria)
NEWS
September 23, 2004
Posted to the web September 24, 2004
By Candace Freeman
Pretoria
HIV and AIDS prevalence rates among South African teenagers have been declining constantly, although general infection rates remain critical.
This was shown in the results of the 14th National HIV and Syphilis Sero-Prevelance Survey of women attending Public Antenatal Clinics for 2003 conducted by the Department of Health.
"There has been a constant decline in prevalence among teenagers since 1999. Other age groups have shown increases in prevalence, with the 25 to 29 year age group consistently recording higher rates," explained the report.
An estimated 35, 4 percent HIV prevalence was found among the 25 to 29 year olds attending antenatal clinics last year, compared to 31, 4 percent in 2001.
A figure of 15, 8 percent was recorded for teenagers up to 20 years.
Based on results of the antenatal survey, 5, 6 million South Africans were estimated to be HIV positive by the end of 2003. This is a rise of 300 000 from estimates in 2002.
Article from: allAfrica.com
22 September, 2004
CHINA
Hong Kong (AsiaNews/SCMP) - Hong Kong scientists say they have identified chemical compounds that can stop Sars being infectious, raising hopes for a cure for the deadly illness.
The breakthrough is based on "chemical genetics", or the use of chemicals to thwart viruses from replicating.
Using a new method called the high-throughput screening platform, the researchers quickly screened the Sars virus against a chemical library of more than 50,000 molecule compounds.
Article from: AsiaNews.it
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded a contract to Aventis Pasteur Inc. to make and store two million doses of avian influenza H5N1 vaccine, it was announced Tuesday.
The vaccine is designed to counter the H5N1 influenza virus that has killed 29 people in Vietnam and Thailand so far this year.
The $13 million contract is meant to ensure that the United States is prepared for a pandemic of this form of avian influenza virus. The vaccine would be used to protect laboratory staffers, public health workers and, if needed, the general public, according to a HHS news release.
From drkoop.com
Article from BBC
The government has been urged to speed up its research into Variant CJD - the human form of mad cow disease.
It follows news that more than 460 people in Northern Ireland are being warned that they could have been exposed to vCJD through blood plasma products.
The Department of Health said on Tuesday that it was writing to 464 patients to explain they were potentially at a small increased risk of infection.
Harnessing the exquisite specificity of the immune system to detect and attack cancer cells has long been a dream of cancer immunologists. Cancer vaccines are getting ever closer to becoming reality as they are shown to consistently and reproducibly stimulate the immune system to attack cancer-specific targets. Now early-phase clinical trials are beginning to show hints of the promise of immunotherapy.
Article from: Eurekalert.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A naturally occurring chemical that may repel yellow fever mosquitoes can now be made in the laboratory, Indiana University Bloomington scientists report.
"The synthesis requires only seven steps," said organic chemist P. Andrew Evans, who led the research. "It should be quite trivial to scale this up to the production of large quantities."
Gaur acid is a natural skin secretion of the gaur, an Asian wild ox. Preliminary evidence suggests that this chemical discourages the landing and feeding of Aedes aegypti, a common mosquito that carries and transmits the yellow fever virus in some parts of the world.
Evans and his group used a rhodium catalyst to aid the tricky synthesis of gaur acid, also known as bovinic acid. In doing so, the chemists also determined the exact chemical structure of the compound. Their approach is described in Angewandte Chemie, a German chemistry journal.
Article from: Eurekalert.com
Last Updated: 2004-09-17 13:00:26 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Darius James Ross
VILNIUS (Reuters) - A lack of information and public funding is helping fuel the spread of HIV/AIDS in several recent European Union entrants and threatens to become pandemic across the bloc, a panel of experts said on Friday.
They said the opening of borders on Europe's eastern flank could allow for an influx of infections into western Europe from areas such as the Baltics, where cash-strapped governments find it difficult to fund prevention and costly treatment programs.
In addition, they added, a lack of information on prevention and transmission of HIV, coupled with public prejudice against those who have tested positive, may worsen the situation.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -There have been widespread concerns that mercury-based preservatives used in vaccines might impair the neurological development of children, but the opposite seems to be true.
Immunizing infants with vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal may actually be associated with improved behavior and mental performance, according to two British studies published in the medical journal Pediatrics.
Dr. Jon Heron of the University of Bristol, and colleagues followed 12,956 children, born in 1991 and 1992, until they were about 7-1/2 years old. Information was collected on doses of thimerosal-containing diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccines given at ages 3, 4, and 6 months, as well as on measures of behavior, fine motor skills, speech, tics and special education needs.
By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
In the fight against cancer, some scientists are thinking small. Really, really small.
The National Cancer Institute launches a five-year, $144 million project today to investigate using nanotechnology, the science of building devices on the atomic level, to fight cancer.
Article from: USA Today
By Zhang Feng (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-09-14 01:03
Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi said Monday that China is willing to strengthen co-operation with other countries and regions of the Western Pacific in fighting various diseases including communicable and chronic ones.
Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi (C) gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the 55th session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee for the Western Pacific in the city of Shanghai September 13, 2004.
Although having achieved a victory in containing SARS and avian influenza in recent years, the region now faces the increasing burden brought by various diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and chronic diseases, Wu said.
Article from: China Daily
Brussels, 8 September 2004
HIV/AIDS – a resurgent epidemic in Europe and its neighbourhood: Commission calls for political leadership
A paper adopted by the European Commission today calls for the EU to show political leadership in averting an HIV/AIDS epidemic in Europe and its neighbouring countries. The proportion of newly reported HIV cases has doubled in Western Europe since 1995. In certain of the countries that joined the EU on 1 May and in the EU’s eastern neighbours the rates of new infections are the highest in the world. The paper calls for greater efforts to prevent the spread of the disease, measures to ensure people in poorer European countries have access to affordable treatment, better coordination of national HIV/AIDS strategies and action to develop new medicines and vaccines. The Commission’s paper is due to be debated by Health ministers and AIDS experts from across the EU and its eastern neighbours at an international conference in Vilnius on 16-17 September
Link: http://www.aids.lt/iac/
Data first to find protection for all pneumococcal-related illnesses
VANDERBILT The pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, which has been routinely given to young children since 2000, reduces the incidence of middle ear infection and pneumonia, a new study shows.
"This highlights that the vaccine significantly decreases illnesses in children and reinforces its importance in our public health efforts," said Dr. Kathy Poehling, assistant professor of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville.
The study appears in the September issue of the journal "Pediatrics."
Article form EurekAlert
Tuesday, September 7, 2004 Posted: 4:17 PM EDT (2017 GMT)
CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- Heavily diluted doses of existing smallpox vaccine remain effective, which means the U.S. stockpile of the vaccine can be stretched if needed, researchers said on Tuesday.
Smallpox is a highly contagious viral disease that killed untold millions until it was officially eradicated in 1979, but fears following the September 2001 attacks that it might be used as a biological weapon sparked a U.S. effort to ensure there was enough vaccine.
A large portion of the available smallpox vaccine in the United States has been frozen since it was manufactured in the 1950s. The U.S. government has contracted with Britain's Acambis Plc to supply millions more new doses.
Article from CNN:Health
Tue Sep 7,12:43 PM ET
BUCHAREST, Romania - The United Nations (news - web sites) called on Romanian authorities to help the thousands of HIV (news - web sites) infected children here attend school with other children, in a statement released Tuesday.
Less than 60 percent of Romania's 7,500 HIV infected children attend public schools, the U.N. Children's Fund said. Most of those who do go to school are able to do so only because they've kept their illness secret, the group added.
AIDS (news - web sites) groups in Romania have in the past complained about discrimination against infected students despite a law that gives them the right to study.
Articke from Yahoo News
Wednesday, September 1, 2004 Posted: 6:39 PM EDT (2239 GMT)
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- A virus recently discovered in Japan is suspected in two "crib deaths" in Wisconsin, raising new questions about how many of these mysterious tragedies might be caused by germs.
The cases mark the first time the virus has been identified in the United States. Whether it killed the babies is not clear, but both were sick before they died and had signs of disease in their lungs.
Sudden infant death syndrome -- also called "crib death" for the devastating way it is usually discovered -- is a catch-all term for unexplained deaths in children less than a year old. About 2,200 occur each year in the United States, mostly involving babies between 2 and 4 months old.
Article from CNN Health
Thu Sep 2, 2004 04:17 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cats can get the avian influenza virus decimating bird flocks across Asia, which means pets are at risk of getting and spreading the disease -- and may serve as a mixing pot for dangerous new mutations, Dutch researchers reported on Thursday.
In an experiment, cats caught the H5N1 flu virus by breathing it in and by eating infected chicks, the team of virus experts at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam said.
"This is extraordinary, because domestic cats are generally considered to be resistant to disease from influenza A virus infection," the researchers reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Article from Reuters Health
Press Association
Thursday September 2, 2004
A 50-year study of breast cancer was launched today with the aim of pinpointing the causes of the disease, which kills 13,000 women in the UK each year.
Researchers hope to recruit 100,000 British women aged over 18 to take part in the study, which will examine genetic, environmental, behavioural and hormonal factors thought to increase the risk of developing breast cancer. It will be the largest, longest running scientific study of breast cancer ever.
Article from Guardian Unlimited
CHICAGO Full-body computed tomography, or CT, scans increase a person's risk of cancer, according to a study released Tuesday in the journal Radiology that raises questions about the growing popularity of these screenings among healthy people.
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Just one of these scans imparts a dose of radiation comparable to that received by some Japanese atomic-bomb survivors, while repeated annual screenings carry a significantly elevated lifetime cancer risk, the study found. The researchers said that among otherwise healthy 45-year-olds, one full-body screening would typically cause a fatal form of cancer in 1 of every 1,200 people.
Article from International Herald Tribune
www.chinaview.cn 2004-09-02 21:59:28
GENEVA, Sept. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- World HIV experts stressed here Thursday that the development of an HIV prevention vaccine is as important as work on vaccines to treat the disease.
The experts from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) -- a global not-for-profit organization working to speed thesearch for a vaccine to prevent HIV infection and AIDS -- said that besides treating people infected with HIV, the world must also intensify efforts to develop a preventive vaccine to stop thecontinuing spread of the virus.
"The global response to AIDS must include both compassion for those who are infected and a heightened commitment to protect those who are not," said Emilio Emini, IAVI's senior president andchief of vaccine development.
Article from China View
The American Cancer Society has issued a Request for Applications for the American Cancer Society-Barbara Thomason Research Professorship or Clinical Research Professorship for Ovarian Cancer. The award is intended for an outstanding mid-career investigator who has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the etiology, genetics, pathogenesis, epidemiology, diagnosis or treatment of ovarian cancer and who continues to provide leadership in this research area. Applications from distinguished investigators in all categories of ovarian cancer research, including basic, translational, clinical and applied research, are requested. The amount of the award is $100,000 per year for five years and may be renewed for an additional five years. Candidates must be American citizens or permanent residents with at least 10 years of experience beyond receipt of their terminal degree and within 15 years of their appointment as a full professor.
To get more information, click here to view the entire RFA
By Warren King
Seattle Times medical reporter
State health officials are expanding their early warning system for a bioterrorist attack by employing the help of rabbits, squirrels, mice and other critters.
As part of the state's biological-warfare defense, state veterinarians recently began monitoring unusual small-animal deaths for evidence of tularemia, plague or other diseases that could be caused by lethal agents.
Articel from Seattle Times
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDayNews) -- The U.S. government announced Friday that nearly half of this year's flu vaccine supply will arrive about a month late because some doses may be contaminated.
Despite the delay, health officials said there was little to worry about, and that the vaccine will eventually be available to anyone who needs one.
Article from Forbes.com
Researchers show HIV patients may be infected with more than one type of HIV.
Some HIV patients may be plagued by more than one type of HIV infection according to researchers at the McGill AIDS Centre, Sir Mortimer B. Davis - Jewish General Hospital and the McGill University Health Centre. They have shown that some patients may be susceptible to a second infection with another HIV virus including viruses resistant to drugs. This infection with a second HIV virus is called superinfection.
Nature Immunology commentary highlights promising advances in the field
Recent discoveries about the way that HIV infects cells are propelling the development of a broad spectrum of promising new antiviral drugs, according to an invited commentary on the topic in the current issue of Nature Immunology (August 27, 2004).
The assessment is made by Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology (GIVI) Director Warner Greene, MD, PhD, who also serves as professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology at the University of California, San Francisco.
In the piece, Greene points out that basic research on HIV, a relatively simple pathogen with only nine genes encoding 15 proteins, are leading to compelling new therapies that deny the initial entry of HIV into its cellular host. In addition, fast-moving research of naturally occurring factors with potent antiviral properties is opening the way for future development of an entirely new class of anti-HIV drugs.
Press Release from Eureka Alert
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer
Despite the discovery of tainted vaccine at the British factory that makes half of America's flu shot supply, U.S. health authorities said Friday they were confident there would be enough available for the coming influenza season.
"This is not a crisis,'' said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, during a press conference.
Article from SFGate.com
WHO says Tamiflu remains top choice in case of epidemic
Updated: 9:35 a.m. ET Aug. 27, 2004GENEVA - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that despite new research indicating some resistance to Tamiflu, it remained its “drug of choice” for protection against bird flu and in case of a human flu pandemic.
Klaus Stohr, head of WHO’s influenza program, also called for more data after Japanese researchers reported on Thursday that resistance to Tamiflu, made by Switzerland’s Roche, may be more common than previously thought
Artice from: MSNBC
The Cancer, Culture and Literacy Institute is a series of educational activities that examine the nexus of culture and literacy relating to effective communications and research. This NCI funded program includes a five-day hands-on intensive learning experience in Tampa, Florida, January 8-13, 2005, as well as monthly continuing educational modules delivered via the Web, and mentoring experiences with nationally recognized scholars involved in this area of scientific inquiry. A yearlong commitment is expected where participants apply new knowledge in their research activities. Tuition, transportation, lodging, meals and resources are provided to participants during the five-day program.
Eligibility: Doctorally prepared investigators (PhD, DrPH, MD, DNS, ScD or equivalent) wishing to enrich their perspectives on culture and literacy in the conceptualization and design of cancer control/population science research should apply. Deadline for receipt of application: September 20, 2004, 5:00 pm EST.
For more information about the Institute and eligibility requirements call (813) 745-6031, e-mail Dr. Cathy Meade cdmeade@moffitt.usf.edu or visit our website at http://www.moffitt.usf.edu/Education/ccl_institute/index.asp
EXPIRATION DATE: December 21, 2007, unless reissued
APPLICATION RECEIPT DATES: December 20, 2004; March 21, 2005; July 21, 2005; November 21, 2005; March 22, 2006, July 20, 2006, November 20, 2006; March 20, 2007; July 21, 2007., December 20, 2007
This Program Announcement (PA) replaces PAR-02-176, which was published in the NIH Guide on September 27, 2002.
The Division of Cancer Prevention of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) invites applications that address developmental research in chemoprevention agent development, biomarkers, early detection, and nutrition science. The Small Grants Program is designed to aid and facilitate the growth of a nationwide cohort of scientists with a high level of research expertise in cancer prevention research. This PA will use the NIH Small Grants Program (R03) award mechanism. As an applicant, you will be solely responsible for planning, directing, and executing the proposed project. The total budget may not exceed $100,000 in direct costs for the entire project. The direct costs in any one year must not exceed $50,000. Please note that facilities and administrative [F&A] costs requested by any consortium participants are excluded from the direct cost limit per NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-04-040.)
The total project period for an application submitted in response to this program announcement may not exceed two years. NIH policy limits the number of amendments that may be submitted to one. The small grant is not renewable. This PA uses just-in-time concepts. It also uses the modular budgeting format.
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-04-147.html
To view all grants available through the Cancer Center, visit http://www.cancer.umn.edu/page/aboutus/grantopp.html
Tue Aug 24, 2004 05:09 PM ET
For release at 5 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A powdered anthrax vaccine that people potentially could take by themselves protects rabbits against the deadliest form of the bacteria, researchers said on Tuesday.
Developed jointly by U.S. Army researchers and BD Technologies, the vaccine works about as well as current injected versions, the scientists said.
Article from Reuters Health
Univ. of Ariz. Cancer Center Receives $19.5 Million Grant for Continued Research on Skin Cancer
The Associated Press
TUCSON, Ariz. Aug. 24, 2004 — The University of Arizona's Cancer Center has been given a $19.5 million grant for continued research on skin cancer.
The grant, which runs through 2009, will go toward developing a drug that can neutralize cancer-causing agents in the skin. It's the largest National Cancer Institute program project grant awarded to the center in 24 years.
Article from abc News
(08-24) 17:22 PDT LOS ANGELES (AP) --
The number of confirmed human cases of West Nile virus in California rose more than 46 percent in a week as the number of people killed by the mosquito-borne illness rose from seven to nine, health authorities said Tuesday.
The two latest reported deaths both occurred in San Bernardino County, an 88-year-old man in Loma Linda and an 82-year-old man from the city of San Bernardino, the local Department of Public Health said.
Article from SFGate.com
750 people who visited Ohio island fell ill
Tuesday, August 24, 2004 Posted: 9:18 AM EDT (1318 GMT)
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- The wide scope of an outbreak that sickened hundreds of travelers to a Lake Erie resort island will make it difficult to find a source for the illness, infectious disease experts said.
Some say they suffered nausea and diarrhea after traveling to South Bass Island in recent weeks, while some say they fell ill in early June.
Article from CNN: Health
17 August 2004 – In the largest immunization campaign ever undertaken in Madagascar, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) today announced the delivery of 10 million measles vaccines to the country.
Over the past few days, trucks and planes loaded with measles vaccines, auto-disable syringes, communication materials and manuals for mobilizers began leaving the capital of Antananarivo and port city of Tamatave for every district in the country.
Article from UN News Centre
Wed 18 August, 2004 21:14
ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigeria needs about $248 million to expand its anti-AIDS program and provide life-saving pills for 200,000 of its 3.5 million citizens infected with the virus, the country's health minister said Wednesday.
Nigeria launched Africa's biggest AIDS control plan in 2002 to distribute cheap antiretroviral drugs from India to 10,000 adults and 5,000 children at a subsidized monthly cost of $7 per person.
Article from Reuters UK Health
By CAROLYN ABRAHAM
Thursday, August 19, 2004 - Page A1
The notion that doctors may one day be able to detect cancer as they do cholesterol, in mere drops of blood, is no longer a pipe dream.
Researchers in Canada and the United States have developed separate techniques to pinpoint elusive tumour cells from a thimbleful of drawn blood, a feat that may help predict the severity of a patient's cancer without biopsy or bone scan.
Both projects found that the greater the number of tumour cells collected in a sample, the more dangerous the disease appeared to be. The results are expected to give doctors a relatively painless tool to help identify who needs aggressive treatment, who is not benefiting from it and who might be spared the toxicity of chemotherapy.
Article from GLOBEANDMAIL.COM
Fri Aug 13, 7:43 PM ET Add Health - AP to My Yahoo!
By DANIEL YEE, Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA - Last season's flu shot was effective only about half the time, confirming the concerns many experts had since the vaccine was not an exact match for one of the flu strains making many Americans sick, the government said Thursday.
Even so, "the vaccine still provided some protection and substantial health benefits," said Dr. Carolyn Bridges, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites).
Article from Yahoo/AP News
From Reuters/Yahoo News:
Tue Aug 17,10:55 AM ET
Chiron Corp. has won a contract to develop a human vaccine against a strain of bird flu that can infect people and "has the potential to trigger a modern-day pandemic," the U.S. government said on Tuesday.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said it had awarded Chiron, of Emeryville, California, the contract to develop a vaccine against the H9N2 strain of avian influenza virus.
Article from Reuters:Health
Friday, August 13, 2004 - Page updated at 12:40 P.M.
VALE, Ore. — Oregon's first case of West Nile virus has been detected in a crow in Malheur County in southeast Oregon, public health officials said today.
Oregon had been among a few states where West Nile had not yet surfaced.
Nationwide, West Nile infected more than 9,300 people last year, killing 244, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's more than double the number of cases reported in 2002, although fatalities remained steady. The higher case numbers may be due to increased surveillance, the CDC said.
Article from Seattle Times
A major HIV drug trial in Cambodia has been shelved amid claims it violated people's human rights.
The trial was supposed to be one arm of an international study to see if Tenofovir, which is used to fight HIV, can also protect against the disease.
But sex workers refused to participate unless they were given full medical insurance to protect them against any future illnesses.
Article from BBC UK Edition
By Kay Lazar
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Worried that weekend rains will spawn an army of disease-carrying mosquitoes, health officials are declaring war on the bugs with stepped-up spraying and tracking to halt the spread of deadly eastern equine encephalitis in Southeastern Massachusetts.
The assault comes as a 64-year-old Brockton surveyor remains hospitalized in serious condition after he was infected, likely while working outdoors in Middleboro earlier this month.
``After all this rain passes through and it warms up, there is concern about mosquito populations increasing rapidly,'' Ralph Timperi, director of the state public health laboratory, said yesterday.
Article from BostonHerald.com
Fri Aug 13, 2004 03:46 AM ET
By Christina Toh-Pantin
HANOI (Reuters) - Preliminary tests by Vietnam have shown the presence of the H5N1 strain in one of three people who died from bird flu, heightening fears about the return of a virus that killed 24 people in Asia earlier this year.
Vietnam's health ministry said eight people suspected of being infected with bird flu were in hospital and authorities are investigating other deaths in southern Hau Giang province.
Article from Reuters
Thu Aug 12, 2004 04:42 PM ET
By Will Boggs, MD
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A vaccine based on the seven types of human papillomavirus (HPV) most commonly linked to cervical cancer could prevent most cases of the deadly disease, researchers predict.
As yet, however, no such vaccine exists.
"HPV vaccines offer today the best strategy to combat cervical cancer," Dr. Nubia Muñoz from International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France told Reuters Health.
Muñoz and colleagues conducted an analysis of all HPV types in cervical cancer from an international survey and from a multicenter study, involving more than 3600 women with cervical cancer from 25 countries.
Article from Reuters
GENEVA : The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the Vietnamese government had confirmed three people had died from bird flu.
The WHO said the deaths of the three, who were among a group of people hospitalized between July 19 and August 8, were the first cases officially recorded in Vietnam since February.
Article from Mediacomp
Last Updated: 2004-08-11 15:40:30 -0400 (Reuters Health)
BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil intends to distribute 3 billion free condoms every year, mainly to the poor and young, in a bid to prevent the spread of AIDS, the country's AIDS director said on Wednesday.
The plan to offer universal, free access to condoms builds on the country's renowned AIDS treatment program, which provides a cocktail of free drugs for patients with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS.
But the effort also faces the potential opposition of the country's Roman Catholic church, which has said free-condom distribution could encourage promiscuity.
"The contraceptive is mandatory in all non-stable sexual relationships," said Pedro Checkr, who reassumed authority over Brazil's AIDS program last week after previously running it from 1996 to 2000.
"The ideal would be to reach 3 billion contraceptives," he said.
Three billion condoms would be equivalent to 35 for every one of Brazil's 85 million people considered sexually active. The country has a total population of 175 million.
Handing out free condoms has grown sharply in importance under the country's program to fight AIDS. It aims to increase distribution among schools in poor areas.
An estimated 600 million free condoms will be handed out this year, up from 20 million in 1995 when the program started, Checkr said. He did not say when the 3 billion figure will be reached.
The campaign has focused on handing out free condoms during Brazil's annual Carnival celebrations, when casual sex increases.
The Roman Catholic Church in Brazil - the world's largest Catholic country - has been upset by the distribution of free condoms out of a belief they could encourage promiscuity.
Brazil's center-left government reacted angrily last year to statements by a Vatican cardinal, who suggested condoms were unsafe to stop the spread of AIDS.
Checkr said the government would give incentives to local condom manufacturers to ensure sufficient supplies.
"If the whole sexually active population were to use contraceptives, there would be no stocks left," Checkr said. "So it is important to invest in the production of contraceptives to guarantee supplies."
Brazil's anti-AIDS program has been acclaimed as a model for the developing world. Its main element of handing out free drugs to patients has been achieved by winning price reductions from big drug firms, sometimes with the threat of making generic copies if companies did not agree to discounts.
Brazil halved the number of AIDS-related deaths since 1996, when distribution of free drugs began.
The government believes there are 600,000 people with HIV/AIDS in Brazil although just 200,000 have been diagnosed.
From Reuters
Brush, then squash. Remember those three words and that technique the next time you catch a mosquito dining on your arm or leg, and you'll go a long way to protecting yourself from a potentially lethal parasitic micro-organism that may be in the mosquito, and is especially dangerous to those with weakened immune systems.
From Rutgers
Rutgers-Newark Scientist: Potentially Lethal Parasite Can Be Transmitted By Mosquitoes
Asian News International
Washington, August 12
According to a study published in the Journal Of the American Medical Association, results from a trial for a streptococcal vaccine seem to indicate that the vaccine could offer protection against streptococcal infections.
Karen L. Kotloff, M.D., of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, and colleagues evaluated the safety and immune reactivity of a group A streptococcal vaccine in healthy volunteers.
Article from HindustanTimes.com
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
August 11, 2004
Posted to the web August 11, 2004
Nairobi
Unless safe, clean water and better sanitation become more readily available in camps for displaced people in the troubled western Darfur region of Sudan, the people living there are at risk of contracting waterborne diseases like Hepatitis, health agencies warned.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), which on Tuesday reported that an outbreak of Hepatitis E had killed 22 people, with 625 cases reported in Darfur between May and July, said that despite the efforts of relief agencies, "existing resources are insufficient to cover the basic needs of the IDPs [internally displaced persons]".
Article from allAfrica.com
A new study finds a childhood vaccine making a difference in preventing the potentally life threatening disease.
Government researchers looked at the chicken pox vaccine. They found it is very effective in preventing the childhood illness. Before the chicken pox vaccine was available hundreds of Americans would die each year from complications of the disease. It's hard to protect kids from each others germ.
Article from WNEP16
As learned from the SARS vaccine development research group the last six volunteers have accepted the inoculation of a clinical testing vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) on August 4. By far all 36 volunteers in China's SARS vaccine first stage clinical research have been inoculated with the vaccine.
As learned from Lin Jiangtao, head of the Respiratory Medical Department with the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, after observing for a week the six volunteers are normal in temperature with no adverse reactions observed.
Article from People's Daily Online
Tuesday, August 10, 2004 Posted: 4:20 PM EDT (2020 GMT)
CHICAGO (AP) -- Scientists say they are making headway in developing a vaccine against a common strep germ, the cause of millions of sore throats as well as a deadly but uncommon flesh-eating disease.
A test of an experimental vaccine in just 28 people prompted an immune response with no serious side effects, but it's still not known if the shot would keep people from catching the strep germ.
Still, it was the first human testing of such a vaccine in almost 30 years, although at least two other vaccines are also under development.
Results of the federally funded study were reported in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Article from CNN: Health
By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Aug. 10 (HealthDayNews) -- Like all vaccines, the one for chicken pox isn't foolproof, but a new study finds that when vaccinated children still get the disease, they are only half as contagious as unvaccinated kids.
Their cases are also typically much less severe, said study author Dr. Jean F. Seward, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Article from Forbes.com
HONG KONG (Reuters) - A bird flu virus commonly found in chickens in Hong Kong's markets could mutate and jump more easily to humans, possibly leading to the next influenza pandemic, scientists said on Tuesday.
Researchers found the H9N2 virus in about two percent of chickens in a study between 2001 and 2003.
Article from Reuters
(New Haven-AP, Aug. 10, 2004 5:58 AM) _ A new study from Yale researchers finds black women are four times more likely to have a genetic mutation that makes breast cancer tumors deadly.
Black women are less likely than white women to get breast cancer. But the study says they are more likely to have aggressive tumors.
Article from WTNH.com
August 8, 2004
Posted to the web August 9, 2004
Mojisola Idris And Mary Ekah
Lagos
Commissioner for Health, Lagos State, Dr. Leke Pitan, has called on the authority concerned to counsel mothers who are HIV positive on the best way to breast feed their babies, saying due to the status of a HIV positive mother she is deprived of the opportunity to breast feed her child directly.
Speaking on the topic "The Impact of HIV/AIDS Endemic on Nursing Mother Who is a Carrier," at the National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) international BreastFeeding Celebration in Lagos, Pitan said mother- to-child transmission of HIV was the major route through which children were infected.
Article from allAfrica.com
USA Today
August 8, 2004
A second case in which the human form of mad cow disease was spread through a blood transfusion has been reported in the United Kingdom. The first such case was reported there in December, and health officials say they've been expecting more.
Article from IndyStar.com
Clifford Krauss NYT
Back to Start of Article TORONTO A bacterium that causes virulent diarrhea in the elderly has been spreading through hospitals in Quebec and Alberta and may have contributed to the deaths of 100 patients in one institution alone in the last 18 months, the medical authorities said on Sunday.
Article from the International Herald Tribune
WASHINGTON, August 4, 2004
(AP) The U.S. government is setting more stringent standards for when it will announce that an initial screening test for mad cow disease has yielded a suspicious result, the Agriculture Department said Wednesday.
The department is now requiring additional preliminary test results before the public is informed. A leader of the beef industry hailed the new procedure, while a consumer advocate expressed skepticism.
Article from CBSNEWS.com
Aug. 6, 2004. 01:00 AM
MONTREAL—With a study linking a virulent superbug to the deaths of up to 100 Quebecers in one hospital in the past 18 months, a Quebec doctor is calling on Ottawa to attack the bacteria with the same resolve used to fight SARS.
"It's not a problem specific to our institution," said Dr. Jacques Pépin, co-author of a study into deaths at the University Hospital in Sherbrooke he says were caused by Clostridium difficile — a common intestinal bacteria that can be deadly to elderly patients.
Article from Toronto Star
Posted on Fri, Aug. 06, 2004
By Brenden Timpe
Herald Staff Writer
Mosquito control trucks sprayed Grand Forks on Thursday night in an effort to thin the population of Culex species mosquitoes, which are considered most likely to carry West Nile Virus.
Thursday's average mosquito trap count was 27 - far below the 100 level that usually sparks a city-wide ground spray. But Don Shields, director of the Grand Forks Public Health Department, said the spraying was done to reduce the risk of West Nile Virus
Vanguard (Lagos)
ANALYSIS
August 4, 2004
Posted to the web August 4, 2004
By Chidi Achebe
All parties involved in the polio eradication exercise should work together for the sake of the children and posterity
Solutions/strategies: The vaccine campaign
NIGERIA must embark upon an aggressive, vigorous and sustained immunisation campaign to cover not just the vulnerable in Kano and surrounding states, but children and all others at risk throughout the country. This effort will require significant financial assistance and political commitment from the Federal Government of Nigeria. In particular, the local leadership must show as much zeal in restarting the vaccination campaign as it showed in bringing it to a halt.
Subpopulations that must also receive vaccinations are travellers to areas or countries where poliomyelitis is or may be epidemic or endemic; laboratory and health care workers handling specimens or who come in close contact with patients that may be excreting the virus; unvaccinated adults whose children will be receiving OPV (the oral form of the vaccine that contains attenuated polio virus); unvaccinated adults and incompletely vaccinated adults in epidemic and endemic areas of Nigeria, should also receive polio vaccination preferably IPV (the inactivated Polio vaccine). Other groups that need to be covered by the vaccination campaign include pregnant women; household contact of persons with immunodeficiency diseases; patients with altered immune states; patients with immunosuppression due to therapy for other diseases or known HIV infection. All these patients in this latter group should receive IPV.
Article from allAfrica.com
Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 @ 3:38 PM PDT by bjs
The first study to compare survival between women with breast cancer whose treatment was based on consensus guidelines and those whose treatment was not shows that adhering to established guidelines improves survival and reduces the risk of recurrence. The study retrospectively examined whether the systemic therapy prescribed after surgery for women with early-stage breast cancer was consistent with treatment guidelines established for at the time. Systemic therapy includes chemotherapy and hormonal therapy and is designed to reach cancer cells that may have spread beyond the original tumor site.
Article linked through ScienceBlog
Posted on Monday, August 02, 2004 @ 3:50 PM PDT by bjs
Nature can reset the clock in certain types of cancer and reverse many of the elements responsible for causing malignancy, reports a research team led by Whitehead Institute Member Rudolf Jaenisch, in collaboration with Lynda Chin from Dana Farber Cancer Institute. The team demonstrated this by successfully cloning mice from an advanced melanoma cell.
Article linked through ScienceBlog
IN A MUDDY SLUM in Cambodia, a mother of two shuffles through a handful of pill bottles several times a day for relief from symptoms of the AIDS virus. If she misses a few doses or mistakenly takes too many pills, her health may waver.
In the world of AIDS treatment, this woman represents a dilemma. Powerful drugs can hold the infection at bay, but the pills are costly and complicated to take. Clearly, medicine, and the politics behind it, can do better.
Article from SFGate.com