Epidemiology: December 2004 Archives

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.

Scienceblog.com

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.

Basque Research

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.

Eurekalert.com

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.''

Science Blog

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.

Science Blog

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.

Reuters Health

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.

Seattle Times

[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.

newkerala

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.

FortWayne.com

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.

EurekAlert

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.

Eurekalert

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.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

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.

China View

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.

HHMI: Howard Hughes Medical Institute

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.

Reuters Health

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.

EurekAlert

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.

CNN Health

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.

CNN Health

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

CNN Health

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.

Reuters Health