Infectious disease can be any disease caused by invasion by a pathogen which subsequently grows and multiplies in the body. Infectious diseases are the result of damaging microorganisms obtaining access to the body, and not being repelled or destroyed by the immune system.
Statins may reduce mortality in patients hospitalized with influenza – Taking Statins May Help Flu patients – The two main ways to prevent and control influenza today are annual immunization and antiviral drugs. A team of investigators has found that statins, cholesterol-lowering drugs, may offer an additional treatment to complement these approaches and reduce mortality among patients hospitalized with influenza.
Think locally when treating individually — A population perspective can improve individual patient care and clinical decision making for communicable diseases – By taking local biosurveillance data into account when assessing patients for communicable diseases, doctors may be able to make better diagnostic decisions, according to researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston. For instance, in the case of strep throat, awareness of local epidemiology at the time of diagnosis could help more than 166,000 people avoid unnecessary antibiotic treatment in the United States every year and catch more than 62,000 missed cases.
Salmonella Kentucky has developed resistance to antibiotic Ciprofloxacin – A strain of Salmonella resistant to the most powerful antibiotics has been found in the UK, France and Denmark. This particular strain has a high level of resistance to ciprofloxacin, a common treatment for severe salmonella infections.
Successfully tested in Rwanda, mChip diagnoses infectious diseases like HIV and syphilis at patients’ bedsides; new device could streamline blood testing worldwide – New low-cost diagnostics like the mChip can revolutionize medical care around the world, revealed by researcher in US. Microfluidics-the manipulation of small amounts of fluids-and nanoparticles can be successfully leveraged to produce a functional low-cost diagnostic device in extreme resource-limited settings.
Comprehensive immigrant and refugee health guidelines new resource for physicians – The largest, most comprehensive evidence-based guidelines to immigrant health – designed to help Canadian physicians meet the unique needs of this group – are being published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
First global study of real-world circumcision rollout conducted over 3-year period in South Africa amongst 110,000 adults shows a marked reduction (>60 percent) of HIV acquisition among circumcised adult men – Researchers presenting late breaking research on the final day of the 6th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention (IAS 2011) have focussed on new studies in the field of circumcision, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and antiretroviral treatment. The IAS 2011 conference has been attended by over 5000 researchers, clinicians and community leaders since Sunday in Rome.
Treating HIV-infected people with antiretrovirals significantly reduces transmission to partners — Findings result from NIH-funded international study – Men and women infected with HIV reduced the risk of transmitting the virus to their sexual partners by taking oral antiretroviral medicines when their immune systems were relatively healthy, according to findings from a large-scale clinical study.
Many New Drugs Did Not Have Comparative Effectiveness Information Available at Time of FDA Approval – Only about half of new drugs approved in the last decade had comparative effectiveness data available at the time of their approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and approximately two-thirds of new drugs had this information available when alternative treatment options existed,.
Combination therapy provides hope for cure of dangerous infections of cystic fibrosis patients – An over-the-counter drug used to treat diarrhea combined with minocycline, an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, could one day change the lives of those living with cystic fibrosis.
Researchers identify genes causing antimalarial drug resistance – Using a pair of powerful genome-search techniques, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard University, and the Broad Institute have identified several genes that may be implicated in the malaria parasite’s notorious ability to rapidly evade drug treatments.
Immigrant screening misses majority of imported latent TB, finds study – Current UK procedures to screen new immigrants for tuberculosis (TB) fail to detect more than 70 per cent of cases of latent infection, according to a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
NIH study finds omalizumab relieves seasonal asthma attacks in youth — Symptoms reduced in children and young people with moderate to severe disease – A drug that targets the antibody immunoglobulin E (IgE), a key player in asthma, nearly eliminated seasonal increases in asthma attacks and decreased asthma symptoms among young people living in inner city environments, a clinical trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health has found.
