Infectious Disease

Pathologist Says ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Threatened in Measles Outbreak

Written on May 6, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News.

Spending time with other people is a cure for loneliness. But being a member of a vaccinated community has an important added benefit: preventing the spread of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases such as preventing a measles outbreak. The current concern over outbreaks of measles in the United States provides valuable lessons about how vaccinations are effective Gary W. Procop, MD, FCAP, chairs the CAP Microbiology Resource Committee and specializes...

Genetic Mutation Helps Explain Why, in Rare Cases, Flu Can Kill

Written on March 30, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News.

Nobody likes getting the flu, but for some people, fluids and rest aren’t enough. A small number of children who catch the influenza virus fall so ill they end up in the hospital — perhaps needing ventilators to breathe — even while their family and friends recover easily. New research by Rockefeller University scientists, published March 26 in Science, helps explain why: a rare genetic mutation. The researchers scrutinized blood and tissue...

Chicken Pox Virus May Be Linked to Serious Condition of Elderly

Written on February 20, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News.

A new study links the virus that causes chicken pox and shingles to a condition that inflames blood vessels on the temples and scalp in the elderly, called giant cell arteritis. The study is published in the February 18, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The condition can cause sudden blindness or stroke and can be life-threatening. The varicella zoster virus, of the herpes virus family,...

3D Vaccine Could Help Prevent Cancer & Infectious Disease

Written on February 11, 2015. Posted in Breaking News, Featured, Health News, Science News.

NIBIB-funded researchers have developed a novel 3D vaccine that could provide a more effective way to harness the immune system to fight cancer as well as infectious diseases. The vaccine spontaneously assembles into a scaffold once injected under the skin and is capable of recruiting, housing, and manipulating immune cells to generate a powerful immune response. The vaccine was recently found to be effective in delaying tumor growth in mice. “This...

Ebola Deaths Parallel with Devastating Medieval Plague

Written on January 22, 2015. Posted in Breaking News, Featured, Health News, World News.

As Ebola Deaths Rise, Researcher Sees Parallels with Devastating Medieval Plague If you think that Ebola is bad – and it is – the current outbreak in West Africa is small compared with another deadly epidemic that engulfed much of the globe centuries ago. It is realistic to estimate that during the Middle Ages, plague – also known as the Black Death – wiped out 40 to 60 percent of the population in large areas of Europe, Africa and Asia, according...

Ebola Epidemic Spurs Students to Launch Global Design Competition for Medical Healing

Written on December 29, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Featured, Health News, World News.

Driven by suffering Ebola patients and caregivers, architecture and medical students at New York Institute of Technology have launched a global competition to generate design ideas for mobile healing environments in areas affected by epidemics. The students formed a nonprofit group, Habitat for Healing, to solicit ideas for what they are calling Mobile Architectures for Strategic Healing or the “MASH Pad” project. The competition is...

Chikungunya: Another infectious disease the world is ignoring

Written on December 21, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Business News, Featured, Health News, Science News.

It’s a tale scientists are tired of telling: a disease that’s been carefully watched and studied for years is suddenly infecting an unprecedented number of people while promising drugs and vaccines sit on shelved, unfunded. This time it’s not Ebola but a mosquito-borne disease called chikungunya, which causes debilitating joint pain and has infected more than 1 million people just this year. Originating in Africa, the virus has rapidly spread into...

Unethical Ebola Quarantines May Encourage People to Lie about Travel to West Africa

Written on December 11, 2014. Posted in Health News, Opinion News, Science News.

“Who is going to want to go from the United States to help in West Africa knowing they are going to be in prison for three weeks when they get back?” asks Dr. Craig Klugman, professor and chair of Health Sciences, College of Science and Health. Klugman is a bioethicist and medical anthropologist who researches death and dying. “Probably very few people…” Klugman is also concerned that strict, unethical quarantine procedures...

Tag: Infectious Disease