Infections
Malaria prevention saves children’s lives
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Malaria continues to be a major disease worldwide, but while funding projects are working hard to improve malaria prevention it is difficult to measure how effective these interventions are. New research published in BioMed Central’s open access journal Malaria Journal has used a Lives Saved Tool (LiST) model to show that the increase in funding for the prevention of malaria has prevented 850,000 child deaths in the decade between 2001 and 2010 across Africa.
According to the WHO, malaria caused an estimated 655 000 deaths in 2010, mostly among African children. They estimate that a child dies every minute due to malaria in Africa. Deaths which are unnecessary, because malaria is both preventable and curable. In addition to diagnosis and treatment of sick children, simple solutions to prevent the diseases like insecticide treated mosquito nets (ITN) and malaria prevention during pregnancy, (IPTp), have all been shown to reduce the number of deaths due to malaria. Initiatives like Roll Back Malaria, set up in 1998, aim to reduce child mortality due to malaria by two thirds, by 2015, using large scale implementation of these simple solutions.
Researchers from USA at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins, the WHO and the Malaria Control and Evaluation Partnership in Africa (MACEPA), used the LiST model to investigate the impact of malaria prevention in the decade between 2001 and 2010 across 43 countries in sub-Saharan Africa where malaria is endemic. The team, led by Dr Thomas Eisele, based their model on UN estimates of malaria deaths over the year 2000 and future population growth, the effectiveness of ITNs and IPTp in preventing child deaths, and the number of households using ITN to protect their children.
Stress in cells activates hepatitis viruses
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People who have received a donor organ need lifelong immunosuppressant drugs to keep their immune system from attacking the foreign tissue. However, with a suppressed immune system, many infectious agents turn into a threat. Infections such as with human cytomegalovirus and a certain type of human polyomavirus frequently cause complications in transplant recipients. For these patients it would therefore be particularly beneficial to have substances that suppress the immune system and exert an antiviral activity at the same time – thus killing two birds with one stone.
Jointly with colleges from Heidelberg University Hospital of Internal Medicine, researchers Professors Karin and Felix Hoppe-Seyler of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have now tested a number of drugs with such an activity profile. They also tested the substances in liver cells infected with hepatitis B viruses (HBV) in the culture dish. The result: Liver cells that had been treated even produced considerably more viral offspring than untreated ones.
The substances under investigation inhibit the synthesis of nucleotides, which are the basic building blocks of DNA. This is how they exert their immunosuppressive effect: They slow down multiplication of immune cells because these lack building material for duplicating their genetic material. “The lack of DNA building blocks can cause a kind of stress in specific cells, which shows in the activation of a stress protein called p38”, says Felix Hoppe-Seyler. “In liver cells, p38 very effectively activates the replication of hepatitis B viruses. ”
India must be cautious over polio milestone: WHO
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India may be celebrating a milestone in its fight against polio with no new cases in the last year, but complacency should not set in as a resurgence of the infection can occur if efforts are not sustained, the WHO head in India warned on Friday.
The last case of the crippling disease was detected on January 13, 2011 in a two-year-old girl in India’s West Bengal state. A full year without any new cases will mean India will no longer be “polio-endemic,” leaving only Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.
“We are all subject to relaxing a bit when we have achieved some goal but we simply cannot allow that to happen with polio,” Nata Menabde, the India head of the World Health Organization (WHO), told AlertNet in an interview.
Indonesia probes Bali tattoo HIV infection report
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Indonesia is investigating the case of an Australian who is believed to have been infected with HIV while getting a tattoo on the resort island of Bali, an official said Monday.
“We received a report about this case from the health ministry yesterday and officials will be visiting tattoo parlours today to verify this claim,” Bali health department chief Nyoman Sutedja told AFP.
“At this point, we are still investigating. We can’t say for sure if the patient caught the virus from getting a tattoo or sexual contact,” he added.
Alarming pattern of antibiotic use in the southeastern United States
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New research suggests a pattern of outpatient antibiotic overuse in parts of the United States—particularly in the Southeast—a problem that could accelerate the rate at which these powerful drugs are rendered useless, according to Extending the Cure, a project of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy.
These findings come out just as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) kicked off an annual effort to reduce overuse of antibiotics called “Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work.” The campaign, which lasts throughout the week, urges Americans to use antibiotics wisely. The CDC estimates that $1.1 billion is spent annually on unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions for adult upper respiratory infections alone. These prescriptions also speed the development of resistance to important antibiotic therapies.
Also, on Monday of this week, Extending the Cure introduced a new tool that allows non-experts to track changes in antibiotic effectiveness over time. The new Drug Resistance Index (DRI) is similar in concept to the Consumer Price Index and is described in a paper in the British Medical Journal Open.
Study finds shifting disease burden following universal Hib vaccination
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Vaccination against Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib, once the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in children, has dramatically reduced the incidence of Hib disease in young children over the past 20 years, according to a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online. However, other strains of the bacteria continue to cause substantial disease among the nation’s youngest and oldest age groups.
“The Hib vaccine was successful in reducing disease among children 5 years and younger, and now the epidemiology has changed,” said lead author Jessica MacNeil, MPH, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who, with colleagues, analyzed data for the current epidemiology and past trends in the invasive disease over the past two decades following the introduction of the Hib vaccine in the mid-1980s. Most H. influenzae disease in the United States is now caused by other, non-type b strains of the bacteria.
The study authors warn that the highest rates of disease from non-b type strains are in the oldest and youngest age groups, those 65 and older and infants less than a year old. Among children younger than 5 years old, young infants are the most likely to be diagnosed with the disease. Many of these cases occur during the first month of life, and among those, premature and low-birthweight babies are the most vulnerable.
China vaccinates 4.5 million people in fight against polio
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China vaccinated 4.5 million children and young adults over the last five weeks in the western region of Xinjiang in a fight against polio after the disease paralyzed 17 people and killed one of them, the World Health Organization said.
Polio has broken out in China for the first time since 1999 and scientists say the strain originated from Pakistan. The outbreak marked the latest setback to a global campaign to eradicate polio, now endemic in only four countries—Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Nigeria.
“Even if they don’t come down with any symptoms (carriers), by giving them polio vaccine we make that person less infectious,” said Oliver Rosenbauer, WHO spokesman for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in Geneva.
Potential vaccine readies immune system to kill tuberculosis in mice
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A potential vaccine against tuberculosis has been found to completely eliminate tuberculosis bacteria from infected tissues in some mice. The vaccine was created with a strain of bacteria that, due to the absence of a few genes, are unable to avoid its host’s first-line immune response. Once this first-line defense has been activated, it triggers the more specific immune response that can protect against future infections.
The research, by scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Colorado State University, appears in the September 4, 2011, issue of Nature Medicine.
Tuberculosis, an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is a global health concern, accounting for 2-3 million deaths annually. One third of the world’s population is infected with the bacterium, and according to the World Health Organization, new infections occur at a rate of about one per second. Most people who are infected don’t get sick, because the immune system keeps the bacteria under control. However, people whose immune systems are weakened, such as those with HIV/AIDS, are highly susceptible to the active form of the infection. With staggering rates of HIV infection in some parts of the world, such as Africa, co-infection with TB is a serious problem. To make matters worse, some strains of M. tuberculosis have become resistant to every drug currently used to treat tuberculosis.
“We’re back to where we were before there were drugs for TB,” says William R. Jacobs, Jr., an HHMI investigator at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
EU bans Egyptian seeds over deadly E.coli outbreak
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Europe banned imports of some seeds and beans from Egypt on Tuesday after food safety investigators said a single shipment of fenugreek seeds from there was the most likely source of a highly toxic E. coli epidemic which has killed 49 people.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said beyond France and Germany, where outbreaks of the deadly E. coli strain have made thousands ill in recent months, other European Union countries may have received batches of suspect seeds.
It urged the officials to make “all efforts” to prevent any further exposure and said consumers should not eat sprouts or sprouted seeds unless they are thoroughly cooked.
Who goes there? Novel complex senses viral infection
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Double-stranded (ds) RNA viruses are a diverse group of viruses that include rotaviruses, a common cause of gastroenteritis. The ability of the immune system to detect and destroy viruses is critical for human health and survival. Now, a study published by Cell Press in the June 23rd issue of the journal Immunity identifies a novel sensor that is necessary to activate the immune response to viral infection. The research enhances our understanding of the complex and overlapping mechanisms our immune cells use to thwart infection.
Viruses are infectious agents composed of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) and a protective protein coating. Viruses infect all types of organisms and can hijack host cell machinery to replicate (make many copies of themselves). The innate immune system is the body’s first line of defense against viruses and detects infection by sensing viral nucleic acids. Detection of a virus leads to activation of the type 1 interferon (IFN) response, a powerful weapon that is named for its ability to “interfere” with viral replication.
“During the past decade, major efforts using genetic approaches have identified three major classes of innate immune receptors for sensing microbial nucleic acids,” says senior study author, Dr. Yong-Jun Liu from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
‘My dishwasher is trying to kill me’
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A potentially pathogenic fungus has found a home living in extreme conditions in some of the most common household appliances, researchers have found. A new paper published in the British Mycological Society journal, Fungal Biology, published by Elsevier, shows that these sites make perfect habitats for extremotolerant fungi (which includes black yeasts). Some of these are potentially dangerous to human health.
Modern living comes with an increasing need for electrical household equipment such as dishwashers, washing machines and coffee machines. A characteristic of these appliances is a moist and hot environment. In the case of dishwashers, high temperatures between 60º to 80ºC are intermittently produced and aggressive detergents and high concentrations of salt are used in each washing cycle.
The article focuses on the occurrence of potentially pathogenic fungal flora located in dishwashers, over a sample of private homes from 101 cities on 6 continents. 62% of the dishwashers contained fungi on the rubber band in door, 56% of which accommodated the polyextremotolerant black yeasts Exophiala dermatitidis and E. phaeomuriformis. Both Exophiala species showed remarkable tolerance to heat, high salt concentrations, aggressive detergents, and to both acid and alkaline water. This is a combination of extreme properties not previously observed in fungi.
Cholera outbreaks closely follow temperature rise, rainfall
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Moderate increases in temperature and rainfall can herald cholera epidemics, a study in East Africa has found, and researchers urged governments to use those environmental cues to better protect vulnerable populations.
The researchers matched cholera outbreaks which occurred in Zanzibar between 1999 and 2008 against temperature and rainfall records over the same period and found that the environmental changes were closely followed by disease.
“We found that when temperature goes up by 1 degree Celsius, there is a chance of cholera cases doubling in four months’ time and if rainfall goes up by 200 millimetres, then in two months’ time, cholera cases will go up by 1.6 folds,” Mohammad Ali, a senior scientist at the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea, said by telephone.
Grape tomato products recalled for salmonella risk
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A supplier of grape tomatoes for Taylor Farms Pacific, Inc. has recalled the product for possible salmonella contamination, the government said late on Monday.
Products using the recalled tomatoes were sold in Albertsons, Raley’s, Safeway, Savemart, Sam’s Club and Walmart stores in Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Utah, according to a statement from the Food and Drug Administration.
The recalled tomatoes were used in a variety of products from prepared and packaged salads, to products sold at the stores’ deli counters. The products have sell-by dates between April 27 and May 9.
Streptococci and E. coli continue to put newborns at risk for sepsis
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Bloodstream infections in newborns can lead to serious complications with substantial morbidity and mortality. What’s more, the pathogens responsible for neonatal infections have changed over time. In recent years, however, antibiotic prophylaxis given to at-risk mothers has reduced the incidence of early-onset group B streptococcal infections among their babies.
A new nationwide, multi-site study aimed at determining current early-onset sepsis rates among newborns, the pathogens involved, and associated morbidity and mortality demonstrates that the most frequent pathogens associated with sepsis are group B streptococci (GBS) in full-term infants and Escherichia coli in preterm infants.
The study, which included nearly 400,000 newborns, also found that infection rates in newborns increased with decreasing gestational age and birth weight. The overall rate of infection was 0.98 per 1,000 live births; 0.41 per 1,000 live births involving GBS and 0.28 per 1,000 live births involving E. coli.
UK immigrant screening misses most latent TB: study
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British tuberculosis screening for new immigrants fails to detect most imported cases of latent disease and screening should be widened to include more people from the Indian subcontinent, scientists said on Thursday.
Britain has recently been dubbed “the tuberculosis (TB) capital of Europe” and is the only country in Western Europe with rising rates of disease.
Current British border policies require immigrants from countries with a TB incidence higher than 40 per 100,000 people to have a chest X-ray on arrival to check for active TB.
