International trial of two microbicides begins
...face of the vagina to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs)--will one day be a key tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Women make up nearly half of all people living with HIV worldwide. "The majority of new cases of HIV infection in women result from heterosexual intercourse, but women may not always b...Trial reveals safer and simpler approach to treating children with cystic fibrosis
Treating chest infections in young cystic fibrosis patients with an antibiotic once instead of three times daily is as effective and less toxic, conclude the results of a randomised trial published in this week's issue of THE LANCET. Aminoglycoside antibiotics are widely used...HIV infection still on the rise
...003 and 2004 compared with 2002, partly because of infections acquired abroad. Furthermore, each newly diagnosed HIV patient consumes 12,500 in healthcare costs each year, while the lifetime costs of care for the current 50,000 infected individuals in the United Kingdom, with a life expectancy of 20 years, is a...Early HIV screening prolongs life and is affordable, Stanford study shows
...rol and Prevention estimates that up to 20,000 new infections annually can be attributed to people who are unaware of their HIV-positive status. A 2003 CDC initiative recommended making voluntary testing a routine part of medical care, yet Owens said screening is still not widespread. (Money is an issue, he sai...Physicians call for increased funding for federal infectious disease programs
...sistance. About 2 million people acquire bacterial infections in U.S. hospitals each year, and 90,000 die as a result. About 70 percent of these infections are resistant to at least one drug, according to CDC. The total cost of antimicrobial resistance to ...News briefs from the journal CHEST, February 2005
...rly exposure to tobacco smoke, and recurrent chest infections in infancy. The only differing risk factor of significance was that males were more likely to have asthma. In sharp contrast, having a higher social class at birth and atopic sensitization at 4 years were found to be the significant risk factors fo...HIV-infected parents report limiting physical contact with their children
...t the virus and may be vulnerable to opportunistic infections (occurring in people with weakened immune systems)...cent reported at least "a little" fear of catching infections from their children. Of participants, 27.9 percent avoided one of four types of interaction with the...Parents comfortable with vaccination for sexually transmitted infections for adolescent children
...accines for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are in development, according to background...cine's effectiveness. Parents favored vaccines for infections that had no methods of behavioral prevention available. "Most parents are focused on protecting thei...Substance protects resilient staph bacteria
...dis to survive on medical implants. S. epidermidis infections are rarely fatal but can lead to serious condition...nk DeLeo, Ph.D. "Nosocomial, or hospital-acquired, infections are a worrisome public health problem made worse by the increase in antibiotic resistance," says NIA...New way to block pox shows promise in lab study
...ection, turns the usual approach to fighting viral infections on its head. By developing drugs targeted to the u...ors say it might be possible to battle acute viral infections in a way that prevents the virus from mutating its way around a drug attack. "The threat of smallpox...Promise of 'bladder pacemaker' for people with spinal cord injury
...neys. This backup causes the chronic urinary tract infections and kidney problems that typically plague people with SCI. What's surprising and encouraging about the findings, said the researchers, is that electrically stimulating the pudendal nerve caused the urethral sphincter to function normally and to effic...$10-million study explores men's role in transmitting HPV
...hits women? "We need to know what the rates of new infections are, how long they last, whether they respond to antibodies," she explains. "We are only a year or two away from having a vaccine for women licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. We don't know if we need to vaccinate men." Latin Ameri...Lottery funding to aid research into superbugs
... aim to find new ways to combat the bacterial lung infections which eventually cause the death of 90% of those w...and appropriate use of antibiotics to control lung infections is essential to increase the quality of life and survival of individuals with CF. We are faced, howe...Study shows that diabetes increases risk of blood poisoning
A new study adds potentially fatal blood infections to the list of health risks from diabetes, a condi... blood vessels and blindness. A heightened risk of infections in diabetic people has also been suggested. The condition known as sepsis can be brought on by blood...US syphilis epidemics not driven by increases in unsafe sex say researchers
...eillance studies, where changes in the rate of new infections may not always be attributable to changes in behaviour or the environment....People wounded in tsunami at risk of undetected fungal infections
...derlying immune problems. The authors believe that infections found in travellers who have returned from tsunami...ed from affected areas could be good predictors of infections in survivors because they may have greater access to advanced diagnostic services than do those who ...Adults who had higher exposure to infant siblings have decreased risk for MS
... The "hygiene hypothesis" proposes that early life infections may reduce the risk for allergic and autoimmune disorders, and can influence the developing immune system, according to background information in the article. Having siblings may increase the number of early-life infections, and lack of contact with ...Vaginal hysterectomy leads to better outcomes than abdominal surgery
...es, women who had vaginal hysterectomies had fewer infections and high temperatures after surgery compared to those who had abdominal hysterectomies. Women with vaginal hysterectomies also returned to their normal activities quicker than those who had the abdominal surgery, the researchers found. The better ou...Other highlights in the January 19 JNCI
...ening in women age 30 and older. However, most HPV infections are benign. It has been suggested that the HPV DNA test could be improved with the addition of more HPV types, but it is not known what effect this would have on the test's accuracy. To evaluate the impact of modifying the HPV DNA test, Mark Schiffma...Newly discovered virus linked to childhood lung disorders and Kawasaki disease
...rome; both the disease and respiratory coronavirus infections are seasonal, peaking in the winter and spring; recent studies have described a powerful immune response in the respiratory tract and other organs in acute cases of Kawasaki disease, suggesting the involvement of a specific microbe, which may enter t...