Medical Information Blog

Archive for the ‘Epidemiology’ Category

U.S. health officials investigated an outbreak of salmonella that has affected 40 people in Texas and New Mexico and could have spread to seven other states, today reported the Health Department.

The cause could be some tomatoes that have been eaten raw.

At least 17 of the 40 affected people have been hospitalized in both states, although no fatalities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As the first tests, the caseload caused by one type of virus and most patients said they reached the respective hospitals who had eaten raw tomatoes purchased at stores or served in a restaurant. Read the rest of this entry »

A team of Danish and American experts announced the discovery of a new way to combat malaria, by deleting a gene that helps the malaria parasite to reproduce inside mosquitoes.

The gene, whose function was unknown until now, allows the parasite to develop an egg-like structure called oocyte and spawns new infectious parasites, according to experts published in ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’. “When the gene is removed, we observe the effect of genetic absence of the parasite,” explained Klaerke Dan said, a physiologist at the University of Copenhagen and one of the members of the study scientists.

The team analyzed the Klaerke malaria parasite that infects rodents, similar to species that attack humans. The researchers, among whom was Nirbay Kumar of Johns Hopkins University, USA, focused on the operation of potassium channels in the parasites. Read the rest of this entry »

Preparing the world to face an influenza pandemic has improved after an “extraordinary global response” to the threat of avian influenza in recent years, said yesterday the world body’s coordinator for the flu, David Nabarro.

Nabarro said that there is still a risk of a pandemic if the avian flu virus mutates into a form that passes easily between humans. The H5N1 flu strain is highly pathogenic, has caused the death or destruction of nearly 300 million birds since it resurfaced in Asia in 2003.

While H5N1 rarely infects people, has killed 241 of 383 infected in 15 countries. Concern about the disease in the world increased in 2005, as cases were known in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Nabarro also said in a press conference of the UN that “there has been an extraordinary global response to the virus from spreading (…) (…) which has meant that now the continuous transmission of the virus occurs only in four, perhaps five countries.
The situation improved

Elsewhere, he added, “the situation is actually improving.”Countries generally have invested massively to improve the functioning of their veterinary services, and security (…) about the birds that are reared has generally improved. Read the rest of this entry »