Category Archives: Infectious Diseases

Better nutrition can cut risk of TB deaths by 60%, Indian study finds

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Large-scale field trials that provided healthy food packages to sufferers and their families showed radical reductions in fatalities

Infectious, deadly and long associated with poverty, tuberculosis causes weight loss, while poor diets increase the likelihood of developing the disease. Now, a study in India has found that improved nutrition can cut the risk of death by 60% and reduce the chances of infection within families by about 40%.

India has the highest burden of TB and TB deaths globally and has launched an ambitious plan to reduce incidence and death rates by 80% and 90% respectively by 2025.

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Parents in Pakistan could be jailed for polio vaccine refusal

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New law in Sindh introduces ‘extraordinary measures’ to ensure vaccination of children against range of infectious diseases

Parents in Pakistan who refuse to get their children vaccinated against infectious diseases could be jailed or fined under a new law introduced in Sindh province.

The introduction of the legislation is an attempt to eradicate polio, which is endemic in Pakistan, but will cover vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough (pertussis), measles, mumps and rubella.

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UK health officials bring forward autumn flu and Covid vaccinations

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Move in England comes after detection of highly-mutated coronavirus variant that is spreading around the world

Health officials have brought forward plans for autumn flu and Covid vaccinations after detecting a highly-mutated Covid variant that is spreading around the world.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said vaccinations would be available from 11 September in England as a precautionary measure intended to protect the most vulnerable as the winter months approach. The vaccination programme had not been scheduled to launch until early October.

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E coli outbreak at University of Arkansas sends five students to hospital

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About 100 students have reported symptoms of infection, and officials are trying to pinpoint the source of the outbreak

Health officials are investigating an outbreak of E coli food poisoning among students at the University of Arkansas, with dozens reporting symptoms and five people needing treatment in the hospital.

Among those affected are two 19-year-old sorority members who developed serious complications that can lead to kidney failure after being infected with the E coli strain O157:H7. That is according to Bill Marler, a Seattle food safety lawyer who said he reviewed the patients’ medical records after being contacted by the families.

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Political support for surveillance of Covid waning in Australia despite ‘waves of mutations’, scientists say

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Active community testing required on an intermittent basis to see ‘the whole iceberg, not just the tip’, Prof Catherine Bennett says

Political momentum for the monitoring and surveillance of Covid-19 is “fading”, the Australian virologist who developed a world-first method for rapidly isolating and characterising variants said.

Prof Stuart Turville, with the University of New South Wales Kirby Institute, said while the impact of Covid-19 in Australia is waning, the Sars CoV-2 virus that causes disease is constantly changing and “there is still a lot we don’t know”.

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Home Office considered using overseas workers in case of disease on Bibby Stockholm

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Ministers had planned to issue visa waivers to cover staff absences on barge housing asylum seekers

The Home Office considered drafting in workers from overseas using a visa waiver scheme in the event of an outbreak of an infectious disease on the controversial Bibby Stockholm barge to accommodate asylum seekers, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

The barge is moored in Portland, Dorset. It was opened to asylum seekers on 7 August as a key part of the government’s “small boats week” to signal that it was implementing its undertakings to move asylum seekers out of hotels. However, in a blow to this policy the barge was evacuated just four days later after legionella bacteria was found in the barge’s water pipes.

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US approves first RSV vaccine for use during pregnancy to protect babies

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CDC must now weigh in on vaccine to fight respiratory infection in vulnerable newborns

US regulators on Monday approved the first RSV vaccine for pregnant women so their babies will be born with protection against the scary respiratory infection.

RSV is notorious for filling hospitals with wheezing babies every fall and winter. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Pfizer’s maternal vaccination to guard against a severe case of RSV when babies are most vulnerable – from birth through six months of age.

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Barbenheimer-style gatherings blamed for Covid rise in Germany

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Events such as filmgoing craze partly blamed as epidemiologists warn country could have a summer wave

German epidemiologists are warning of a summer wave of coronavirus infections, blaming in part mass gatherings such as the Barbenheimer double feature craze.

The government’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), says that while infections remain low compared with at the height of the pandemic, they have been on the rise for the past month.

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Mary-Louise McLaws, epidemiologist who guided Australia through Covid, dies aged 70 from brain cancer

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Health minister says professor and WHO advisor was ‘an incredibly calm, articulate voice at a time that was very frightening’

Professor Mary-Louise McLaws, the epidemiologist who guided Australians through the Covid-19 pandemic, has died at the age of 70 from brain cancer.

McLaws died in her sleep on Saturday night, her husband Richard Flook said in a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald.

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Seals practise social distancing, aerial survey of North Sea shows

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Research suggests behaviour may reflect evolutionary response to previous outbreaks of disease

Aerial surveys of the North Sea have revealed that seals practise social distancing – and the discovery may have profound implications for the spread of disease among the marine mammals.

In a paper published today by the Royal Society, researchers conducting censuses of grey and harbour seals detail new evidence that the two species not only maintain distances between their own kind (unlike walruses, for instance, who cluster close together) but also that this behaviour may “reflect an evolutionary response to viral susceptibility”.

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French research centre behind controversial Covid paper found to have used questionable ethics processes

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Institution used concerning approval procedures for hundreds of studies, review says

A major French research centre that produced one of the most widely cited and controversial research papers of the Covid-19 pandemic has been found by an international research team to have used questionable and concerning ethics approval processes across hundreds of studies.

The Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire Méditerranée Infection, or IHU, is a large clinical research centre in the south of France. It was founded by Prof Didier Raoult, who was also director of the centre until August 2022, when he stood down ahead of the release of findings from a government audit that found the institute conducted trials “likely to constitute offences or serious breaches of health or research regulations”.

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Hiker describes squalid conditions at evacuated Swedish mountain lodge

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Airlifts were carried out from STF Kebnekaise in Lapland on Sunday after a stomach bug outbreak

A hiker has described squalid conditions at a mountain station at the foot of Kebnekaise, Sweden’s highest peak, in the days before it was forced to close due to a stomach bug outbreak.

STF Kebnekaise, a lodge in northern Lapland run by the Swedish tourist association, had to be evacuated on Sunday after attempts to manage cases of stomach sickness through quarantine had failed. The mountain station said on Sunday that it was not known how the outbreak had started.

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New vaccine research centre to help scientists prepare for ‘disease X’

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Facility in Porton Down, Wiltshire will allow vaccines to be developed for future pandemic pathogens

Ministers have opened a new vaccine research centre in the UK where scientists will work on preparing for “disease X”, the next potential pandemic pathogen.

The state-of-the-art Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre is based at the UK Health and Security Agency’s (UKHSA) Porton Down campus in Wiltshire.

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Swedish mountain lodge closes as stomach bug spreads among hikers

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Guests told to leave STF Kebnekaise mountain station and nearby campers evacuated from country’s highest peak

A popular lodge on Sweden’s highest peak has been forced to temporarily close after a stomach bug rapidly spread among hikers.

STF Kebnekaise mountain station, which lies at the foot of the 2,096m Kebnekaise massif, had quarantined several guests who had caught the bug in recent days but decided to take a more drastic measure after it was also detected in hikers camping in the area.

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Nose-picking healthcare workers more likely to catch Covid, data suggests

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Rhinotillexis may be underestimated cause of transmission between staff, say researchers

Nose-picking should be given greater consideration as a potential health hazard, researchers have said, after finding healthcare workers who engaged in rhinotillexis were more likely to catch Covid than those who refrained.

Scientists in the Netherlands say research has previously found healthcare workers who had direct contact with Covid patients were more likely to catch Covid than those who did not.

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Hundreds of families mourn in Peru as children fall victim to dengue outbreak

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Death toll mounts in northern Piura region after torrential rain and floods lead to worst ever epidemic

In a stream of white, mourners walked behind an ivory-coloured, shoulder-borne coffin as neighbours, heads bowed and hands clasped, peered out of doorways on the narrow street in Castilla, a middle-class suburb in Piura, northern Peru.

At the gates of the San José de Tarbes school, dozens of girls wearing grey skirts and white shirts with red ties awaited the cortege, holding white balloons and roses. It was a farewell for their schoolmate Priscila Quispe, seven, who died of dengue in the Santa Rosa public hospital last week.

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Sunak under fire as ‘stupid’ Eat Out to Help Out scheme to be focus of Covid inquiry

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Leading scientist attacks prime minister as criticism mounts of government approach to science during the crisis

Rishi Sunak is facing a barrage of criticism in the run-up to the official Covid-19 inquiry as a leading scientist attacks his “spectacularly stupid” Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which is believed to have caused a sudden rise in cases of the virus.

The prime minister’s role as chancellor during the pandemic is under increasing scrutiny – as is that of his predecessor at No 10, Boris Johnson – in an escalating Covid blame game at Westminster as Lady Hallett prepares to open her investigation into the government’s pandemic response later this month.

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Plans for UK ‘genomics transformation’ aim to act on lessons of Covid

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Ten-year science strategy of UK Health Security Agency will use data to combat infectious diseases faster and more effectively

Health officials in the UK have drawn up plans for a “genomics transformation” that aims to detect and deal with outbreaks of infectious diseases faster and more effectively in the light of the Covid pandemic.

Information gleaned from the genetics of Covid proved crucial as the virus swept around the globe, revealing how the pathogen spread, evolved, and responded to a succession of vaccines and medicines developed to protect people.

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US Covid emergency status ends as officials plan ‘new phase of managing’ virus

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Vaccines and medication will remain available for free ‘while supplies last’ but most Americans will have to pay for testing

Thursday marked the end of Covid-19’s public health emergency status in the US, concluding more than three years of free access to testing, vaccines, virtual accommodations and treatment for the majority of Americans.

The end of the emergency designation comes just weeks after the World Health Organization declared an end to the global health emergency. But the nation’s leading health officials also wanted to be sure Americans don’t confuse this marker for the end of Covid-19 concerns.

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Rochelle Walensky, who played a key role in Covid response, resigns as CDC chief

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Her departure comes as emergency declarations come to an end: ‘I have never been prouder of anything I’ve done’

Rochelle Walensky, who played a key role in the Biden administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, announced she will step down as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The announcement came as the World Health Organization said Friday that Covid is no longer a global emergency. The waning of the pandemic was a good time to make a transition, Walensky said.

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