News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The British biotechnology company Acambis announced yesterday that it has launched the first clinical trial of its vaccine for West Nile virus, called ChimeriVax-West Nile.

The phase 1 trial will involve 60 adult volunteers in Lenexa, Kan., the company said in a news release. The volunteers will receive one of three doses of the West Nile vaccine or a licensed yellow fever vaccine that is being used as a control.

(CIDRAP News) – The dengue fever epidemic in Indonesia continues to spread, with almost 400 deaths and more than 26,000 cases since January 1, according to a number of news sources. Dr. Rita Kusriastuti, an official with the Indonesian Ministry of Health, said that more than 390 people had died of the mosquito-borne disease and that at least 30 of 32 provinces had reported cases, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) story today.

(CIDRAP News) – The dengue fever epidemic in Indonesia totaled 52,013 cases with 603 deaths between Jan 1 and Apr 4, but it has passed its peak in some provinces, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

(CIDRAP News) – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) this week announced four grants totaling more than $28 million to develop techniques for electronically simulating natural or terrorist-caused infectious disease outbreaks and responses to them.

(CIDRAP News) – The dengue fever epidemic in Indonesia has subsided after 58,301 cases were reported in 4 months, which rivaled the pandemic year of 1998, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

There were 658 deaths among cases of dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever reported from January through April, the WHO said yesterday. The case-fatality rate of 1.1% was lower than in previous years, officials said.

(CIDRAP News) – An unidentified hemorrhagic fever appears to be targeting children younger than 5 in an outbreak in the African country of Angola.

At least 39 people are believed to have died of the suspected hemorrhagic fever syndrome in the northern province of Uige between January and mid-March, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Mar 17.

(CIDRAP News) – Dengue fever in US travelers to tropical regions has registered a sharp upsurge, with as many cases in 2005 as in the previous 5 years combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A report in the Jun 30 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report summarizes the 96 cases that were reported in 2005. An accompanying editorial note says that 98 cases were diagnosed in 1999 through 2004.

(CIDRAP News) – Dengue fever is gaining a firmer foothold in southern Texas, putting residents at risk for the most dangerous form of the disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent outbreak of the debilitating tropical disease known as chikungunya fever in northern Italy apparently marks the mosquito-borne infection's first foothold in Europe, according to European health authorities.

(CIDRAP News) – Global health officials have noted sharp rises in the number of dengue fever cases in recent months, particularly in Latin American, Caribbean, and Asian countries where the disease is endemic.