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A chikungunya candidate vaccine developed using noninfectious virus-like particles (VLPs) has been shown to provide long-term protection against multiple genotypes of the disease, according to results of the first human trial, conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and published today in The Lancet.
The WHO voiced concern about Ebola-related bans on flights to outbreak countries and other African nations.
The plan will speed up the hunt for the source when ground beef is tainted with E coli O157:H7.
A federal vaccine advisory group yesterday recommended that adults age 65 and older receive the Prevnar 13 pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, according to a press release from Pfizer Inc., the vaccine's maker. Using the vaccine alongside the current 23-valent pneumococcal vaccine is thought to provide broader protection.
States reported another bump in Cyclospora cases last week, and health officials are still trying to determine how many are travel-related and if there is a common source for the locally acquired cases. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that as of Aug 12 it had been notified of 283 Cyclospora infections, 48 more than the previous week.
Study suggests the high-dose flu vaccine gives seniors significantly better protection than standard-dose vaccines.
From travel-related measures to the offer of experimental vaccine, African and non-African nations take steps to control spread.
The number of travel-related US chikungunya cases has grown to 580, an increase of 96 in the past week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly update. The number of locally acquired cases stayed at 4, for 584 total US cases.
As deaths top 1,000, a panel says it's ethical to use unlicensed drugs, vaccines.
H7N9 avian flu, which emerged in humans in China in the spring of 2013 and has since caused more than 450 cases, was found to replicate well in both the upper and lower respiratory tracts of cynomolgus macaques, a model for humans, and to show extended replication in the upper tract, indicating the possibility of prolonged shedding and transmissibility, say findings of a study today in mBio.
For the second time in as many days, Saudi Arabia has reported a new MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) case after a month-long hiatus, its Ministry of Health (MOH) said today.
In recent days, Guinea closed its borders, and suspected cases in Canada and Saudi Arabia were ruled out.
Officials reported more than 62,000 new chikungunya cases in the Caribbean and surrounding areas last week—almost all in the Dominican Republic—expanding the outbreak to 576,000 cases, according to an Aug 8 update from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
Along with the agency's declaration came an emergency committee's list of steps to limit disease spread.
The Obama administration is setting up an Ebola working group to consider making policy for the possible use of experimental drugs in West Africa's Ebola epidemic, Reuters reported yesterday, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lifted a barrier to the potential use of an unlicensed drug made by a Canadian company.
Liberia and Sierra Leone have taken new actions to curb infections, as response activities and testing of possible travel-related cases play out on other continents.
An official of a leading aid group asserts that inaction by the rest of the world has let the disease get out of control.
This year's tally of US chikungunya cases related to foreign travel, mostly to the Caribbean, has risen to 484, an increase of 86 over the past week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says.
Forty states have reported cases, three more than a week ago, the agency said in an Aug 5 update. The number of locally acquired cases stayed at four, all of them in Florida.
Treatment of two US citizens with an Ebola drug raises ethical questions over who should get scarce, unlicensed drugs.
With the situation in Nigeria worsening, CDC takes an action it last took during the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic.
