Global funding for the research and development (R&D) of new tuberculosis (TB) drugs, vaccines, and rapid diagnostic tests dropped 4.6% in 2012, to $627.4 million, after rising every year since 2005, according to a report from the New York–based Treatment Action Group (TAG), which focuses on AIDS and TB.
The United States experienced a marked increase in imported measles cases in 2011. A new analysis of 16 outbreaks that year involving imported measles found that they cost public health agencies from $2.7 million to $5.3 million.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and other health groups yesterday launched what they billed as the first global action plan to stop tuberculosis (TB) in children, saying it could save as many as 74,000 lives each year.
The owners of Colorado's Jensen Farms, source of contaminated cantaloupes blamed for a widespread Listeria outbreak in 2011, have been arrested on misdemeanor charges of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce, according to an Associated Press (AP) story yesterday.
Scientists who conducted the first large-scale cholera outbreak control campaign in Africa using oral vaccine reported yesterday in PLoS One that immunization was well accepted by the public and that high vaccination coverage is possible, even in remote settings.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today it has received reports of six more Cyclospora infections, lifting the nation's total to 616 so far (see map below).
Of 591 case-patients with available information, 45 (8%) were hospitalized. The latest illness-onset date was Aug 6.
Diethycarbamazine (DEC) has become the first medication prequalified by the World Health Organization (WHO) for treatment of a neglected tropical disease (NTD), namely lymphatic filariasis, the WHO announced today. The drug's Japanese manufacturer, Eisai Co. Ltd., has committed to donating 2.2 billion tablets over a 6-year period.
A report from the Yale University Law School says the United Nations is legally and morally obligated to compensate Haiti for the cholera epidemic caused by UN peacekeepers.
Four more people have been sickened with hepatitis A after eating a berry mix that contained contaminated pomegranate seeds from Turkey, raising the total the 131, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said yesterday in its latest update.
Four more patients have been hospitalized for their infections, raising that total to 59. The latest illness onset is Jun 24.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told private sector representatives and philanthropists yesterday that they should "make a smart investment in the world's future" by joining the United Nations in helping wipe out the world's deadliest infectious diseases—malaria, polio, tetanus, measles, and HIV—in the next 5 years.
