The biggest push to vaccinate children in seven Middle Eastern countries against polio starts this week, with a goal of reaching 23 million kids in Syria and neighboring nations, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today. The campaign aims to reach all children under age 5 over the next few months, whether they live at home or in displaced populations.
The Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health (MOH) reported one new case of MERS-CoV today in a woman who had indirect contact with camels.
Significantly fewer infectious organisms are transferred through a fist bump than through a handshake or even a "high five," so fist bumps would be a more hygienic way of greeting others, says a study from the United Kingdom released today in the American Journal of Infection Control, the journal of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).
Eighty percent of survey respondents in 10 developing countries indicated a willingness to get a COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 65% in the United States and 30% in Russia, according to a study published late last week in Nature Medicine.
Hospitalizations, also on the rise, are highest in seniors and young children.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said today it is helping UK officials respond to their two recent monkeypox cases, which involve travelers from Nigeria, a country that has now reported 262 suspected cases.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) reported a second new Ebola case, which involves an 11-month-old girl who was treated at the same Beni hospital as a man whose illness was announced on Apr 10.
The number of Cryptosporidium outbreaks, which occur most commonly in the summer, has risen about 13% each year from 2009 to 2017, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
A new study out of Spain has found that antibiotic de-escalation in adult patients with community-acquired pneumonia appears safe and effective and does not adversely affect outcomes.
The Florida Department of Health (Florida Health) today reported the state's first locally acquired Zika case of the year, putting the nation's total this year at three local cases.
In a statement, Florida Health said the locally transmitted case has been confirmed in Manatee County, which wasn't one of the areas to report cases last year.
A 37-year-old Riyadh resident has died of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection, according to a brief translated statement from the Saudi Arabian health ministry today.
Twelve more hepatitis A infections are under investigation in a hepatitis A outbreak linked to a frozen berry blend, raising the number of suspected cases to 118, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported yesterday.
A study published Monday in Nature Ecology and Evolution suggests plasmids may play more of a role in spreading and facilitating antibiotic resistance than previously thought.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday stepped down its travel warnings for both Sierra Leone and Liberia, with Ebola activity continuing at zero weekly cases in both countries.
Liberia was declared free of the disease for a second time on Sep 3, and Sierra Leone will reach that mark on Nov 7 if no new cases are detected before then.
US levels of clinic visits for influenza-like illness (ILI), after falling for 3 straight weeks, rose slightly last week, but the increase might be related to concerns over COVID-19, according to the latest FluView report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the flu season continues to take a toll on children.
Qatar has reported three more MERS cases to the World Health Organization (WHO), the WHO said yesterday. The three cases are related, and all case-patients are from Doha.
The first case-patient is a 67-year-old woman who developed symptoms of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection at the end of November, and died on Dec 12. The source of her illness is still under investigation.
Qatar has reported its first MERS-CoV case this year, according to media reports, while Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed three new cases in as many days, all in men, none of whom are healthcare workers.
A 67-study meta-analysis found that vaccines recommended for US kids were safe and that serious side effects were rare, according to a Rand Corp. report today in Pediatrics.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison today described a new technique that could improve the production of influenza B vaccine viruses, consisting of a "backbone" for adding specific components to protect against both the Victoria and Yamagata lineages. They reported their findings today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dutch investigators have identified the colistin resistance gene MCR-1 in nearly 25% of samples of Dutch retail chicken meat, according to a new study in Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control.
For the study, the investigators bought 214 chicken meat samples from four supermarket chains throughout the Netherlands in 2015. They collected 53 or 54 samples from each chain.
A study yesterday in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology found that individuals with mild or no COVID-19 symptoms may be infectious for no more than about 10 days, while those with severe illness may be able to spread the virus for as long as 20 days. The infectious periods align with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations for isolation time.
A new interim report shows the UK livestock industry is making progress toward 2020 antibiotic targets.
Public transportation usage dropped 72.7% across the United States from Feb 15 to May 17, but vulnerable populations and essential or physical workers were most likely to continue using it, according to a study published yesterday in PLOS One.
In 2020, in-hospital mortality dropped from 19.1% in March and April to 10.8% in September through November in COVID-19 patients in the United States, according to a study yesterday in JAMA Network Open.
Melinta Therapeutics of Morristown, New Jersey, announced yesterday that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Kimyrsa (oritavancin) for treatment of adult patients with acute bacterial skin and skin-structure infections (ABSSSIs) caused by susceptible gram-positive pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
