Tuberculosis

(CIDRAP News) – US health officials failed to follow international health regulations and made other errors in dealing with Andrew Speaker, the man with drug-resistant tuberculosis who sparked a health scare by traveling overseas in May, according to a report released this week by Democrats in Congress.

(CIDRAP News) – Experts have concluded that the Atlanta man whose case of drug-resistant tuberculosis triggered an international health scare in May has a less dangerous form of the disease than was previously believed.

– TORONTO (CIDRAP News) – Ten years after H5N1 avian influenza first began to raise fears of a potential pandemic, the world has a stronger set of tools to contain that virus and similar threats, but also a fresh awareness of humanity's vulnerability to fast-spreading diseases, experts said yesterday at an international conference on flu.

(CIDRAP News) – As information piled up in the case of a man with a rare and dangerous form of tuberculosis (TB) who took multiple international air trips, it was revealed today that he is a lawyer and the son-in-law of a microbiologist who studies TB at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – In a rare action, federal health authorities have ordered an Atlanta man who has extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) into isolation and are looking for people who recently flew with him so they can be tested for the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – As expected, the World Health Organization (WHO) approved a resolution on the sharing of influenza viruses and access to pandemic vaccines just before adjourning its annual meeting of member countries today.

(CIDRAP News) – Social control measures such as closing schools and banning public gatherings played a significant role in slowing the advance of the 1918 influenza pandemic in a number of US cities, but their success depended on how soon the measures were deployed and how slowly they were lifted, two teams of researchers reported yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Interpol's top official said yesterday that evidence collected from terrorists suggests that international law enforcement agencies should be ready to respond to chemical and biological attacks.

(CIDRAP News) – Dr. Anne Francis, a pediatrician in Rochester, N.Y., says her group practice typically has a few doses of influenza vaccine left at the end of the flu season. But as of last week, with the demand for vaccination nearly gone, the clinic still had 580 doses on hand.

(CIDRAP News) – Last month the US Department of Health and Human (HHS) called for a greater role for N95 respirators in protecting healthcare workers in the event of an influenza pandemic, and now clinicians are raising questions about potential problems such as inadequate supplies and poor fit.