West Nile

(CIDRAP News) – As the number of West Nile virus cases continues to climb, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced that its scientists have created a promising new vaccine against the virus. The vaccine involves a distantly related virus, dengue type 4, in which some proteins have been replaced by corresponding proteins from the West Nile virus.

Aug 15 (CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Thursday that West Nile cases have tripled in just the last week. As of yesterday, the CDC was reporting 446 cases of West Nile virus and 10 deaths. Colorado accounts for more than half of those cases, with 247 and 6 deaths.

(CIDRAP News) – As of June 14, all blood donations in the United States are screened for West Nile virus (WNV) through a program among US blood collection agencies (BCAs) that uses nucleic acid–amplification tests (NATs). The program and its success thus far are described in a report in the Aug 15 issue of Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report, released today.

(CIDRAP News) – Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned on Aug 7 that the number of West Nile cases (153) had tripled during the first week of August and that the disease appeared to be spreading rapidly across the United States. Just since that time, the number of cases has more than doubled again. In the Aug 7 telebriefing, Dr.

(CIDRAP News) – The United States remains underinvested in public health even though terrorism and new diseases like SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) have raised the public health system's profile, the nation's top disease-prevention leader told public health graduates at the University of Minnesota yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The head of the World Health Organization's (WHO's) communicable disease programs says severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) may pose a more serious global health threat than any other new disease in the past 20-plus years, with the sole exception of AIDS.

(CIDRAP News) – In response to a US senator's speculation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says there is no evidence that bioterrorism has played a role in the spread of West Nile virus to and within the United States.

(CIDRAP News) Ð The Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention (CDC) is much better prepared to deal with a terroristattack now than it was a year ago, before Sep 11 and the subsequent anthraxattacks, CDC officials said this week.