Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases News

• Heads Up! The Cardiovascular Secrets of Giraffes Because of their height, giraffes require scarily high blood pressures — yet they escape the massive health problems that plague people with hypertension. Can clinicians learn from these animals?
  Knowable Magazine, May 26, 2021
• Epilepsy Linked to Anxiety, Suicidality in Young Adults Adults between 18 and 25 with epilepsy face higher risk for mental illnesses, including anxiety, depression, and suicidality vs the general population, new research shows.
  Medscape Medical News, May 25, 2021
• Dengue May Double the Risk of Symptomatic COVID-19 A study from Brazil suggests that symptomatic COVID-19 infections are more common in people who previously had dengue. Is there a connection?
  Medscape Medical News, May 24, 2021
• New Type of Coronavirus Originating in Dogs Found: Study A new type of coronavirus believed to have originated in dogs was detected among patients hospitalized with pneumonia.
  Reuters Health Information, May 21, 2021
• CRISPR and the End of Genetic Diseases The promise and perils of a life-changing gene splicer.
  WebMD Health News, May 18, 2021
• NIH Vaccine Designer Takes Coronavirus Research to Harvard Corbett, 35, helped lead the NIH's development of the COVID-19 vaccine made by Moderna.
  Associated Press, May 11, 2021
• 2021 May Be Big Lyme Disease Year For the first time, Lyme disease-carrying ticks -- typically associated with woodlands in New England and other forested regions of the US -- have been found in abundance near beaches in Northern California, new research shows.
  WebMD Health News, May 07, 2021
• TB Regimen Cuts Treatment Time by a Third Patients as young as 12 years in this phase 3 trial fared as well with a new 4-month treatment as with the 6-month standard care.
  Medscape Medical News, May 07, 2021
• Shorter Tuberculosis Regimen With Moxifloxacin Not Inferior to 6-Month Treatment A new rifapentine-based regimen with moxifloxacin can shorten the treatment time for drug-susceptible pulmonary tuberculosis, the authors behind a new phase 3 test report.
  Reuters Health Information, May 05, 2021
• Progress Stalling on Malaria Elimination A report from the WHO reports incomplete success.
  Medscape Medical News, May 05, 2021
• Congo Declares End of Ebola Outbreak That Killed Six The Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday declared the end of an Ebola outbreak that infected 12 people in the eastern province of North Kivu and killed six of them.
  Reuters Health Information, May 03, 2021
• Disruptions to Immunization Put Millions of Children at Risk: UN Millions of children whose immunizations have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in Africa, are now at risk from life-threatening diseases such as measles, polio, yellow fever and diphtheria.
  Reuters Health Information, April 26, 2021
• Family Accused of Selling Bleach as COVID-19 Cure The family marketed the bottles as 'Miracle Mineral Solution,' which contained a sodium chlorite solution that they recommended mixing with an acidic activator to become chlorine dioxide, or bleach.
  WebMD Health News, April 27, 2021
• Being Overweight Ups Risk for Severe COVID-19 in Hospital This research "adds to the known data on the associations between obesity and severe COVID-19 disease and extends these findings" to patients who are overweight and/or have diabetes.
  Medscape Medical News, April 27, 2021
• Potential Malaria Vaccine Shows Promise in Burkina Faso Trial A potential new malaria vaccine has proved highly effective in a trial in babies in Africa, pointing to it one day possibly helping reduce the death toll from the treacherous mosquito-born disease.
  Reuters Health Information, April 23, 2021
• Malaria Resistant to Artemisinin Emerging in Africa Artemisinin resistance has long plagued the Mekong Delta, but the drug remains critical for treating malaria in Africa.
  Medscape Medical News, April 21, 2021
• More Tolerable Treatment for Chagas Disease Shows Promise For treatment of Chagas disease, benznidazole can be taken for a shorter period of time and at lower doses with similar efficacy to the current standard and is more tolerable, a new study suggests.
  Reuters Health Information, April 15, 2021
• The Tick Talk for Families and Pediatricians For many families, it is time to make decisions regarding summer activities. Outdoor activities have been encouraged throughout the pandemic, which makes it a good time to review tick-borne diseases.
  Medscape Medical News, April 16, 2021
• Novel Assay Promising for Detection of Ebola in Low-Resource Settings A new, highly sensitive point-of-care immunoassay called D4 may facilitate earlier detection of Ebola outbreaks, particularly in low-resource settings, researchers say.
  Reuters Health Information, April 12, 2021
• How Some COVID-19 Vaccines Could Cause Rare Blood Clots Regulatory agencies in the US and around the world are scrambling to determine the risk of potentially lethal but rare blood clots linked to adenovirus vaccines.
  Medscape Medical News, April 14, 2021