Link between Zika Fever and birth defects in Brazil
The Brazilian health ministry has confirmed a link between a mosquito-borne virus from Africa, Zika Fever, and a high incidence of birth defects. The fever, it said, is behind a spike in cases of micro-encephalitis - an inflammation of the brain contracted in the first months of pregnancy. It has recorded two adult deaths and 739 cases of the disease, which can stunt the growth of the foetus's head. A World Health Organization...
Canada Communicable Disease Report: focus on antibiotic resistance
In the latest issue of CCDR, read about how normal flora can now be manufactured to treat Clostridium difficile and potentially other conditions, learn how optimal vaccine use can minimize the need for antibiotics, and see how the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has been funding research on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) innovation. In the ID News section read about the use of nanotechnologies to treat HIV, tuberculosis and yeast infections, and learn...
Antibiotic resistance: gene that enables resistance to spread between bacteria
The last line of antibiotic defence against some serious infections is under threat, say experts who have identified a gene that enables resistance to spread between bacteria in China. The gene, called mcr-1, allows a range of common bacteria, including E coli, to become resistant to the last fully functional class of antibiotics, the polymyxins. This gene, they say, is widespread in bugs called Enterobacteriaceae carried by both pigs and people...
Meningitis A vaccine in Africa
The MenAfriVa, introduced into Africa in 2010, has been a huge success: the caseload of Meningitis A has plummeted to zero in 16 countries that organized mass vaccination campaigns. However, health experts now worry that this one-off success will not, at least in some countries, be followed by the introduction of MenAfriVac into routine schedules of infant vaccination. A study just published in Clinical Infectious Diseases by Andromachi Karachaliou of Cambridge University and her colleagues shows...
Some antibiotics may worsen MRSA
A new study published in Cell Host & Microbe found that treating MRSA with certain first-line antibiotics can make MRSA infections worse. The research team at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in California found that in laboratory mice, treatment with antibiotics called beta-lactams - which are similar to methicillin - caused the MRSA bacteria to build inflammatory cell walls that damage tissues. Beta-lactam antibiotics kill normal staph by neutralizing their enzymes that make cell walls. However, the researchers found...
NY Microbiome Exhibition
Taking a Christmas vacation to New York? Be sure to take your kids to see The Secret World Inside You, an exhibition of the human microbiome at the American Museum of Natural History. You can read the full story about the exhibition on the New York Times website....
Canada Communicable Disease Report: Enteric outbreak surveillance in British Columbia
A paper on Enteric outbreak surveillance in British Columbia, 2009-2013 has been published in the latest CCDR; the co-authors are from the BC Centre for Disease Control; School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia; Vancouver Coastal Health Authority; Fraser Health Authority; Interior Health Authority; Vancouver Island Health Authority; and Northern Health Authority. You can read the full article here....