Latest Pandemic Stories

CHICAGO, Sept. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Fifty years ago this October, MRSA emerged into the world and is now a major global epidemic and the most common cause of antimicrobial resistant pathogen healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in most U.S. healthcare facilities. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090825/DC65136LOGO) "The MRSA pandemic continues to be a major public health threat and crisis along with other antimicrobial- resistant pathogens and must become a top...

UCLA life scientists and their colleagues have discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs studied had been exposed to the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu. "I was amazed that virtually every pig in this village was exposed," said Thomas B. Smith, director of UCLA's Center for Tropical Research and the senior author of the research. "Africa is ground zero for a new pandemic. Many...

  Two U.S. children who had fallen ill with a previously unidentified influenza virus contracted a new strain that formed when one type of swine flu somehow picked up genetic material from the strain that was responsible for 2009's swine flu pandemic, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Friday. According to AP Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione, the children - one of whom was from Pennsylvania and the other from Indiana - were infected in July...

Rutgers, University of Texas at Austin researchers determine three-dimensional structure of site on influenza B virus protein that suppresses human defenses to infection Researchers at Rutgers University and the University of Texas at Austin have reported a discovery that could help scientists develop drugs to fight seasonal influenza epidemics caused by the common influenza B strain. Their discovery also helps explain how influenza B is limited to humans, and why it cannot be as...

World MRSA Day, October 2 and World MRSA Awareness Month, October to fight against global inaction and to raise awareness to the global MRSA crisis. CHICAGO, Aug. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The 3rd Annual World MRSA Day Kickoff Event and Global MRSA Summit will be held October 1, 2011 at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Illinois. The 2011 Global theme is: 'The MRSA Epidemic - A Call to Action.' (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20091005/MRSALOGO)...

Scientists using new mathematical and computational techniques have identified six influenza A viruses that have particularly close genetic relationships to the H1N1 "swine" flu virus that swept through the United States beginning in the spring of 2009. That virus eventually killed almost 18,000 people worldwide.Biological studies focused on these strains of influenza virus could shed light on how the 2009 pandemic strain of influenza emerged, aiding in efforts to forestall another...

TREVOSE, Pa., June 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Myles Druckman, MD, a leading disease outbreak WHO: specialist and travel medicine expert. Available to discuss the E. coli outbreak in Germany and associated topics, specifically the impact the bacteria may have on travelers to and from affected WHAT: areas in Europe: Threat: How does this strain of the E. coli bacteria differ from...

Disease led to the establishment of the world's first veterinary schoolWASHINGTON, June 2, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Three decades after the global eradication of smallpox, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in Paris last week announced the eradication of rinderpest, a previously dreaded livestock disease that, throughout history, has killed millions of animals in Europe, Asia and Africa, and triggered famines with devastating consequences for the world's human population....

Analysis of mutations of the 2009 pandemic influenza A(H1N1) virus by researchers at the RIKEN Omics Science Center (OSC) has revealed major genetic differences between the virus in its early phase of infection in Japan and in its peak phase. While yielding valuable clues on the genetic origins of drug resistance, the findings also pave the way toward the development of new diagnostic kits for detecting and preventing the spread of global pandemic diseases.A unique triple combination of bird,...

Tokyo, Apr 26, 2011 - (JCN Newswire) - Analysis of mutations of the 2009 pandemic influenza A(H1N1) virus by researchers at the RIKEN Omics Science Center (OSC) has revealed major genetic differences between the virus in its early phase of infection in Japan and in its peak phase. While yielding valuable clues on the genetic origins of drug resistance, the findings also pave the way toward the development of new diagnostic kits for detecting and preventing the...