Latest Plague Stories

The FDA has announced its approval of the antibacterial agent levofloxacin, or “Levaquin,” to treat and prevent the plague. Manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, Levaquin was approved under the FDA’s Animal Efficacy rule which allows results from animal testing to be studied if such tests on humans aren’t ethical or feasible. Why prevent the plague, and why now? Also known as Yersinia pestis, the plague is considered to be a bioterrorism threat. As such, the US government...

Among medical mysteries baffling many infectious disease experts is exactly how the deadly pneumonic plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, goes undetected in the first few day of lung infection, often until it's too late for medical treatment. New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine has opened a door to the answer. Researchers led by William E. Goldman, PhD, professor and chair of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina at...

A year ago Serious Games Interactive released the first episode in the Playing History educational game series, “Playing History: The Plague”. Since then the game has been used in more than 500 schools, won several awards and is nominated to the prestigious BETT Award 2012. Now the game is available on iPad! (PRWEB) January 08, 2012 Serious Games Interactive is proud to announce our groun-breaking and awardwinning Playing History-series to the Ipad. The series is a 3D online adventure...

Scientists have successfully mapped the complete genome of the Black Death - the bubonic plague that wiped out 50 million Europeans between 1347 and 1351 and remains one of the most severe epidemics of all time - various news agencies reported on Wednesday. According to Kate Kelland of Reuters, an international team of researchers extracted and purified DNA from the remains from victims buried in the so-called plague pits of London. "Building on previous research which showed that a...

Zoo will form major consortium to work for healthy animals, healthy people ST. LOUIS, Sept. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A leader in wildlife conservation medicine for the past 20 years, the Saint Louis Zoo will establish an Institute for Conservation Medicine and take its conservation work to a new level, it was announced today. The Institute will focus its research on diseases known to affect threatened and endangered wildlife, as well as how disease relates to domestic animals and...

  According to a study published Tuesday, a less virulent version of the 14th century's Black Death plague is still present today. DNA testing on the skeletons of plague victims unearthed in a medieval London mass grave revealed part of the same gene sequence as the modern bubonic plague. "At least this part of the genetic information has barely changed in the past 600 years" said Johannes Krause, one of the authors of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy...

Rinderpest is gone! A cattle disease that has caused millions of people to die of starvation for hundreds of centuries has been declared eradicated from the world, according to world animal health body OIE."Today we witness a historical event as rinderpest is the first animal disease ever to be eradicated by humankind," OIE Director General Bernard Vallat said at the organization's annual gathering.The Office International des Epizooties (OIE), the World Organization for Animal...

Green on satellite images warns of hantavirus outbreaksThe risk of deadly hantavirus outbreaks in people can be predicted months ahead of time by using satellite images to monitor surges in vegetation that boost mouse populations, a University of Utah study says. The method also might forecast outbreaks of other rodent-borne illnesses worldwide."It's a way to remotely track a disease without having to go out and trap animals all the time," says Denise Dearing, professor of biology...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, at the American Society for Microbiology Conference on Biodefense and Emerging Diseases, scientists from Abbott Molecular presented data showing the unique power of the company's Ibis technology to identify and further characterize unknown disease-causing pathogens to help aid in the bioforensic analysis of pandemic outbreaks. In a presentation at the conference, Tim Motley, principal scientist, Ibis Biosciences, a subsidiary of Abbott...

There is an ongoing battle in the "war on terror" that remains mostly unseen to the public -- a race between scientists working to develop a vaccine to protect against plague and the terrorists who seek to use plague as a weapon."Governments remain concerned that bioweapons of aerosolized Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes plague, could kill thousands," said Stephen Smiley, a leading plague researcher and Trudeau Institute faculty member.The anthrax scare that followed the terror...