News

How many researchers does it take to change a light bulb? And how many lives could they save by changing it? The answer to both questions is more people than you might expect. In the developing world, light bulbs might as well be insect magnets. The light they emit – particularly the blue wavelengths of LED lights – is attractive to a range of insects, drawing them out from the night and straight to people's homes. Many insect species are attracted to light, which means that the type of bulb you use can actually increase the risk of catching vector-borne diseases.

Each year, World TB Day is observed on March 24. This year CDC selected the theme "Find TB. Treat TB. Working together to eliminate TB." Tuberculosis is still a life-threatening problem in this country, with much work needed to eliminate this devastating disease. Anyone can get TB, but thanks to public health TB control programs in this country, essential services are being provided to prevent, detect, and treat TB. In fact, in the United States, the number of TB cases reported every year is continuing to decline, thanks in large part to the efforts of frontline staff at state and local TB control programs.

Dr. Stéphane Hugonnet, team lead for gobal capacities, alert and responses for the World Health Organization (WHO), was one of the first WHO experts sent to Guinea to investigate cases of Ebola reported in late March 2014. A medical doctor who has spent the past 20 years working for WHO, MSF and others, managing outbreaks ranging from cholera, measles and yellow fever, to Lassa, Ebola and meningitis, Hugonnet found a very different sort of outbreak when he arrived in Guinea.

Research led by scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has identified key molecules that trigger the immune system to launch an attack on the bacterium that causes tularemia. The research was published online March 16 in Nature Immunology.

Chlorine, a disinfectant commonly used in most wastewater treatment plants, may be failing to completely eliminate pharmaceuticals from wastes. As a result, trace levels of these substances get discharged from the plants to the nation’s waterways. And now, scientists are reporting preliminary studies that show chlorine treatment may encourage the formation of new, unknown antibiotics that could also enter the environment, potentially contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.

A growing risk of outbreaks of measles, pertussis, and other vaccine-preventable diseases in countries affected by Ebola must be countered by urgent scaling up of routine immunization activities, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Every day, patients around the country get IV devices placed in their arms, to make it easier to receive medicines or have blood drawn over the course of days or weeks. But these PICC lines also raise the risk of potentially dangerous blood clots. Now, a University of Michigan Medical School team has shown how serious that clot risk really is for hospitalized patients, and what factors put patients at highest risk.

Wireless sensors recording human interactions explain the transmission of MRSA in hospitals, according to research by Thomas Obadia and colleagues. The study, published this week in PLOS Computational Biology, reveals that close proximity interactions between patients and healthcare workers in Berck-sur-Mer hospital, France, acted as pathways for the transmission of Staphylococcus aureus strains.

Dr. Pierre Formenty has spent the past 20 years investigating communicable disease outbreaks, including many Ebola outbreaks. In mid-March 2014, while in Kinshasa, training healthcare workers to safely take and dispatch blood samples that may contain ‘dangerous pathogens’ such as Ebola virus, he began receiving emails that got him worried.