News

Getting up close - and a little dirty - with farm animals just might help us fend off illness, say researchers who've further demonstrated the benefits of early exposure to a wide variety of environmental bacteria.

Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men and transgender women with HIV, who are not in care, can be engaged in care when reached and connected with HIV treatment services, according to findings from a clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s immune response to infection spirals out of control. Bacteria in the bloodstream trigger immune cells to release powerful molecules called cytokines to quickly activate the body’s defenses.

A UCLA-led research team has found that giving mice antibiotics for 10 days prior to a liver transplant leads to better liver function after the surgery.

Johns Hopkins Medicine and University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) researchers will lead a multicenter, multinational study of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), the “poliolike” condition affecting children that causes loss of muscle control.

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed a novel vaccine consisting of DNA and recombinant proteins composed of a portion of an HIV protein and another unrelated protein. This vaccine was tested in monkeys and was shown to induce antibodies similar to those associated with protection from HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Global warming may have played a pivotal role in the emergence of Candida auris, according to a new study published in mBio, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. C. auris, which is often multi-drug resistant and is a serious public health threat, may be the first example of a new fungal disease emerging from climate change.

The use of disinfectant wipes in hospitals is increasing; these wipes should be able to inactivate microorganisms including viruses on environmental surfaces and to prevent their transfer to clean areas.

The World Health Organization’s declaration that the year-long Ebola crisis is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is hoped to raise much-needed awareness and resources for preparedness and control efforts across the region, says the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).

Pneumonia resulting from exposure to Legionella -- although uncommon and affecting only 1 in 100,000 in Europe -- has a higher than 10 percent fatality rate

Scientists have found that mosquitoes are changing their hunting routines in response to host cues. For example, in Africa, mosquitoes now recognize when people emerge from bednets in the morning and have begun hunting more often during the day than at night.

First impressions are important -- they can set the stage for the entire course of a relationship. The same is true for the impressions the cells of our immune system form when they first meet a new bacterium.

Despite a large literature on surgical site infection (SSI), the determinants of prevention behaviors in surgery remain poorly studied. Understanding key social and contextual components of surgical staff behaviour may help to design and implement infection control (IC) improvement interventions in surgery.

The aim of this study by Ling and Hui (2019) was to establish a set of assessment methods suitable for evaluating the complex indoor environment of hospital wards and to ascertain the composition of bacteria and microbial ecology of hospital wards.

Microbial resistance to classical antibiotics and its rapid progression have raised serious concern in the treatment of infectious diseases. Recently, many studies have been directed toward finding promising solutions to overcome these problems. Phytochemicals have exerted potential antibacterial activities against sensitive and resistant pathogens via different mechanisms of action.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Recarbrio (imipenem, cilastatin and relebactam), an antibacterial drug product to treat adults with complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI) and complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI).

Researchers in the group of Jan Michiels (VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology) identified a mechanism of how sleepy bacteria wake up.

Fear, trust and the likelihood of exposure are three leading factors that influence whether people are willing to be vaccinated against a virulent disease, according to a new study in the journal Heliyon, published by Elsevier.

Having healthy gut flora -- the trillions of bacteria housed in our intestines -- could lower the risk of infection following knee and hip replacement surgeries, while an unhealthy intestinal flora may increase the risk of infection.

A new study by Montreal scientists published today in Nature demonstrates that a gut infection can lead to a pathology resembling Parkinson’s disease (PD) in a mouse model lacking a gene linked to the human disease.

The Leapfrog Group, an independent national healthcare watchdog organization,?today released Safety In Numbers: The Leapfrog Group’s Report on High-Risk Surgeries Performed at American Hospitals.

Women tend to have a greater immune response to a flu vaccination compared to men, but their advantage largely disappears as they age and their estrogen levels decline, suggests a study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Cryptococcus neoformans is a fungal pathogen that infects people with weakened immune systems, particularly those with advanced HIV/AIDS. New University of Minnesota Medical Research could mean a better understanding of this infection and potentially better treatments for patients.

Gut microbes produce compounds that prime immune cells to destroy harmful viruses in the brain and nervous system, according to a mouse study published today in eLife.

Ten years ago, in Marathon County, Wisconsin, 55 people were sickened by an uncommon fungal infection called blastomycosis. Thirty patients were hospitalized. Two people died.

A new study, led by researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UCI), uncovers the long-sought-after, three-dimensional structure of a toxin primarily responsible for devastating Clostridium difficile infection (CDI).