Monthly Archives: August 2016
Zambia plague outbreak yields lessons learned — again
When the first children with fevers and swollen neck glands arrived at public health clinics in the Nyimba District of Zambia in March 2015, health workers tested them for malaria. And when results showed the children had the mosquito-borne disease, they were given the standard treatment for that illness and sent home. As more patients […]
From a human-scented mosquito trap to rapid diagnostics, USAID funds research and development against Zika
Agency picks 21 of 900 ideas from around the world A research center in Tanzania will develop inexpensive sandals treated to ward off mosquito bites. Investigators at Johns Hopkins will create a human-scented trap to lure mosquitoes. In Sao Paolo, Brazil, inventors will make an “intelligent trap” for mosquitoes to improve Zika surveillance. A San […]
In diagnostics, capacity building, coordination and new medicines, we’re reading why preparedness makes all the difference
Why the world needs an essential diagnostics list – When a man in Angola’s capital city fell ill and died last December, the four weeks that passed before laboratory testing confirmed the cause gave the current yellow fever outbreak in that country a running start. “Without diagnostics,” as this Forbes piece puts it, “medicine is […]
Underfunded tuberculosis programs often solely responsible for TB-HIV activities, report finds
While tuberculosis remains the number one killer of people living with HIV – with one in three HIV-related deaths attributable to tuberculosis – the burden to provide TB-HIV integrated services falls heavily on tuberculosis programs, not HIV programs, a report from Action finds. The report, “From Policy to Practice: How the TB-HIV response is working,” […]
AIDS 2016: Conference features release of “heavy” WHO guidelines
While “August is the new September” in accelerated Zika vaccine quest, funding gap could slow momentum, Fauci says
The first of a planned 80 participants was enrolled Tuesday in a trial to test the initial safety and immune-response-prompting potential for a vaccine candidate to protect against Zika virus infection, with hopes to yield results that will lead to further, larger scale testing beginning in January 2017, Dr. Anthony Fauci said today. The Aug. 1 […]
AIDS 2016: Seeds planted at 2000 conference grow infectious disease responses in prisons
In 2000, when former South Africa President Nelson Mandela spoke at the International AIDS Conference in Durban, the former prisoner awakened the world’s conscience. It was not until the AIDS conference returned to Durban this year, however, that health access in prisons took center stage. In the meantime, an effort sparked by a session at that earlier conference introduced […]
Fauci: A “global health reserve fund” needed, for Zika, and outbreaks to come
//UPDATE — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing additional locally transmitted Zika infections, and failures in mosquito control efforts, issued a alert today advising pregnant women to avoid a 1-mile radius surrounding the Miami neighborhood where local transmission has taken place, in addition to other precautions.// The National Institutes of Health is set to start […]
