Brucellosis

It's a hot evening - often near water - and you hear that familiar mosquito buzz... That noise is actually a love song for the bug, with both female and male mosquitoes belting out different tones to find mates. Researchers are trying to learn to "speak mosquito" so they can lure them away from populated areas or design devices to catch and kill them - helping to reduce the spread of malaria and yellow fever. Our science correspondent Pallab Ghosh reports. https://ift.tt/323jOqL

On April 6-7, 2001, the world congregated at The Kennedy School of Government for the Seventh Annual Harvard International Development Conference. Speakers from places such as China, Bangladesh, Bolivia, South Africa, Latvia, Mexico, Brazil, and Dominican Republic, spoke about “Delivering Impact: Evolving Partnerships in International Development.” The conference organizers, made up from a partnership of schools, including Harvard Business School, Kennedy School of Government and Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, asked the panelists and conference attendees: “What development strategies really work? What partnerships most effectively reduce poverty?” The conference sought to tackle these difficult questions by bringing together development practitioners, business leaders, academic researchers and members of nonprofit organizations. There were over 35 international development leaders represented on eight panels, ranging from Reconciling Responsibility and Profits: The Corporate Rol

GN Hearing, the global leader in hearing aid connectivity, today launched a suite of new custom-crafted hearing aids. The new portfolio packages the industry renowned ReSound LiNX Quattro ™ technology - a brilliant experience with Layers of Sound, great speech intelligibility even in noisy situations, and excellent streaming - into discreet custom-crafted hearing aids. While taking up as little space as possible in the ear canal, users will benefit from an impressive listening experience. Great hearing is in high demand. Not only are 466 million people around the world living with disabling hearing loss, ReSound LiNX Quattro has also seen a positive reception in the market, which has led to the launch of new custom hearing aids for this popular model. The new custom-crafted hearing aids can enrich people's lives with all the qualities of hearing, such as socializing, learning, and working optimally. In addition, each hearing aid is designed to fit exactly to the ear canal of eve

DES MOINES - Governor Kim Reynolds has announced her 3rd Annual Harvest Festival. The event, which is primarily a fundraiser for her campaign committee, will be held at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in the Elwell Family Food Center on Saturday, September 21st from 4:00 - 7:00 pm. The invitation for the event features BBQ, face painting, and pumpkin decorating, billing itself as "Fun for the Whole Family". https://ift.tt/2UgZU95

Leader in Women’s Issues to Head U.N. Aids Program (GIN) The U.N’s office on AIDS has named a longtime activist on women’s issues to head the global health agency. Ugandan humanitarian Winnie Karagwa Byanyima’s career began as a member of parliament in the National Assembly of Uganda. She became the Director of Women and Development at the African Union Commission and worked on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. “I am honored to be joining UNAIDS as the Executive Director at such a critical time in the response to HIV,” said Ms Byanyima. “The end of AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 is a goal that is within the world’s reach, but I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge ahead. Working with all its partners, UNAIDS must continue to speak up for the people left behind and champion human rights as the only way to end the epidemic.” Ms Byanyima, who also headed the development group Oxfam International, is the first woman Executive Director to lead the age

ALEXANDRIA, La. (KALB) - It's a sad day for Alexandria educators, students and parents as one of the area's favorite places to stock up on school supplies announced that it is closing its doors for good. School Aids posted a letter on their Facebook page Friday morning, and the comments below showed that it's a big loss for the local education community. They said the decision came “due to changes in shopping behaviors and the increase of online sales.” Although the Shreveport, Lake Charles and Baton Rouge store locations will remain open at this time, as well as the online store, Alexandria store manager Wendi Broussard said it's sad to see this location go. "School Aids has served our community for 33 years. I have been here for the last 16 years,” said Broussard. “But, come on, I've been serving school teachers forever. It seems like everybody has a good memory of School Aids. We have the best customers -- School Aids, my teachers, my daycares. They

Researchers at the University of Bristol and Imperial College London have established a new model system that uses red blood cells grown in the laboratory to study how malaria parasites invade red blood cells. The work, which was funded by the National Institute for Health Research and NHS Blood and Transplant and is published in Nature Communications , provides a powerful new research tool for the identification of key host proteins and their domains that are involved in parasite infection. It will facilitate attempts to understand and disrupt the mechanism of red blood cell invasion by malaria parasites. The scientists used a cell line recently developed in Bristol which can produce unlimited numbers of immature 'progenitor cells' that can be pushed to produce new red blood cells (reticulocytes) in the laboratory. Using these cells, they were able to show that red blood cells generated using this technique can support both invasion by and intracellular development of Plasm

NEW YORK – International diamond mining corporation De Beers Group will provide €288,000 ($316,566) to Erada Technology Alliance, a South African medical technology startup developing the world's first saliva-based rapid test for malaria. The grant, announced today by De Beers, will support the final stages of assay development with a targeted launch date of the assay on World Malaria Day in April 2020. The test uses a technology called the Saliva-based Malaria Asymptomatic and Asexual Rapid Test, or SMAART, detecting a biomarker produced by female Plasmodium falciparum parasites during subclinical infection. The method was originally developed at Johns Hopkins University with funding and participation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Maryland Innovation Initiative, and was recently described in Science Translational Medicine . Erada Technology Alliance has exclusively licensed the technology from JHU, and the startup plans to bring the diagnostic tool to ma

Story Highlights Persons living with HIV/AIDS are being encouraged to participate in support groups that are working towards reducing the level of stigmatisation against persons with the virus, in an effort to ultimately improve their outcomes. The Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS Coordinator at the National Family Planning Board, Ainsley Reid, told JIS News that a number of initiatives have been undertaken to ensure that persons who are living with HIV are not disenfranchised. “We created a programme called ‘The Positive Health Dignity and Prevention Curriculum’, and we use it to train persons who are now serving at different levels in the HIV response,” he said, adding that some are working as community facilitators, and others are representing their communities on various Boards. Persons living with HIV/AIDS are being encouraged to participate in support groups that are working towards reducing the level of stigmatisation against persons with the virus, in

Interrupted and delayed by sabotage, an ambitious project to transfer Yellowstone National Park bison to Native American tribes on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana made a milestone leap forward with a delivery of 55 male animals Aug. 23. Pushed for by Dan Wenk in the waning days of his administration as superintendent of the Park, the effort was carried forward by new superintendent Cam Sholly. Sholly noted the transfer represented “the culmination of years of work” and cooperation among the National Park Service, the tribes, Montana and the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.   The Park Service, Sholly said, “is committed to expand and sustain this program.” Giving away bison to peoples with historical connections to the herds is part of the plan to reduce the number of Yellowstone bison that must otherwise be culled each year to stay within Park population guidelines. The Yellowstone herd, regarded as the last pure de

An Australian study that enrolled initially HIV-negative men who have sex with men, or MSM, showed that repeated and single rectal gonorrhea infections were associated with an increased risk for HIV infection, suggesting that preventive interventions be emphasized among MSM with a history of rectal gonorrhea, researchers said. “Over recent decades, HIV notifications among MSM have increased in many high-income countries and this has occurred in conjunction with increased notifications of bacterial sexually transmissible infections (STIs) in a number of countries including Australia,” Brendan L. Harney , a research assistant in the Disease Elimination Program at the Burnet Institute, and colleagues wrote. “Australia wide, in 2016, 75% of the HIV notifications were among MSM and in the state of Victoria, the 312 HIV notifications made in 2016 represented an 18% increase since 2007. Additionally, there has been an increase in bacterial STI notifications with the 6,328 gonorrhea and 1,

Researchers at the University of Bristol and Imperial College London have established a new model system that uses red blood cells grown in the laboratory to study how malaria parasites invade red blood cells. The work, which was funded by the National Institute for Health Research and NHS Blood and Transplant and is published in Nature Communications , provides a powerful new research tool for the identification of key host proteins and their domains that are involved in parasite infection. It will facilitate attempts to understand and disrupt the mechanism of red blood cell invasion by malaria parasites. The scientists used a cell line recently developed in Bristol which can produce unlimited numbers of immature 'progenitor cells' that can be pushed to produce new red blood cells (reticulocytes) in the laboratory. Using these cells, they were able to show that red blood cells generated using this technique can support both invasion by and intracellular development of Plasm

The U.N’s office on AIDS has named a longtime activist on women’s issues to head the global health agency. Ugandan humanitarian Winnie Karagwa Byanyima’s career began as a member of parliament in the National Assembly of Uganda. She became the Director of Women and Development at the African Union Commission and worked on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. “I am honored to be joining UNAIDS as the Executive Director at such a critical time in the response to HIV,” said Ms Byanyima. “The end of AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 is a goal that is within the world’s reach, but I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge ahead. Working with all its partners, UNAIDS must continue to speak up for the people left behind and champion human rights as the only way to end the epidemic.” Ms Byanyima, who also headed the development group Oxfam International, is the first woman Executive Director to lead the agency since its launch in 1996.. She succeeds Michel Sidibé wh

Ring, a video doorbell manufacturer, is teaming up with police departments across the country in an effort to aid police in solving local crimes. York Police Department is the first police station in Maine to utilize this technology.A York Beach couple showed WMTW News 8's Jim Keithley how the doorbells work Thursday. The doorbell’s technology allows users to see who's approaching their home and gives the user the opportunity to talk back to people coming up their walkway. Videos of suspicious activity can be shared on an app called Neighbors, alerting the surrounding neighborhood about potential crime.The American Civil Rights Union of Maine expressed its concern over this type of video surveillance, calling it “a slippery slope when it comes to privacy rights.”Police and homeowners willing to share their videos have countered the ACLU argument by saying that their safety is more important. YORK, Maine — Ring, a video doorbell manufacturer, is teaming up with police departm

SAN DIEGO — Three cases of tuberculosis have been reported in San Diego County, the Health and Human Services Agency reported Thursday. Two of the cases were reported on separate docked Navy ships and the third was reported at San Ysidro High School. The three cases are not believed to be related, health officials said. News of the diagnoses came after County health officials confirmed tuberculosis was diagnosed in a San Diego International Airport employee  last month. The HHSA said it is working with the Sweetwater Union High School District to warn people who may have been exposed between January 16 and May 31. According to district officials, students at risk of exposure have been offered free testing, and staff members at risk of exposure will also be offered testing free of charge. Those at risk of contracting tuberculosis who were working onboard the two Navy ships have been identified as follows: USS Bonhomme Richard: Employees at Huntington Ingalls Industries who were wo

New Study Demonstrates Positive Results in Reducing Transmission of Malaria in Indonesia RACINE, Wis., Aug. 29 /CSRwire/ - The World Health Organization (WHO) recently posted a report showing the effectiveness of spatial repellents in fighting malaria. The data outcomes came from the first study of a five-year program which is being conducted by the University of Notre Dame and The Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology in partnership with SC Johnson and with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The program is investigating the potential impact of spatial repellents in reducing mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, Zika and dengue fever. “For years, we’ve been working to prevent malaria. It’s heartening that this week’s WHO report shows spatial repellents could be an effective tool against the disease,” said Fisk Johnson, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of SC Johnson. “This successful outcome opens the door for additional study, which we hope will secure a WHO policy recom

Summary On 22 April, a World Health Organization (WHO) panel issued the executive summary of a report saying malaria eradication isn't feasible for the foreseeable future, and that setting any concrete eradication deadline will undermine efforts to control the disease, as it did when WHO first resolved to end malaria in the 1950s. A second high-caliber group disagrees. On 9 September, the Lancet Commission on Malaria Eradication will publish a study recommending that the world set 2050 as the target for global eradication, several scientists tell Science . The debate is about more than just the usefulness of bold goals in global health; a focus on eradication can also skew researchers' and funders' priorities, some scientists say. https://ift.tt/2ZHl99i

The combined number of people newly found to be infected with HIV and new AIDS patients in Japan fell for the second straight year in 2018, the health ministry said Thursday. The total stood at 1,317, down by 72 from the previous year, the ministry said. Noting that it is possible to prevent HIV infection, an official at the ministry’s committee for AIDS surveillance called on people not to hesitate to take HIV/AIDS tests. Consultations are available at public health centers, the official added. Last year, 940 people were newly confirmed to be infected with HIV, down by 36, and the number of new AIDS patients came to 377, down also by 36, according to the ministry. Japanese accounted for 1,143 of the total, down by 50, and foreign nationals for 174, down by 22. Of the total, 875 were infected through sexual contact between same-sex individuals, down by 60, and 246 through heterosexual contact, down by two. By age group, people in their 30s accounted for 409, and those in their 2

USCA — Photo courtesy of NMAC “There are 1.2 million Americans living with HIV right now,” says Paul Kawata. “Every year, there are about 40,000 new cases.” As the executive director of the AIDS/HIV advocacy organization NMAC for thirty years, Kawata pays close attention to the numbers. Next weekend, the organization will continue a more than two-decades-long tradition of producing the U.S. Conference on AIDS. This year’s conference, in Washington from Sept. 5 to 8, will bring together more than 3,000 experts, researchers, advocates, service providers, and other professionals for more than 160 workshops and four plenaries focusing on the latest developments in HIV research, prevention, and treatment, with special program tracks focusing on HIV’s impact on specific communities. The overall focus of the conference centers around federal efforts to effectively “end” the HIV epidemic in America by reducing new HIV-positive diagnoses to below 3,000 per year by 2030. “In less than 30 d

Scientists have developed a hydrogel-based carrier that can deliver siRNAs directly to where they are needed. Gel aids delivery of drugs (credit: Eben Alsberg). Scientists have developed a hydrogel-based carrier that can deliver small interfering RNA ( siRNAs ) directly to where they are needed. Biologically compatible hydrogels have been used to deliver biologics or drugs directly to specific areas in the body. A drug-infused hydrogel plug or sheet can be placed directly where the drug is needed. But one problem has been that these drugs often diffuse out rapidly to surrounding cells and tissues. The release can be delayed by changing the porosity of the hydrogel, its degradation rate and by altering with the affinity of the drug for the hydrogel. Now, Eben Alsberg, the Richard and Loan Hill Professor of Bioengineering and Orthopaedics at the University of Illinois at Chicago , US, together with Matthew Levy, associate professor of biochemistry at Albert Einstein College of Me

CLOSE There were 432 cases of gonorrhea recorded last year in Calhoun County, the highest total since 2004,  according to data from the Calhoun County Public Health Department. That's an infection rate of about one in every 265 people. The Kalamazoo County Health Department reported 1,027 cases, their highest rate since Michigan began tracking gonorrhea data in 1997. The local increases are part of a rise in gonorrhea infections statewide. Reports in Michigan hit 16,922 in 2018, a 43% increase since 2014. But local infection rates are about twice as high as in the state as a whole.   “It’s a nationwide problem,” said Dr. William Nettleton, medical director for Kalamazoo and Calhoun County Public Health Departments. “But it’s an even bigger problem in this part of the state.” Why are the rates so high? Public health officials are investigating possible reasons for the rise, Nettleton said. Most of their ideas are theories right now. “Everyone is trying to investig

WOLF POINT — Everybody heard the trucks before they saw them. The sound of engines and tires on dirt roads made them look. Dust clouds became visible, and then the caravan rounded a corner, drove past a shed and through an open gate. The six trucks and trailers made a wide arc in the double-fenced pasture and lined up, pointing the trailer doors southwest. Inside each one were three bison in individual compartments, all ready to run. Four men beat drums and sang a traditional song to welcome the animals home. A few dozen people gathered around, many of them government and tribal officials who dreamed this day would come, sometime. A few spectators sat on cars outside the fence. Advertisement Then the doors were opened and the bison started running out, exploring their new home. “These are the Yellowstone buffalo,” one of the spectators said. The animals had been loaded into the trailers early Friday morning at the park’s corrals near Gardiner. After several hou

Friends for Life animal rescue is no longer open, but Nancy DePippo wants Transylvania County residents to know that the Treasure Shop thrift store is still operating and donating its proceeds to help animals in the community. DePippo, a Treasure Shop volunteer, has been a advocate for animals in the county for years and has seen different animal welfare organizations come and go. The Treasure Shop used to donate its proceeds to Friends for Life, an animal farm and sanctuary in Lake Toxaway , but now that it's no longer in operation, the Treasure Shop donates to the Asheville organization Brother Wolf Animal Rescue, which brings a mobile spay and neuter clinic to the county Animal Shelter twice a month. Fido Fixers, another animal nonprofit, donates the vehicle used for the mobile clinic. Brother Wolf Mobile Clinic Program Director Holly Amann said that before Brother Wolf stepped in with the mobile spay and neuter clinic, there was no low-cost option for these surgeries as t

LAHORE: A law enforcement agency, in its report to the Punjab government, has stated that the proliferation of HIV/AIDS in Shahkot, a tehsil of Nankana Sahib district, has reached the verge of an epidemic. In its report sent to the chief minister recently, the agency unveiled that the number of HIV/AIDS cases has reached 140 in Shahkot after 85 more people tested positive for the virus this year. According to the World Health Organisation, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is one of the world’s most serious public health challenges. The agency has pointed out that the district authorities lacked facilities to cater to the health needs of the large number of people who tested positive for the virus. It stressed the need for a detailed province-wide survey to assess the situation, fearing that the virus was spreading fast and some HIV cases may be going unreported. Security agency tells govt 140 tested positive since Sept 1, 2018 “A survey of the field staff of this agency has rev

Drugs that help prevent the formation of unwanted or harmful proteins are currently being developed to treat a number of diseases, including cancer. The drugs are based on small interfering RNA, or siRNA, which are pieces of nucleic acids that work by interfering with the production of proteins. But getting these drugs to the right target, such as to a tumor, remains challenging because siRNAs can degrade rapidly in the body -- making systemic delivery inefficient. They also can have some difficulty entering cells where they do their work. Eben Alsberg, the Richard and Loan Hill Professor of Bioengineering and Orthopaedics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and colleagues report on a hydrogel-based carrier that can deliver siRNAs directly to where they are needed. They report their findings in Science Advances . Other researchers have had some success in linking the siRNA molecules with other materials to form nanoparticles that help to prevent siRNA degradation and help the

A nonprofit contractor that accused the city of Atlanta of holding up payments as retaliation because its executive director spurned the sexual advances of a city department head dropped  its lawsuit , saying it was paid most of the money owed, court records show. Atlanta-based Living Room made the decision voluntarily “in order to avoid the further expense and distraction of continued litigation,” according to an Aug. 21 filing in the Fulton County Superior Court case. The agency provided services for the city-run Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program, or HOPWA, which subsidizes rent for low-income people with AIDS and HIV. The dispute ignited a months-long crisis in the $23 million federal program that  threatened to leave some 250 clients with AIDS and HIV homeless . The longtime city contractor said it could no longer pay its portion of its clients’ subsidized rent because of the late payments. The city accused Living Room of failing to fix improper spending and

Pediatric tuberculosis cases in the US have been on a steady decline for at least a decade now, according to findings from a national data analysis. A recent assessment of National Tuberculosis Surveillance System (NTSS) metrics from 2007-2017 show diagnoses of the infectious respiratory condition dropped nearly 50% during the observed period. The difficult-to-diagnose, heterogenous condition is now at a recorded lowest rate of prevalence among children and adolescents in the US. A team of investigators from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Tuberculosis Elimination conducted the analysis which sought to define the epidemiology of tuberculosis among US children and adolescents. Led by Tori L. Cowger, MPH, the team included incidence rates of tuberculosis by parental country of birth as well as for US territories and freely associated states—prevalence rates previously unrecorded in clinical analysis. “Previous studies suggest that US-born children

Recently, the first direct transfer of live and disease-free bison to the Fort Peck Tribes from Yellowstone National Park was completed. Early 2018, Yellowstone officials found 52 bison missing from its quarantine facility. This set back the transfer of bison from Yellowstone to the Fort Peck Tribes in northeastern Montana by a year. Tim Reed, the Yellowstone bison program coordinator, said 55 male bison that just transferred have to go through the third and last phase. "One year of assurance testing and then they can be dispersed to other tribal herds, conservation herds, etc.," he said. The tests make sure that the bison are brucellosis-free, a disease that can cause livestock to miscarry. The quarantine program was identified as a possible management tool in 2001. "It's really the only tool in the quiver to do something other than send Yellowstone bison directly to slaughter," said Reed. "It's the only option to move live bison out into other