Brucellosis

Compounds tested for their potential as antibiotics have demonstrated promising activity against one of the deadliest infectious diseases -- tuberculosis (TB). Researchers from the John Innes Centre evaluated two compounds with antibacterial properties, which had been produced by the company Redx Pharma as antibiotic candidates, particularly against TB. TB, which is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is often thought of as a disease of the past. But in recent years it has been increasing due, in part, to rising resistance to treatments and decreasing efficacy of vaccines. One strategy in the search for new treatments is to find compounds that exploit well-known existing targets for drugs such as the bacterial enzyme DNA gyrase. This member of the DNA topoisomerase family of enzymes is required for bacterial DNA functionality, so compounds that inhibit its activity are much sought after as antibiotic candidates. Using X-ray crystallography, the team elucidated the ...

By NewsDesk  @infectiousdiseasenews Health officials with Jefferson County Public Health in upstate New York are reporting an increase in gonorrhea cases in 2020. Image/Jefferson County Public Health Service Authorities report 105 gonorrhea cases to date in 2020, compared to the 97 cases reported in all of 2019. Many people with gonorrhea don’t have any symptoms and don’t feel sick. If you are sexually active, you should get tested for gonorrhea and other STIs, the health department wrote on their Facebook page yesterday. Gonorrhea is an STI caused the bacterium, Neisseria gonorrhoeae. This bacterium can infect the genital tract, mouth and rectum of both men and women. Symptoms of gonorrhea usually appear with 2 to 5 days after sexual contact with an infected partner, occasionally symptoms make take longer to appear. At-home testing for Gonorrhea. Get lab-certified results in a few days and have a prescription sent to your pharmacy. Order now! In women, infectio...

Whitney Tilt admits that Paradise Valley is not the first place that springs to mind when pondering one of Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem's most distinctive natural wonders—its epic wildlife migrations. “What most people visualize, when they think of migrations in our region, is the movement of pronghorn between Grand Teton National Park and the Upper Green River Valley in the southern part of the ecosystem,” he says.  “Or maybe elk moving between Jackson Hole and Yellowstone, or between Yellowstone and the Madison Valley.” Paradise Valley is, in fact, a vital mixing zone, he notes—not only for thousands of migratory and resident wapiti, but human cultures, rapidly advancing change in the form of shifting land ownership patterns and an elevated risk of zoonotic disease menacing those who raise livestock. To some, Tilt says, the potential arrival of brucellosis infection in their herds represents the metaphorical last straw on the camel’s back. For all that Paradise Valley...

Richard Phahlane, his father, Piet, and business partner Aaron Makena. Photo: Siyanda Sishuba Piet Phahlane, along with his son, Richard, and Aaron Makena and his sister-in-law, Elizabeth, are business partners of a livestock farming operation on Melkhoutfontein in Rust de Winter near Bela-Bela in Limpopo. They farm cattle, goats and sheep. The operation was started in 1992 by Phahlane, Makena and his brother, Piet, who has since died and whose share in the business was taken over by his wife, Elizabeth. They began by leasing the land from the then Department of Land Affairs, and now lease it from the newly established Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development. Meticulous record-keeping and daily observations of the herd play an important role in Piet Phahlane and Aaron Makena’s disease management strategy. From the start, their lease agreement has been precarious. Initially, they were able to obtain an agreement for only one year at a time. In 2014, this...

As the 20th century dawned, tuberculosis—otherwise known as consumption, “white plague” or “white death”—had become the leading cause of death in the United States. The dreaded lung disease killed an estimated 450 Americans a day, most of them between the ages of 15 and 44. At the time, tuberculosis was associated with dirty, unhygienic living conditions, which were common for the workers who had packed into the cities of Europe and the United States since the Industrial Revolution. With no effective medicine available (yet), the preferred treatment was the open-air cure, or exposing patients to as much fresh air and sunlight as possible. This led to the proliferation of tuberculosis sanitariums, ranging from luxe spa-like resorts to government-run institutions across Europe and the United States. Though many of its victims were poor city dwellers, no one was immune to tuberculosis—especially not children. In fact, doctors and educators believed that the crowded classrooms and lac...

The recent 23 rd International AIDS Society conference, also known as AIDS 2020, presented the latest research towards the development of an HIV cure and vaccine. A Brazilian man who has spent 15 months off antiretrovirals without, so far, HIV being detected in any test may represent the first case of a functional cure without the risks of a stem cell transplant. However, experts caution against reading too much into this case, as it involved only a single individual and extensive testing for traces of HIV at various sites in the man's body have not yet been carried out. Our coverage includes a video interview with Dr Andrea Savarino, one of the scientists involved, as well as a commentary by NAM’s Gus Cairns, who asks whether someone has just been cured of HIV with a cheap, simple drug regimen? Leading researchers debated whether gene therapy or immunotherapy is more likely to lead to an HIV cure. We have proof of concept for a gene therapy approach in the cases of two men who...

Media Advisory Thursday, July 30, 2020 Discovery provides new target for anti-malaria treatments. What Researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions have discovered another set of pore-like holes, or channels, traversing the membrane-bound sac that encloses the deadliest malaria parasite as it infects red blood cells. The channels enable the transport of lipids — fat-like molecules — between the blood cell and parasite, Plasmodium falciparum . The parasite draws lipids from the cell to sustain its growth and may also secrete other types of lipids to hijack cell functions to meet its needs. The finding follows an earlier discovery of another set of channels through the membrane enabling the two-way flow of proteins and non-fatty nutrients between the parasite and red blood cells. Together, the discoveries raise the possibility of treatments that block the flow of nutrients to starve the parasite. The research team was led by Joshua Zimmerberg, M.D., Ph.D...

Low- and middle-income countries could see HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria deaths increase by up to 36 per cent over the next five years because of COVID-19-induced health services disruptions, a study projects. According to the 2019 World Malaria Report , an estimated 228 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide in 2018, with the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region reporting 213 million cases, or 93 per cent. In 2017, about 2.5 million people contracted TB in Sub-Saharan Africa and 665,000 of them died from the disease. The study forecasts that without access to antiretroviral therapy for HIV, timely TB diagnosis and treatment, and provision of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets for malaria during the COVID-19 pandemic, HIV deaths could go up by 10 per cent, with figures for TB and malaria being 20 and 36 per cent respectively. Millions of people rely on services for HIV, TB and malaria and we are concerned about the impact that such disruptions would cause....

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump again touted the use of an anti-malarial drug as a treatment for the coronavirus Wednesday, even as the country’s top infectious disease expert debunked it as a cure for the illness. “I happen to believe in hydroxychloroquine,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I used it. Many, many people agree with me.” The country’s Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, recently withdrew an order allowing the drug’s use as an emergency treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. Trump says he used it two months ago. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the long-time director of the country’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC’s Good Morning America television show on Tuesday, "I'll go along with the FDA. “The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease," Fauci said. FILE - White House press ...

Surface electrostatic representation of toxin MenT (blue, positive; red, negative), showing where target tRNA would bind and the enzymatic active site. Credit: Ben Usher, Dr Tim Blower. The toxin can block the use of important amino acids required by the bacteria to produce essential proteins needed for survival. An international team of researchers, led by Durham University, UK, and the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology and Genetics/Centre Integrative Biology in Toulouse, France, are aiming to exploit this toxin to develop new anti-TB drugs. Their findings are published in the journal Science Advances . TB is the world's deadliest infectious disease with nearly 1.5 million deaths each year. Whilst most cases can be cured with proper treatment, the number of antibiotic-resistant infections are steadily increasing. It is spread by breathing in tiny droplets from the coughs or sneezes of an infected person and mainly affects the lungs though it can affect any part of t...

Image caption The research will focus on how to identify and treat younger men living in slum conditions Scientists in Liverpool have been awarded £15.5m to help stop the spread of tuberculosis in Africa and Asia. It comes amid fears coronavirus is leading to a rise of TB around the world due to overburdened health systems. Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine will use the money to fund research into preventing the disease spreading to vulnerable people. The money will come from the UK Aid funding programme. Parts of Africa and Asia have seen marked increases in coronavirus infections in recent weeks. 'Game changing' tuberculosis vaccine a step closer The research will focus on how to identify and treat younger people living in slum conditions with undiagnosed TB, who are at risk of infecting more vulnerable family members. 'Fragile health systems' Professor David Lalloo, director of LSTM, said: "Much of our research and clinical work in recent month...

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many things about the way we live our lives. Researchers all over the world have been trying to find reliable information about this new virus. This was reflected in this year’s AIDS 2020 conference, which was held virtually to encourage social distancing. Many pieces of work were presented to answer some of the questions raised by coronavirus and its impact on people living with HIV. The following five articles highlight some of the key discoveries. There has been much concern around whether having HIV makes a person more likely to catch or become seriously unwell from COVID-19. Researchers in the USA found that HIV does not increase the risk of catching or dying from COVID-19. Furthermore, taking HIV treatment did not seem to make a difference to COVID-19 outcomes, although this may be because patients with untreated HIV stayed home to protect themselves. Similar conclusions were found in a study conducted in London, where COVID-19 patients living...

Accra, GHANA  – On July 28, 2020, the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, Stephanie S. Sullivan, virtually joined the Government Statistician  of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, and the Program Manager of the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP), Dr. Keziah Malm, to launch the 2019 Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS) results.  The launch highlighted impressive results in malaria control, including a nationwide 32 percent decrease in malaria prevalence in children under five, from 21 percent in 2016 to 14 percent in 2019. The survey, conducted by GSS and NMCP, provides critical data to monitor progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and Ghana’s National Malaria Strategic Plan to achieve malaria elimination and zero malaria deaths by 2030.  With support from the U.S. government, through the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), the 2019 MIS also assists the government of Ghana and its partners to implement malaria prevention, treatme...

Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: The Fatal Consequences of COVID-19 on AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Roopa Darwar, contributor to Friends of the Global Fight (7/27). PAHO: PAHO Director featured in new COVID-19 Exemplars in Global Health program (7/27). UNAIDS: Virtual meeting on the impact of the COVID-19 on HIV programs in the ECOWAS region (7/27). UNICEF: An additional 6.7 million children under 5 could suffer from wasting this year due to COVID-19 (7/27). World Economic Forum: Bill Gates: How HIV/AIDS prepared us to tackle COVID-19 Harry Kretchmer, senior writer with Formative Content (7/27).

JULY 27, 2020 — UTSA and Southwest Research Institute are working to synthesize novel highly potent derivatives of the antimalarial drug artemisinin with the goal of creating a powerful, cost-effective malaria treatment. Led by Doug Frantz of the Department of Chemistry in UTSA’s College of Sciences and Shawn Blumberg of SwRI’s Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division, the work is supported by a $125,000 grant from the Connecting through Research Partnerships (CONNECT) program. In 2018 Blumberg and Frantz collaborated on a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a more efficient synthesis of artemisinin, a drug derived from the sweet wormwood. While artemisinin is considered the most effective treatment for malaria, the mosquito-borne parasitic infection is becoming harder to battle as it becomes increasingly resistant to drugs like artemisinin. “Malaria affects 200 million people every year and kills close to 400,000 people, making it one of the w...