All news from Epidemiology
The Central Africa region is experiencing rapid urbanization and economic growth, and infrastructure development. These changes, while generally positive and welcome, also make the region more vulnerable to explosive infectious disease outbreaks, according to an international group of scientists.
Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the authors, all of whom have field research experience in the region, note that efforts to build up the health care infrastructure in Central Africa are critically needed to mitigate or prevent a large outbreak of Ebola or another infectious disease in the region.
Daily antiretroviral therapy (ART) that suppresses HIV to levels undetectable by standard blood tests is lifesaving for individuals living with HIV and prevents sexual transmission of the virus to others.
The public health community must use targeted interventions, however, to do a better job of reaching populations with low levels of viral suppression, according to experts from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
In most of Europe, the rates of smoking initiation among older teens have declined since the 1970s, while "new smoker" rates among younger teens have risen in recent years, according to a study published August 22, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by an international team of researchers involved in the Ageing Lungs in European Cohorts (ALEC) study, coordinated by Deborah Jarvis, Imperial College of London, UK.
Updates on the outbreak
According to the health ministry, there have been five new cases of Ebola and five deaths from haemmorhagic fever. Ebola cases now sum up at 96 (5 new cases) from the town of Mabalako-Mangina. A total of 69 are confirmed. 55 people have died. The latest victims of Ebola are all close to the epicentre of the outbreak in Beni, North Kivu province.
In a pair of new modeling studies, researchers examined how policy reform in terms of drug decriminalization (in Mexico) and access to drug treatment (in Russia) might affect two regions hard hit by the HIV pandemic: Tijuana, Mexico and the Russian cities of Omsk and Ekaterinburg.
The diabetes epidemic in Guatemala is worse than previously thought: more than 25% of its indigenous people, who make up 60% of the population, suffer from type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes, suggests a new study published in PLOS ONE. That's almost double the rate from a diabetes estimation back in 2003. The team also found that the driving force behind the epidemic is not obesity – most often associated with an increased risk of the disease elsewhere in the world – but aging.
The outbreak of the deadly Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spread outside the province of North Kivu according to a statement made by the country’s health ministry. With this the viral infection has reached an active conflict zone and this may mean that it could spread wider now.
A major new study has shown that rotavirus vaccination reduced infant diarrhea deaths by 34% in rural Malawi, a region with high levels of child deaths. The study provides the first population-level evidence from a low-income country that rotavirus vaccination saves lives.
Indian-Americans have the highest percentage of sleeping with their babies among ethnic groups in New Jersey but the lowest rate of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), a Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences study shows.
A study led by researchers at Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) reports on the use of a genetic sequencing method to identify viral pathogens behind unexplained respiratory illnesses in Uganda over a five-year period. The method, called VirCapSeq-VERT and developed at CII, identified nine clusters of infections, including one potentially related to tourism from the U.K.
Researchers have provided new insight on the geographical origins and global spread of two classes of the hepatitis B virus (HBV), according to a study in eLife.
Congressional districts with the highest opioid prescribing rates are predominantly concentrated in the southeastern U.S., with other hotspots in Appalachia and the rural west, according to the first study to focus on opioid prescribing rates at the congressional district level. The study will be published online in the American Journal of Public Health.
