China is recording an annual average of more than 1,600 new leprosy cases and will spend $30 million this year to renovate leprosy villages which are home to thousands of people, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. Reuters Health Information
A study published in the October 17, 2007, issue of JAMA looks at whether nonvaccine strains are becoming more clinically prevalent. Medscape Pediatrics
A PCR (polymerase chain reaction) assay allows direct detection of the multidrug resistance genome of Hemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of children with meningitis, Bangladeshi and UK researchers report in the January issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. Reuters Health Information
Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) have become an important cause of native valve endocarditis, according to a report in the January 15th Clinical Infectious Diseases. Reuters Health Information
A monkey malaria species thought at one time to be rare in humans is widely distributed and potentially life threatening, according to researchers in Malaysian Borneo, the UK and Australia. Reuters Health Information
Analysis of genealogy records linked to death certificates in Utah over a period of 100 years provides evidence for a heritable predisposition to death due to influenza, according to a report in the January 1st issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Reuters Health Information
Mortality rates among tuberculosis patients in rural south India are over fourfold higher than mortality rates in the general population, according to findings published in the January issue of the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases. Reuters Health Information
Using a powerful tool called unbiased high-throughput sequencing, researchers from Australia and the US identified a new arenavirus that was associated with a fatal febrile illness in three transplant recipients. Reuters Health Information
The mortality seen with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia is increased when vancomycin is empirically used to treat the infection and the responsible strains have a high vancomycin minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), new research shows. Reuters Health Information
