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By Category: Agents & Toxins

CDC Grand Rounds: Discovering New Diseases via Enhanced Partnership Between Public Health and Pathology Experts

(CDC) Despite advances in public health, medicine, and technology, infectious diseases remain a major source of illness and death worldwide. In the United States alone, unexplained deaths resulting from infectious disease agents have an estimated annual incidence of 0.5 per 100,000 persons aged 1–49 years. Emerging and newly recognized infections, such as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome Read More »

February 12, 2014
| Filed under Agents & Toxins, International, and Public Health
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India hails victory over polio, vows to tackle other diseases

(GulfTimes) Indian leaders celebrated the eradication of polio yesterday, reminding doubters that something once thought impossible had been achieved and promising to tackle other diseases which still blight the country. In January, the country of 1.2bn people marked three years without a new case of the crippling virus, which means it will soon be certified Read More »

February 11, 2014
| Filed under South Asia, Agents & Toxins, International, and Public Health
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Deadly Virus Could Be Fought With Drug that Lowers Cholesterol

(Science World Report) The hantavirus is a mysterious and lethal microorganism; a total of 30 cases occur in the United States each year. It suddenly appeared in the Southwest over 20 years ago in an outbreak that killed over a dozen people. The virus is considered extremely deadly, causing deaths in 30 to 40 percent Read More »

February 11, 2014
| Filed under Agents & Toxins, Public Health, and Research
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The structure of a protein identified that helps dengue and West Nile replicate and spread infection

(Medical News Today) Dengue fever and West Nile fever are mosquito-borne diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide each year, but there is no vaccine against either of the related viruses. A team of scientists at the University of Michigan and Purdue University has discovered a key aspect both to how the viruses Read More »

February 10, 2014
| Filed under Agents & Toxins and Research
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Jury finds two men guilty in ricin plot

(The Marietta Daily Journal) A jury found two Georgia men guilty on Friday of plotting to make the poison ricin in what prosecutors described as a plan to target federal government officials. The jury deliberated for 90 minutes before finding Ray Adams, 57, and Samuel Crump, 71, guilty on two counts against them. The verdict Read More »