Climate hazards such as flooding, heat waves and drought have worsened more than half of the hundreds of known infectious diseases in people, including malaria, hantavirus, cholera and anthrax, a study says.
Kristie Ebi, Professor of Global Health and of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the UW, is quoted.
By Steven Ross Johnson / Modern Healthcare
By Kieran Guilbert
West Africa is most at risk of fatal haemorrhagic fever epidemics, including Ebola, researchers said on Wednesday, calling for greater preparedness to save lives.
A study in The Lancet medical journal assessed the likelihood of four viruses - Ebola, Lassa, Marburg and Crimean-Congo - spreading on the continent, charting progress from a first human case through to a potential pandemic.
By Bobbi Nodell
A collaboration involving UW Medicine researchers reached a major milestone toward helping investigators create drug therapies and vaccines for some of the world’s major infectious diseases.
The group solved 1,000 protein structures from more than 70 infectious disease organisms.
Understanding protein structures -- the basis of drug therapy and vaccines -- is key to understanding how infectious diseases are different from us, said Dr. Wesley Van Voorhis, head of the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the UW School of Medicine.
Rocky Mountain spotted fever can be deadly to both humans and dogs, but diagnosing a dog with the tickborne illness does not guarantee that the owner will be examined for it, even though he or she may have been exposed to the infection through the same environmental risk factors.
By Kim Eckhart; this story originally appeared in UW Today.
As the World Health Organization steps up its efforts to eradicate a once-rampant tropical disease, a University of Washington study suggests that monitoring, and potentially treating, the monkeys that co-exist with humans in affected parts of the world may be part of the global strategy.
By Mary Engel
Researchers may be one step closer to a truly effective malaria vaccine, a new study suggests. A genetically modified malaria parasite worked as designed in its first human clinical trial, causing neither malaria nor serious safety problems in the 10 people who volunteered to be infected. It also stimulated an immune response that holds out promise of a more protective vaccine than the single candidate now in pilot studies
Creating protective immunity against the early liver stage of malaria infection is feasible, but has been difficult to achieve in regions with high rates of malaria infection. Many current malaria vaccines target the pre-erythrocytic stage of infection in the liver, however in endemic regions, increased blood stage exposure is associated with decrease vaccine efficacy, challenging current malaria vaccine efforts.
By Khawar Khan
As 1400 health experts, academics and innovators from around the world gathered at the Qatar National Convention Center to highlight world health issues under the platform of the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), the focus was on working together to improve existing healthcare facilities.
By Chelsea Harvey
Last weekend, bystanders watched as Hillary Clinton unsteadily left a Sept. 11 memorial service in New York City, stumbling as aides helped her into her waiting vehicle. Shortly thereafter, Clinton’s physician released a statement explaining that the Democratic presidential nominee had recently been diagnosed with pneumonia.