Global measles deaths have dropped 79% in the past 15 years, and the measles vaccine saved an estimated 17.1 million people in that span, but vaccine uptake has stagnated in recent years, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
Vaccine effectiveness (VE) for both US-approved rotavirus vaccines— the five-strain (RV5) and single-strain (RV1) versions—is 80% in children, according to a study published yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
President Barack Obama today nominated deputy commissioner Robert Califf, MD, as the next Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, Bloomberg News reported. If approved by the Senate, Califf would replace Margaret Hamburg, MD, who stepped down in March after serving 6 years.
Officials identified a cooling tower at the Opera House Hotel in New York City's South Bronx as the source of a recent outbreak of Legionnaires' disease, according to a New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH) press release yesterday.
The health department also confirmed that, given no new cases or onset of symptoms since Aug 3, the outbreak is officially over.
The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement yesterday confirming that a wild poliovirus case has not been detected in Africa for 1 year.
Coordination among health facilities can cut both disease burdens.
As MERS continues to spread in South Korea, two more cases have been reported in the Middle East, one in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and one in Saudi Arabia.
A 77-year-old woman in Abu Dhabi, UAE, is in critical condition with MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus), the World Health Organization (WHO) reported yesterday. She fell ill May 21 and was hospitalized a week later.
A potentially promising way to lower the risk of recurrent Clostridium difficile infections is to fight fire with fire, in the form of oral doses of a nontoxigenic strain of C diff, according to a report yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Four cases of MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia, one of them fatal, were officially reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) for the period Apr 14 to 20, according to an update today.
The new cases, all previously reported by the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) and noted by CIDRAP News, are in adult men, and tracing of household and healthcare contacts is ongoing.
Infection with Clostridium difficile ribotype 027 independently predicts severe disease and mortality, but demographic and clinical factors are stronger predictors of severe disease, according to a study yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases.