July 20, 2012
A roundup of news on drug resistance and other topics in global health.
An article in The New York Times discusses the development of new disease models that explore the connection between human actions in the environment and emerging infectious diseases. [NYT]
According to research published in the journal PLoS Medicine, mandatory hospital public reporting of Clostridium difficile rates in Ontario was associated with a substantial reduction in infections. [The Hamilton Spectator]
Researchers from the University of Arizona found that using copper alloys in cookware and cooking surfaces can curb the spread of Salmonella enterica bacteria, according to a new study in Food Microbiology. [Futurity]
Using a new imaging technique, scientists at University of California, Berkeley, discover how bacteria live as a community and attach to surfaces as biofilms, thereby making themselves resistant to antibiotics. [UC Berkeley News Center]
Research published in Nature identifies a protein called herpes virus entry mediator (HVEM) as critical in providing defense against pathogenic bacteria, including E. coli. [La Jolla Institute]
A new public database created by the FDA and the University of California, Davis will catalog the genetic codes of 100,000 types of bacteria found in food, vastly increasing the amount of data that scientists can use to trace the causes of food-borne illness. [NYT]
In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers have developed a strategy to kill Plasmodium occysts in mosquitoes using a genetically modified version of a bacteria that lives in the mosquito gut. [Scientific American]
RTS,S, an anti-malaria vaccine in phase III of clinical trials, has reduced children s likelihood of being infected with malaria by 50% in the initial trials. [Swissinfo]
New Scientist s Threatwatch warns about the dangers associated with Florida s tuberculosis outbreak amidst declining funding in public health. [New Scientist]
The presentations from the 2012 Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Data Summit organized by the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) are now available online. [HHS]
Image via practicalowl/Flickr
