Infectious Diseases

Rare bacteria outbreak in cancer clinic tied to lapse in infection control procedure
Improper handling of intravenous saline at a West Virginia outpatient oncology clinic was linked with the first reported outbreak of Tsukamurella spp., gram-positive bacteria that rarely cause disease in humans, in a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report was published in the March issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. Eurekalert!

Drought contributed to typhus epidemics in Mexico from 1655 to 1918, study shows
Epidemiological data integrated with climate data taken from tree-ring estimates of soil moisture levels demonstrate that drought contributed to the spread of typhus in Mexico from 1655 to 1918, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Arkansas.

The study has modern-day policy implications because although typhus can be treated with modern antibiotics, it remains a threat in remote, impoverished areas of South America, Asia and Africa and could reemerge as a serious infectious disease, especially where social strife and underdeveloped public health programs persist.

The researchers describe their findings in an article published Feb. 11 in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention journal that tracks and analyzes disease trends. MedicalXpress

US, 26 countries launch effort to fight outbreaks (Update)
The U.S. and 26 other countries began a new effort Thursday to prevent and fight outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases before they spread around the globe.

U.S. health officials called the Global Health Security Agenda a priority because too many countries lack the health infrastructure necessary to spot a new infection rapidly and sound the alarm before it has time to gain a foothold and even spread into other countries. MedicalXpress

Immunologists from the University of Bonn topple dogma
In the body, macrophages go on patrol as "scavenger cells" and act to eliminate intruders. According to the commonly held belief in immunology, they are divided into two groups, firstly into "classical macrophages" which spur on inflammatory processes, and secondly into "alternative macrophages" which shut down inflammation. Researchers from the University of Bonn, together with their colleagues at the University of Bonn Hospital and from Worcester (USA) and Edinburgh (Scotland) are now toppling this dogma: In a breakthrough discovery, the scientists disprove this simple classification for the scavenger cells. Eurekalert!