Zoonotic Infections News

Sanofi Pasteur said its controversial dengue vaccine, known in other countries as Dengvaxia, has been granted priority review by the FDA. A decision on approval is expected by May 1, 2019.

CureVac AG announced that the first study participant has been enrolled in its phase 1 dose-escalation clinical trial of an mRNA-based rabies vaccine.

Through a combination of host odor, heat and visual stimuli, host decoy traps provide a potential system for monitoring and controlling outdoor-biting mosquitoes, such as Anopheles arabiensis, according to findings published in Parasites & Vectors.

Bartonella bacteria — which can cause several human diseases — were discovered in high rates in vampire bats in Peru and Belize, according to findings published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Experts credited a strong public health response with containing a deadly outbreak of Nipah virus in India in the same month that it began.

A recent outbreak showed that puppies can be a source of Campylobacter infections in humans — including multidrug-resistant infections — and underlined that clinicians should consider this exposure in their patients.

Humans were likely the original source of Staphylococcus aureus, which jumped back and forth between people and livestock over thousands of years, leading to epidemic strains of the bacterium and facilitating its resistance to antibiotics, according to results from a genomic study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Researchers from the University of Texas developed a novel diagnostic tool to easily identify disease-spreading Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and detect whether they are carrying Wolbachia, a bacterium being used for mosquito control.

The FDA has announced that companies who submit applications for drug or biological products to prevent or treat Lassa fever, chikungunya virus disease, rabies or cryptococcal meningitis may qualify for a tropical disease priority review voucher.

Ted Eickhoff understood the intersection of public health and the infectious disease practitioner, effectively using his editorial pulpit at Infectious Disease News to promote dialogue and discourse on the rapidly changing circumstances that would dictate public health policy. He recognized the ever-evolving microbial world’s impact on not only the individual patient, but on the community at large, and remained at the forefront, ensuring that infectious disease practitioners received needed information in a timely manner so they could remain staunch public health partners. A profession is traditionally defined by its common body of knowledge. As with the 1910 Flexner Report that proved revolutionary for medical education in the United States, the 1915 Welch-Rose report presented to the General Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation outlined public health as a profession in which “Unity is to be found rather in the end to be accomplished. ... Public Health is not a single profession in the traditional sense and is best defined by its shared goals rather than its disparate means. Articulating who we are and what we do remains one of our greatest challenges.”