Meningitis - News
Three quarters of people in South Sudan have no access to medical care, and 10 percent of children there and in Darfur die before their first birthday, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said on Thursday. Mohammad Abdur Rab, the WHO's representative to Sudan, warned that a lack of skilled health workers and drug shortages were putting millions of lives at risk in conflict-affected areas where huge numbers of people have been uprooted.
o-reach kids * Obstacles for both poor and middle-income countries By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global efforts to immunize children against life-threatening diseases set a record high last year but failed to protect millions of youngsters in the world's poorest countries, health officials said on Wednesday.
A vaccine helped block the high felt by cocaine users in 38 percent of people who took it, U.S. researchers said on Monday, offering promise of a new approach to treating those addicted to the drug. The aim is to prevent cocaine's rewarding effects -- the high -- in order to reduce cravings that trigger drug relapses.
Think you need antibiotics to fight that cough or cold? Numerous Web sites are willing to sell them to you without a doctor's prescription -- a loophole, researchers say, that could undermine efforts to curb the problem of bacteria that shrug off powerful antibiotics.
The confusion surrounding adult vaccination help illustrates some of the big problems looming for Congress as it struggles with healthcare reform legislation, doctors and health officials said on Wednesday.
aving drugs out of reach * U.N. Secretary-General calls for continued aid in crisis By Laura MacInnis GENEVA (Reuters) - The global recession has pushed up to 90 million more people into extreme poverty, the United Nations said on Monday, warning that a reduction in foreign aid could cause more hunger and disease.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday it plans to reinstate booster shots of a vaccine that protects babies and toddlers against bacterial meningitis. The CDC said in a statement it believes manufacturers will have enough supply of the vaccine to resume giving a booster shot of HiB (Haemophilus influenzae type b) to children aged 12 to 15 months.
There has been a marked increase in screening pregnant women to see if they're carrying group B streptococcus (GBS), ever since national guidelines began recommending universal screening late in pregnancy, new research shows.
Five governments and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $1.5 billion on Friday to help give poor countries better access to vaccines against pneumococcal disease such as pneumonia and meningitis. The Advance Market Commitment program creates financial incentive with a guaranteed price to persuade companies to invest the large sums of money it takes to develop new vaccines.
When parents are more knowledgeable about vaccinations, their children are more likely to get them, a new study shows. The study, which included parents of 630 Spanish children, found that while most children received the recommended vaccinations, parents' vaccine knowledge influenced the likelihood.
A meningitis outbreak in Nigeria is more serious than initially feared with the death toll rising more than sixfold over the past two months, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday. Deaths from the epidemic have risen to 2,148 since the first case was recorded in December from 333 announced by the health minister in early March.
People with HIV are at high risk from the new flu strain that the World Health Organization said is on the verge of a pandemic, the WHO said on Saturday. The United Nations agency said people with immunodeficiency diseases -- including the AIDS virus -- will most likely be vulnerable to health complications from the H1N1 strain, as they are from regular seasonal flu, which kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people a year.
Meningitis has killed more than 2,500 people this year in West and Central Africa in what could become the worst epidemic for five years, UNICEF said. Meningitis is an infection of the thin lining that surrounds the brain and spinal cord.
Nigeria's Kano state and drugmaker Pfizer Inc have agreed to the broad terms of an out-of-court settlement in a multibillion dollar lawsuit over a 1996 drug trial, lawyers for both parties said on Friday.
One third of the world's stockpiled meningitis vaccine doses have been dispatched to West Africa where an outbreak has killed more than 1,100 people since January, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday. Meningitis is an infection of the thin lining that surrounds the brain and spinal cord.
An X-ray-guided spinal tap -- a procedure in which a small needle is inserted into the patient's lower spine to retrieve cerebrospinal fluid -- carries higher risks for infants and the elderly, a new study shows. Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, found that spinal tap procedures fail more than half of the time in young infants and, therefore, should be used sparingly, if at all, in this age group, they conclude.
Chinese state media accused a local government on Tuesday of covering up the number of children suffering from hand, foot and mouth disease and the number of deaths. The government of Minquan county in central Henan province said only one child was killed by the virus, but there may be at least 10 more deaths cases in the region, the official China National Radio said on its website (www.
An outbreak of meningitis in Nigeria has killed 333 people in the last three months, the health minister said Wednesday. "As of today, we have recorded 5,323 cases with 333 deaths in 22 states," minister Babatunde Osotimehin said in a statement.
Two batches of a Novartis meningitis C vaccine containing a total of 17,000 doses have been recalled in Britain due to contamination fears. The Swiss drugmaker said on Thursday the decision was a precaution following the failure of a sterility test, adding the move only affected the British market.
When the letters and e-mails started to pour in, Dr. Paul Offit braced himself. The pediatrician and vaccine inventor is a prominent defender of childhood vaccines, tackling those who have argued that immunizations can cause autism.
From 2003 to 2006, cases of infection with group B streptococcus (GBS), which can be life threatening, have increased among black newborns in the US, new findings show. This occurred despite the release of guidelines in 2002 designed to prevent such infections.
Strep infections and not the flu virus itself may have killed most people during the 1918 influenza pandemic, which suggests some of the most dire predictions about a new pandemic may be exaggerated, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
Minnesota has seen an increase in Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) cases in young children. According to US federal health officials, five cases of Hib disease in children younger than 5 years old were reported to the Minnesota Department of Health in 2008.
A rise in illnesses caused by a bacterial infection among children in Minnesota, including a fatal case of meningitis, may stem from a shortage of vaccine for the HiB (Haemophilus influenzae type B) bacteria, U.S. health officials said on Friday.
A routine childhood vaccine used to prevent several common types of infections has helped cut the rate of a deadly form of meningitis by 30 percent in children and adults, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday, suggesting even the unvaccinated are benefiting from the shot.
Novartis AG will license a program of vaccines from U.S. group AlphaVax against cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections, which can cause disability in newborn babies, the Swiss drugmaker said on Monday. The deal includes vaccines to prevent Helicobacter pylori infections, a major cause of gastritis that can lead to gastric cancer, and another potential immunization against neonatal sepsis and meningitis.
Giving just one fifth the dose of a commonly used meningitis vaccine may be as effective as using the full dose, researchers said on Tuesday. The finding should allow medics to stretch scarce vaccine resources, especially during epidemics in Africa.
U.S. health officials asked doctors on Thursday to be alert for possible cases of meningitis and other illnesses in children caused by Hib bacteria amid an ongoing vaccine shortage. Officials are most concerned about bacterial meningitis...
Children who survive a bout of meningococcal sepsis, a life-threatening infection, often suffer from long-term medical problems, including mental retardation and other brain impairments, according to a study from the Netherlands.
Girls and young women given Merck and Co's Gardasil vaccine to prevent cervical cancer were not any more likely than usual to faint, have an allergic reaction, blood clot, or other adverse reaction, federal officials said on Wednesday.
