Infectious Diseases News

April 28, 2025

Top Headlines

The Antibiotic That Takes the Bite out of Lyme

Apr. 23, 2025 — Piperacillin, an antibiotic in the same class as penicillin, effectively cured mice of Lyme disease at 100-times less than the effective dose of doxycycline, the current gold standard treatment. At such a low dose, piperacillin also had the added ...

Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome May Be Driven by Remnants of Infection

Apr. 23, 2025 — Scientists believe they know what causes the treated infection to mimic chronic illness: the body may be responding to remnants of the bacteria that causes Lyme that tend to pool in the liver and joint ...

Scientists Identify Potential Treatments for Emerging Zoonotic Pathogens

Apr. 23, 2025 — A team of biomedical researchers trained a machine learning algorithm to identify more than two dozen viable treatments for diseases caused by zoonotic pathogens that can jump from animal hosts to infect humans. Scientists used Rhodium software to ...

Bacteria Killing Material Creates Superbug Busting Paint

Apr. 23, 2025 — A bacteria killing coating created by scientists has been used in trials of a new paint that can be applied to a range of surfaces to effectively kill bacteria and viruses, including difficult to kill species such as MRSA, flu and ...

Latest Headlines

updated 9:12am EDT

Experimental Bird Flu Vaccine Excels in Animal Models

Apr. 17, 2025 — A vaccine under development has demonstrated complete protection in mice against a deadly variant of the virus that causes bird flu. The work focuses on the H5N1 variant known as 2.3.4.4b, which has ...

Empowering Antibodies to Better Activate the Immune System

Apr. 22, 2025 — Antibodies are best known for their ability to latch onto and neutralize bacteria, viruses and other pathogens. But these immune proteins can do more than that: They also activate other components of ...

Study Reveals Gaps in Flu Treatment for High-Risk Adults

Apr. 22, 2025 — A multi-state study reveals that many high-risk adults diagnosed with influenza (flu) in emergency departments and urgent care centers are not receiving timely antiviral treatment. Researchers found ...

Experimental Cancer Drug Could Streamline Standard Tuberculosis Treatment and Prevent Post-TB Lung Disease, Study Suggests

Apr. 21, 2025 — An experimental drug now in clinical trials as a cancer treatment could help boost the power of first-line tuberculosis (TB) treatments by helping ...

A Light-Activated Probe Reveals TB Immune System Evasion Mechanisms

Apr. 21, 2025 — Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that kills more than a million people worldwide every year. The pathogen that causes the disease, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is deadly in part because of ...

Americans Don't Think Bird Flu Is a Threat, Study Suggests

Apr. 18, 2025 — A team led by researchers say public ignorance and apathy towards bird flu (highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI) could pose a serious obstacle to containing the virus and preventing a ...

Structural Images of a Tuberculosis-Fighting Virus

Apr. 16, 2025 — Mycobacteria are the world's most deadly bacteria --c ausing infectious diseases including tuberculosis (TB), which alone kills more than one million people each year. New drugs to fight these ...

Experts Stress Importance of Vaccination Amidst Measles Outbreaks

Apr. 14, 2025 — Pediatric infectious diseases experts stress the importance of vaccination against measles, one of the most contagious viruses, which is once more spreading in the United ...

'Eolving' Opioid Epidemic Across U.S.

Apr. 10, 2025 — The heart of the opioid epidemic that killed 665,341 people in the United States between 2005 and 2020 shifted geographically from the Northwest to the East, according to a new geographical ...

A Mysterious Pathogen: Oropouche Virus More Common in Latin America Than Previously Thought

Apr. 14, 2025 — Like the dengue and Zika viruses, Oropouche virus causes a febrile illness. There are recent indications that infections during pregnancy can cause ...

Immune Protein Modification Blocks Viral Replication, Heart Inflammation

Apr. 10, 2025 — Virology researchers have found that a specific protein modification to the immune protein MDA5 is key to how our bodies detect and respond to viruses and viral replication. The publication explains ...

Certain Nasal Bacteria May Boost the Risk for COVID-19 Infection, Study Finds

Apr. 9, 2025 — A new study has found that certain bacteria living in the nose may influence how likely someone is to get a COVID-19 infection. The research reveals that certain types of nasal bacteria can affect ...

A New Smartphone-Sized Device Can Test for Tuberculosis: Here's Why That Matters for Children

Apr. 9, 2025 — This handheld device is the first that can detect tuberculosis in saliva, in addition to blood and sputum samples, an important breakthrough for testing children and HIV patients, who struggle to ...

Nasal Spray H5N1 Avian Influenza Vaccine Developed

Apr. 8, 2025 — Scientists have pioneered an influenza virus vector-based nasal spray vaccine platform and developed a nasal spray H5N1 avian influenza vaccine. During the early COVID-19 pandemic, this platform ...

An Antiviral Chewing Gum to Reduce Influenza and Herpes Simplex Virus Transmission

Apr. 4, 2025 — Low vaccination rates for influenza viruses and the lack of an HSV vaccine underscore the need for a new approach to reduce viral transmission. Researchers have now used a clinical-grade antiviral ...

Molecular Stool Test Could Improve Detection of Tuberculosis in Adults With HIV

Apr. 4, 2025 — The Xpert MTB/Ultra molecular diagnostic test for stool samples, until now recommended only for children, could be established as an additional test for diagnosing tuberculosis in adults living with ...

Discovery of Bacteria's Defense Against Viruses Becomes a Piece of the Puzzle Against Resistance

Apr. 4, 2025 — Antibiotic resistance is a global health challenge that could overtake cancer mortality within a few decades. In a new study, researchers show that the emergence of resistance can be understood in ...

How a Small Number of Mutations Can Fuel Outbreaks of Western Equine Encephalitis Virus

Apr. 4, 2025 — New research shows how small shifts in the molecular makeup of a virus can profoundly alter its fate. These shifts could turn a deadly pathogen into a harmless bug or supercharge a relatively benign ...

Research Uncovers Hidden Spread of One of the Most Common Hospital-Associated Infections

Apr. 4, 2025 — C. difficile (C. diff) is one of the most common and contagious hospital-acquired infections. Research has found that C. diff spreads more than three times more than previously thought. C. diff can ...

New Brain Organoid Model

Apr. 2, 2025 — Organoids have revolutionized science and medicine, providing platforms for disease modeling, drug testing, and understanding developmental processes. While not exact replicas of human organs, they ...

Novel Point-of-Care Technology Delivers Accurate HIV Results in Minutes

Apr. 2, 2025 — The technology described uses a nanomechanical platform and tiny cantilevers to detect multiple HIV antigens at high sensitivity in a matter of minutes. These silicon cantilevers are cheap and easy ...

Multi-Resistance in Bacteria Predicted by AI Model

Apr. 2, 2025 — An AI model trained on large amounts of genetic data can predict whether bacteria will become antibiotic-resistant. The new study shows that antibiotic resistance is more easily transmitted between ...

New Antibiotic for Multidrug Resistant Superbug

Apr. 2, 2025 — Researchers discover a new class of antibiotic that selectively targets Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes gonorrhoea. These substances trigger a self-destruction program, which also ...

Mpox Could Become a Serious Global Threat, Scientists Warn

Apr. 1, 2025 — Mpox has the potential to become a significant global health threat if taken too lightly, according to ...

New Approach Could Treat Anthrax Beyond the 'Point of No Return'

Mar. 28, 2025 — Researchers show that a cocktail of growth factors reversed would-be lethal cell damage in mice with anthrax, suggesting that this approach could be adapted for use in ...

Research Finds Potential 'Molecular Mimics' Behind COVID-Induced Autoimmune Disease

Mar. 26, 2025 — Scientists used advanced data analysis and machine learning to identify the viral proteins that may trigger autoimmune disorders such as type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid ...

How Zika Virus Knocks out Our Immune Defenses

Mar. 25, 2025 — This research comes as many mosquito-borne viruses are spreading ...

'Low-Sugar' Vaccine Can Provide Broad Immunity Against Coronavirus Variants

Mar. 25, 2025 — Early animal studies show that a single vaccine could protect the recipient from different variants of the coronaviruses that cause COVID-19, the flu and the common cold. In addition to creating ...

Breaking Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria's Protective Shields Opens Door for Immune System Response

Mar. 24, 2025 — Antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a serious public health threat. Understanding the biology of these bacteria--such as how they synthesise their protective capsules--is essential for developing new ...

New Data on Mpox Vaccine Effectiveness

Mar. 19, 2025 — A study has found that a single dose of the Imvanex vaccine provides protection against Mpox with 84% effectiveness. For people with HIV, however, a single dose of the vaccine fails to offer ...