A research group at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne has produced findings that could unlock doors to more effective HIV treatments.

With extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, life-threatening drug-resistant respiratory and skin infections, and other “bad bugs” routinely making headlines, infectious diseases physicians are applauding Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) and Rep. Michael Ferguson (R-NJ) for introducing H.R. 3697, the Strategies To Address Antimicrobial Resistance (STAAR) Act.

Microbiologists have found that bugs deliberately taken into space on board the space shuttle Atlantis became three times more deadly than those cultivated on Earth.

A new topical lotion that penetrates the skin deeply enough to target and eliminate serious skin infections, but without being systemically absorbed, has shown a high degree of safety and tolerability in patients with onychomycosis, or toenail fungus, a new study has shown.

Hospitals world-wide battle nosocomial infections on a daily basis. One of the most difficult bacteria to combat is Clostridium.difficile. To help ensure the best control methods possible, Dr. Michael Libman, Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), studied the most effective ways to eliminate C.difficile bacteria from the hands of health care workers, with the highest honour going to soap and warm water!

One of the biggest challenges to treating infectious diseases and developing preventive vaccines is the ability of many chronic infections to suppress the immune T-cell response over time.

Extensive medical research shows that mothers’ milk satisfies babies’ nutritional needs far better than any manufactured infant formula. It also protects babies against many common infectious diseases and certain inflammatory diseases, and probably helps lower the risk of a child later developing diabetes, lymphoma and some types of leukemia.

In the majority of Central Asia's prisons and colonies, inmate access to even basic medical care is severely limited. Rights activists and former convicts say sick prisoners often get only one-half or even one-quarter of a pain-relief tablet, regardless of what illness they have.

Scientists have what could be some very bad news for disease-causing bacteria. All three major classes of antibiotics that kill infectious bacteria do so in part by ramping up the production of harmful free radicals, researchers report in the September 7, 2007, issue of Cell, a publication of Cell Press.

A new study has found an unexpected number of viruses and viral subtypes in patients with respiratory tract infections (RTIs). The technique used in the study may help identify new viruses associated with human diseases. The study is published in the September 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.

According to a study in Evolution, resistance to certain infectious diseases may be passed genetically from parent to child. The genetic resistance may be beneficial to families as those with the gene are both unlikely to suffer from disease and unlikely to carry the disease home.

Infectious disease specialists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found a new method for identifying suspect viruses and bacteria that cause some of the most common acute infections in children.