Immunology

When it comes to immunity, men may not have been dealt an equal hand. The latest study by Dr. Maya Saleh, of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre and McGill University, shows that women have a more powerful immune system than men. In fact, the production of estrogen by females could have a beneficial effect on the innate inflammatory response against bacterial pathogens. The results were published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More specifically, estrogen naturally produced in women seems to block the production of an enzyme called…

'Drought-proofing' Australia's urban regions by installing large domestic water tanks may enable the dengue mosquito Aedes aegypti to regain its foothold across the country and expand its range of possible infections, according to a new study published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.  Dr Nigel Beebe and colleagues from the University of Queensland, CSIRO Entomology, the Australian Army Malaria Institute, and the Communicable Diseases Branch of Queensland Health, Brisbane, challenge the common assumption that climate change will drive the spread of this mosquito.  The study…

Narcolepsy affects about one in 2,000 people and is characterized by daytime drowsiness, irregular sleep at night and cataplexy — a sudden loss of muscle tone and strength. Stanford University School of Medicine scientist Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD, and others showed in the late 1990s that the disease stems from a lack of hypocretin, a hormone that promotes wakefulness; they later showed that narcoleptics are missing brain cells that produce this hormone.  Now Mignot and collaborators say that a specific immune cell is involved in the disorder — adding evidence that narcolepsy may be an…

 Everyone is blaming H1N1, but could a different strain of Influenza be the cause of Mexican deaths?    Clinica - a news source for the medical technology industry - wonders what implications that would have for Mexico and the rest of the world. Clinica is investigating the details and significance of Mexican health ministry statements that the H2N3 influenza virus was responsible for the majority of cases tested in an influenza outbreak in early April, three weeks before H1N1 came on the scene. The existence of an additional strain of the disease would raise fundamental…

A new study by University of Maryland researchers suggests that the potential for an avian influenza virus to cause a human flu pandemic is greater than previously thought and the results also illustrate how the current H1N1 swine flu outbreak likely came about.  Avian flu viruses can infect humans who have contact with birds but these viruses tend not to transmit easily between humans but in research recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Associate Professor Daniel Perez from the University of Maryland says that after reassortment with a human…

People who want to take extra precautions against swine flu should look for masks with built-in filters, according to Dr Robin J Harman, a pharmaceutical and regulatory expert. There has been much debate about the benefits of wearing a mask to prevent infection with swine flu. Ordinary surgical masks provide some protection from airborne particles, but the UK Department of Health has stated that 'basic face masks don't protect people from becoming infected'.(1) However, masks with built-in particle filters that are CE marked and meet the European Standard class FFP3 have efficiency of 99% or…

A French study of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, which analysed mortality rates in approximately three-quarters of the European population, has concluded that it is unlikely that the virus, often described as Spanish Flu, originated in Europe. Published in the May issue of Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, the research shows a high degree of synchronicity in the 14 countries studied, including Spain, with the flu peaking in October to November 1918. The study, carried out by a team from INSERM, the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research, provides invaluable…

In 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched experiments designed to combine the H5N1 virus and human flu viruses and then see how the resulting hybrids affected animals so that they could assess the chances that such a "reassortant" virus might emerge and determine how dangerous it would be. Their reasoning was that the worst fears of infectious disease experts - that the H5N1 avian influenza virus  circulating in parts of Asia might combine with a human-adapted flu virus, namely if someone with a flu virus also contracted the avian virus - might result in a…

On April 21, 2009, CDC reported that two recent cases of febrile respiratory illness in children in southern California had been caused by infection with genetically similar swine influenza A (H1N1) viruses. The swine flu viruses contained a unique combination of gene segments that had not been reported previously among swine or human influenza viruses in the United States or elsewhere (1). Neither child had known contact with pigs, resulting in concern that human-to-human transmission might have occurred. The seasonal swine flu vaccine H1N1 strain is thought to be unlikely to provide…

Two California children who had not had contact with pigs recently recovered from infections with "unique" swine flu/swine influenza viruses, raising concern about possible human-to-human transmission and putting health authorities on alert, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported. The two cases were in a 10-year-old boy in San Diego County and a 9-year-old girl in neighboring Imperial County, but they are apparently unrelated, the CDC said in an Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Dispatch report April 21st.  "The viruses from the two cases are closely…