Infections

A surprising number of American teen-agers are becoming infected with the AIDS virus during early adolescence, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported Monday. The findings, presented at the Fifth International Conference on AIDS, were part of the most complete report to date on "sentinel" hospital surveillance for AIDS virus infections. Federal health officials consider the ongoing surveillance project at a national sample of 27 urban hospitals one of the most accurate measures of the distribution of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, infections among different segments of the population.

California will test an HIV-prevention pill in an attempt to slow the spread of the disease in the state, researchers announced Tuesday. The pill, which is already used to treat HIV patients, will be prescribed to 700 gay and bisexual men and transgender women in Los Angeles, San Diego and Long Beach who are high-risk but not infected. "With this new prevention pill, we have another intervention to put in the arsenal to try and impact this epidemic," said George Lemp, director of the California HIV/AIDS Research Program with the UC president's office.

A new study showing an estimated 7% of American teens and adults carry the human papillomavirus in their mouths may help health experts finally understand why rates of mouth and throat cancer have been climbing for nearly 25 years. The evidence makes it clear that oral sex practices play a key role in transmission. The new data, published online Thursday by the Journal of the American Medical Assn., are the first to assess the prevalence of oral HPV infection in the U.S. population.

The moment the shot went into the basket, Andrew Bynum pumped his right fist. Tiger Woods has routinely done the same thing after putting for birdie. But Bynum's gesture meant something different. He nailed a 13-foot turnaround jumper in the final minutes of the Lakers' 112-108 overtime victory Sunday over the Dallas Mavericks, and he finally felt some relief from an otherwise poor shooting performance. "I was missing so many shots," said Bynum, who was nine for 24 from the field.

The estimated number of new HIV infections each year has declined about 17% since 2001, but for every five people infected, only two begin treatment, according to a report from the World Health Organization and UNAIDS released Tuesday. About 2.7 million people were newly infected with the virus that causes AIDS last year, compared with about 3.3 million in 2001 -- although direct comparisons are difficult because the numbers are counted differently now. The biggest gains were in sub-Saharan Africa, where there were 400,000 fewer infections, even though the region still accounts for 67% of all new infections.

Bloodstream infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, have dropped 50% in the last decade, at least for one high-risk medical procedure, according to a new study. The finding, although limited to a single procedure in the intensive-care units of hospitals surveyed -- insertion of a central line, or catheter, into a major blood vessel -- runs contrary to the widespread perception of MRSA as an out-of-control hospital superbug.

The recent brain-eating amoeba deaths in Florida, Louisiana and Virginia may have some people wondering something they haven't given a thought to since the last basic bio class: What is an amoeba anyway?  Well, it just so happens that in cleaning out my garage the other day I unearthed my 1978 college notes from a class called “Fundamentals of Biological Organization,” and as luck would have it, they contained a rendition of an amoeba, below. OK, so it's not very good.

Amgen Inc. and Wyeth's arthritis and psoriasis medicine Enbrel has been linked to deadly infections including tuberculosis and bacterial sepsis, U.S. regulators said. The companies added the Food and Drug Administration's strictest warning about the risk of infections to Enbrel's prescribing information after hospitalizations and deaths were seen in some patients taking the medicine, according to the agency's website.

The millions of children who develop ear infections each year now have a new treatment option: The Food and Drug Administration recently approved a simple injection of the antibiotic Rocephin for therapy in youngsters with middle-ear infections. But the high cost of Rocephin (ceftriaxone) may give parents and physicians second thoughts about choosing this treatment, said Dr.

Hepatitis A, B and C are three viruses known to cause inflammation of the liver. Although their names are similar, these viruses are very different structurally, are spread from one person to another in different ways, and require different strategies for prevention. In the United States, hepatitis A causes almost half of all cases of hepatitis.

As he ran up and down the court, Andrew Bynum took deep breaths. It had little to do with the normal fatigue that surrounds a typical basketball game. It had everything to do with fighting an upper respiratory infection he suffered the night before the Lakers' 112-108 overtime victory Sunday over the Dallas Mavericks. "It was was just hard to breathe," said Bynum, who finished with 20 points on nine-of-24 shooting and 16 rebounds. "I was tired. " Still, Bynum managed to overcome a one-for-eight first quarter stretch.

Talk about going off-course. Scientists are heading back to the drawing board after a controversial new study undercut a widely held theory about birds' ability to detect the Earth's magnetic fields in order to navigate. Many researchers had believed that a strange population of iron-rich cells in the upper beaks of pigeons that appeared to resemble neurons were the birds' long-sought magnetoreceptors. But a study published online this week in the journal Nature found that these cells are probably just macrophages, a type of immune system cell that fights off infection.

No place on Earth demonstrates the resilience or inventiveness of life quite like Lechuguilla Cave, whose subterranean tunnels stretch for 130 miles through Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. Deep in the cave's most arid recesses, deprived of all sunlight and mostly starved of life-giving water, a lush garden of bacteria grows. Untouched by humans for all of their 4 million years, these strains of bacteria thrive on the harsh minerals of the geological formations to which they cling and fend off other life forms that would prey on them.

They belong to a club that no one else will ever join. Its numbers are dropping and notoriety is fading, and they risk becoming little more than a footnote in the history of the AIDS crisis. They were infected with HIV as newborns at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, through transfusions of donated blood that carried a virus so virulent it was killing healthy young men, and so new and bewildering, it did not yet have a name. It was 1985 before a blood test was developed that could detect the virus.

The World Health Organization says the H5N1 bird flu kills nearly 60% of people who become infected, but a study released Thursday suggests the true fatality rate may actually be much lower. Virologists at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City examined data on blood samples collected from more than 12,000 people in Asia, Europe and Africa and found evidence of H5N1 infection in 1% to 2% of cases. Most of those people did not become ill with the flu, according to a report in the journal Science, and none of them died.

Urinary tract infections are common conditions that occur when bacteria from the intestines enter the urinary tract. New research, however, suggests that the bacteria causing these infections may come from contaminated food -- especially chickens. While it sounds bizarre, studies from Canadian researchers show that stricter chicken-farm ani-contamination practices may help curb cases of urinary tract infections. In 2010, researchers showed that the most common cause of the infections -- E. coli bacteria -- can originate in food.

Children's painful middle ear infections account for about 30 million doctor visits each year and millions of antibiotic prescriptions, yet about 80% of these infections would go away without such drugs. In an effort to stem the inappropriate use of antibiotics, the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued new treatment guidelines for treating acute otitis media in children through age 12.

Re "State lags in listing staph rates," Feb. 24 This article notes that healthcare facilities can help prevent life-threatening infections with such "low-cost, low-tech measures" as "ensuring that staff disinfect their hands and use gloves or masks before treating patients." These steps are essential, but hospitals need to do more. The best tactic is to create a comprehensive, multi-step prevention program so that even persistent bacteria can't penetrate the multiple lines of defense.

Norovirus took the top spot for infection outbreaks in U.S. hospitals from 2008 to 2009 and was responsible for most department closures as well, a study finds. Researchers looked at 822 survey results from hospitals around the country that reported on outbreak investigations, what triggered them and how they were controlled. In the two years of the study there were 386 outbreak investigations that 289 hospitals reported. Outbreak investigations were most often located in medical or surgical intensive care units, and almost a third took place in locations such as rehab units, emergency departments, skilled nursing facilities and long-term acute care hospitals.

A new study showing an estimated 7% of American teens and adults carry the human papillomavirus in their mouths may help health experts finally understand why rates of mouth and throat cancer have been climbing for nearly 25 years. The evidence makes it clear that oral sex practices play a key role in transmission. The new data, published online Thursday by the Journal of the American Medical Assn., are the first to assess the prevalence of oral HPV infection in the U.S. population.